School District Love

I love our school district. I don’t feel like many people feel that way especially during Covid.

Let’s talk about Covid first. My school district stayed open for in person learning all last year. Some kids elected to do remote learning, and the school buildings are large enough, that they cancelled the three-year-old program to open up some classroom space in the elementary school, and otherwise remained open. They closed for two weeks before Christmas so that no one would have to be quarantined over Christmas but that was it.

Masks were mandated early and enforced thoroughly. Social distancing was enforced. The school asked parents to self transport whenever possible so that they would have enough space on buses to social distance. The district encouraged teachers to get Covid shots ASAP when they first became available and we had one of the highest rates of teacher vaccination in the area for a long time – maybe still do. They worked with the next county over to hold shot clinics for kids old enough to get vaccinated right at the schools. And now the school district got its hands on a bunch of rapid tests so if kids get sent to the nurse, with parent permission, they can be tested immediately. That way cases can be isolated fast, and kids who don’t have Covid don’t have to miss days of school while they wait for less quick test results.

Mind you, this district is not without its challenges for our kids. It’s a Very White district and that presents problems for our kids of color, big time. But I can say that the administration and staff and school board have been nothing but excellent to us so far.

I’ll start with Tiny. Tiny’s teacher is On Top of her services, and super accommodating, and Tiny loves her. The school Principal knows Tiny. The office staff know Tiny. Mind you, Tiny is so tiny and adorable that she stands out from a crowd, but still. I love that I call the office about picking Tiny up early from school and the office staff rave about how cute and sweet my kid is and don’t have to ask what class she’s in because they know all the kids.

The district rocked with regard to Miss Kicks, too. When Miss Kicks went missing, the high school principal called me concerned. He offered to help in any way he could, and called a couple more times over the summer, worrying about her.

Miss Kick’s English teacher went waaaaay out of her way to help develop a summer curriculum for Miss Kicks. Too bad it was wasted effort, but I appreciated the hell out of it and got some good reading material for myself out of it at least. She totally got that Miss Kicks was one Black kid in a sea of white, adapted her summer curriculum for Miss Kicks to include mostly books by and about Black folks, and quietly cheered Miss Kicks when she wore her Black Lives Matter sweatshirt to school. Her teacher and I had a great conversation about race, Black Lives Matter, Miss Kicks’s experiences there as a Black kid, and the English literature canon’s whiteness. So even if it’s a white district, at least some teachers get it, as much as any white person can.

There’s a LOT to be said for kids seeing themselves in the students they are surrounded by, and the whiteness of our district is going to be hard on our kids of color who attend it. But at least we’re surrounded by smart, science-respecting, kind, caring teachers and administrators who – so far anyway – are doing right by our kids.

I think there’s a lot to be said for small schools. I attended a high school – Manlius Pebble Hill – where my graduating class had 48 students in it. I attended Colby College in Maine, which had only about 1800 students when I was there. And I attended a small law school at Cornell. Give me the choice between a big district and a small one, and I’d choose our small district every time.