Be True To Your School
(with apologies to The Beach Boys)
Sun-dappled, fog-misted, the quiet Pleasant Prairie street hums with the click of bicycle gears and the rattle of training wheels. We're biking the mile and a half to The Brompton School, and the kids are bright-eyed, red-cheeked and thoroughly happy.
Flashback: first grade. I'm hurtling down Melody Lake Drive on the red Schwinn on which we all learned to ride. My brother has sprinted ahead. I'm never going to catch up. I don't know how to get to school without him. I'm scared.
This neighborhood looks the same as that of my youth -- same late-'50s/early-'60s vintage homes, same curbless roads, same quiet middle-class families. We lack only another dozen school kids riding alongside us to complete the picture. Back in my day, our good Catholic neighborhood families ran big -- Dulins with nine, Hurleys with 10, our six, even those laggard Coens with four. Not so much of that anymore.
Flashback: I'm on my sister's purple Stingray, with banana seat, butterfly handlebars and sissy bar, plastic flowers on the white plastic basket. I will be taunted for riding a girl's bike, but mine had a flat....
A dead car battery on the second day of school triggered our biking lifestyle, and now we couldn't be happier. Weather permitting, we bike two or three days a week. Most of the parents in the parking lot remark (maybe a little enviously?) that it must be fun; interestingly, most of the kids point out that it's good for the planet. Apparently Green consciousness starts young.
As a KUSD charter school, we don't have bus service, which means almost everyone drives to school. A single, strictly enforced entry time mean all the parents and kids mill about together each morning. The parking lot is where fully half the business of the parent-teacher organization is transacted, play dates arranged, and uniform swaps arranged. (Amazing how much mileage a single watch-plaid jumper can get. Try that with pair of Gap pants!)
Flashback: School portrait day, and all the kids shine in their fancy clothes. But we have a Cub Scout meeting that day, so I'm wearing the blue and gold -- the only kid in the class in uniform. But years later, I'm the ONLY ONE with a portrait in Scout uniform. Priceless.
With only 100 students, this parking lot time also gives parents a chance of knowing almost the kids and their siblings. This makes a real virtue out of parking lot time. We hadn't realized when our kids entered elementary school that we were signing up for a minimum of nine years of association with the other families. We will be in one another's lives for the long haul; it adds a welcome layer of commitment to your social lives. And given the small-town feel of Kenosha, be assured that it's really a lifelong connection. Proof: thanks to the parking lot, my sweet wife now sees an old high school pal she'd drifted out of touch with. Looks like we're in it for life with her. Good thing we like her.
I wonder: do public school kids have the same kind of allegiance to "the school" that an earlier generation espoused? That private school kids have? Dear old "Halls of Ivy" seem much less important to kids today than "my friends, my program, my extended school experience." Maybe the infinite extracurricular choices have Balkanized the shared experience of a school; with less in common with one another, the students have less connection to the the school entity that creates the connection.
So maybe this deliberate daily parking lot convocation was the secret plan all along. Maybe there's a reason our PTO is called the Brompton Community Partnership. Because our students and parents have a real love for our school. OUR school. Not "the school." Our school, whose limitations we accept, whose support we undertake, because we're happy to be together in a common cause.
Now, I'm not claiming our school is perfect. I suspect it's like most others in the district, with its own limitations, gaps, and trade-offs in resources. We have great veteran teachers. We have great new teachers. We are equipped with the quintessential school secretary, a model of patience and empathy, beloved by the kids.
Still, when I rave to others how happy we are at Brompton, the question always comes back--why? Answer: We have all actively chosen to come here... and we're glad to do it. I think that's why we find so many of our families actively engaged in the school. Maybe you're doing it too. Try these approaches.
- Do something. Do anything. Somebody counts the milk caps. Somebody counts the boxtops. The really brave ones work the playground and the lunchroom and are room parents. But almost everyone at our school does something. It's the invisible grease that keeps the wheels turning; not just the work output, but the commitment it reflects.
- Listen to the teachers. They know best. They're trained to do it. That said: you are the person responsible for your child's education. The kids know it too, and if you provide lip service only, they will deliver lip-service work and lip-service results.
- Read Terry Lawler's column in the Kenosha News. Terry, I am unabashedly your fan. A retired educator, he makes sense of the realities of balancing teaching subject matter versus simply surviving the myriad social and societal pressures tearing our kids away from education. Read the Chalkboard column and see what's happening outside your own school. Be proud of successes, and emulate them.
- Be there. A huge chunk of success in life is simply showing up, that count for being a part of your school community. If your school allows parent visits during the school day, or for lunch, do it. The actual content of the visit almost doesn't matter; sufficient that you were there. The kids will know it and remember it.
Home we go -- a chorus of goodbyes from kids as we roll out of the parking lot. I'm so happy I could burst; happy that my kids are happy, happy that they're learning, happy for the community of families we enjoy at our school.
The hot sun and long uphill slope take their toll on a kindergartner's little legs. We sip from our water bottles in a shaded driveway. "Dad, we can ride again tomorrow?" Oh, yeah. Gladly.