The last week

For most people, the last week of school is joyful, if bittersweet. Summer is here, another year is over, and students and staff head into a well-earned break.

But for the staff and families of three schools closing their doors for the last time, this week feels very different.

Resignation and depression are setting in.

And for classified employees, the uncertainty is even worse because many still will not know their staffing outcome until July.

Last week, I attended the concert and closing gathering at Meadow Lakes Elementary. What I saw there has stayed with me.

I spoke with adults who went to that school with my own daughter over twenty years ago. Now they are parents themselves, walking those same hallways with their own children.

Some were wiping away tears.

Not just because their children now face an uncertain future, but because of the memories in that building. The concerts. The classrooms. The teachers. The friendships. The feeling that this was their place.

Their home away from home.

It is vital that our legislators recognize the true damage caused by defunding public education.

The damage was in that gym.

It was adults crying as they remembered the school that helped raise them.

It was children walking through their school for the last time without fully understanding why it is being taken away.

Now, I understand that fiscally it is irresponsible to continue funding empty classrooms. I get that.

But I also understand that at no point has our administration or school board seriously talked about the decisions that helped bring us here.

No, it is not simply the birth rate. Our own borough numbers show the Valley growing at breakneck speed.

So maybe we should start asking harder questions.

Could it be raising graduation requirements without grandfathering the students already enrolled in high school?

Could it be pushing every student toward AP classes even if their goal is to become a welder on the North Slope or enter the trades?

Could it be school board members themselves choosing IDEA or other alternatives for their own children?

Could it be the total disaster surrounding transportation?

The list goes on.

Needless to say, instability does not appeal to parents.

And families that can leave often do. Whether it is correspondence programs, charter schools, homeschooling, or private providers, parents will go where they feel their children have the best opportunity and the most stability.

That reality may be uncomfortable, but ignoring it will not fix it.

What frustrates me most is watching schools reduced to numbers on a spreadsheet. Capacity percentages. Budget projections. Cost-saving measures.

But schools are not numbers.

Schools are communities.

Schools are memories.

And when a school closes, something larger than a building is lost.

A piece of the community disappears with it.

Rick Morgan is President of the Classified Employees' Association.