The New York State budget is a mess and Schools Districts are toppling.
Warwick has teetered on the fiscal edge for years and we are falling.
Hard.
One of our grammar schools closed two years ago.
Now we need to close another, and even that won't "close" the budget gap.
But to lose the historic school in the heart of the Village seems short sighted.
How can you have a community without a school?
How do you think about the future of a Village without educational services?
My hubby and his little brother went to school at Park Ave in the 70s with a host of other now Park Ave parents who's kiddos attend. The school is on it's 5th generation of attendees within the same community families...
My nieces and nephews attended.
My kids attend now.
And while that is all very sweet, the bottom line is this...
How do you have a Village without a school?
How does a place feel like a community without the cultivation of our youth within the sturdy arms of the Village that has held them, taught them and encouraged them?
And the recommendation to the School Board are leaning toward closing this school among the three grammar schools still open in the district...
So we show our kids how to speak up for themselves;
we encourage them to ask for what they want in a polite fashion.
We remind them about the concept of "free speech" they've learned about.
And we tell them we hope that good sense should prevail.
And at the same time, we prepare them for disappointment, confusion and... without sounding too heavy-handed, the demise of a pillar of the community.
No more walking to school?
No more walking to the park after school?
No more walking to Main Street for ice cream?
No more walking to the library?
No more waving to the old folks on the benches across the street from school?
No more driving by the playground on the way to the grocery store and spotting your kid in his red hat?
No more learning in the Village.
No more?
Not necessarily....there is still time for the value of education within a community to be noted.
So speak up. Be heard.
And show how you feel in deeds, words and good choices.
You are not alone...
....
xo Jen
