On People, Permanence, and the Almost Perpetual Nature of a School Corporation

Human nature is observable and well documented over the course of human history. When faced with decisions, people often disregard proven human nature when it suits their desires. When that happens within the decisions made for education, we often get less education for the money expended than we could or should have. Some of those decisions are easy to reverse or modify but others will require decades because of the amount of resources expended and the amount required for the change.

People resist change until they can see that the benefits of that change outweigh those of not changing. I have a friend who is older than I am by a couple of decades who asked me a couple of years ago why we needed computers in the schools for the students' use. I tried to explain, but he failed to understand at that point that computers have become an integral part of life and education in our society. However, my friend has come to understand and even uses computers now. I think back on the money we spent on postage, fuel to drive to face-to-face meetings, and the time we spent on the telephone, meetings or writing letters, but, more importantly, how our communication of ideas was hampered by the fact that verbal communication was not documented and could not be reviewed later except by memory.

People do what they choose. During the debate on the elementary school renovation project some very well educated people made the argument that two schools had to be retained because many parents walked to them in support of their children and had no other mode of transportation. That argument totally disregards human nature and the fact that people will do what they feel is in their best interest or what they choose to do. Many years ago, my grandmother put it rather succinctly when she commented on church attendance by saying "When people want to be there the Devil couldn't stop them and when they don't it would take a miracle straight from God to get them there." Those parents that you see in our schools would be there even if the school was in Timbuktu and the ones that you do not see probably would not be at the right place at the right time if they lived in the school building. This plays out in our schools constantly; concerned parents show up, less concerned parents do not. Distance is just an obstacle that determined people overcome.

Permanence is a myth in human life for everything tangible; nothing is permanent except for basic needs. All of the assets of the school corporation have a service life; accept the land it owns which is bought and sold as needs change. Buildings can last over a century, but only by investing in keeping them up and replacing old technology with new. With a building, there is a point reached when the cost of maintenance and renovation outweighs the construction cost of a replacement.

People come and they go for a myriad of reasons, but the manner of their leaving is a choice either theirs, the corporation's, by mutual agreement, or by uncontrollable circumstances. Vehicles and equipment wear out and are supplanted by new. Only the need to teach the young what they will need to survive, and hopefully prosper, in the society that they live in will always remain. What they need to survive is constantly changing, new knowledge is being added as old loses relevance, but survival is always a goal.

We think of the school corporation as perpetual because it has been around for as long as we can remember, but it had a beginning and will have an end. It is made of many components, i.e. policies, physical assets, people, etc., that are always changing. Through all of the changes, the item that remains constant is the goal. The school corporation exists to educate. However, as the corporation changes, decisions made in past situations may no longer be the best option in the current situation. For example, when the current location of the Bus Garage was chosen it was a few blocks from the largest high school in the corporation and was close to one elementary school. The location chosen placed it near where the highest concentration of buses went on a daily basis. When the high school moved, that concentration point shifted while the formation and construction of the middle school and the alternative school shifted the concentration point for building maintenance to that combined campus as it now has the most buildings in one general location. That is only one of many examples a person can find of why the current situation should always be examined closely and attempting to repeat what has been decided or using existing assets against the needs of the present may not be the best way to meet current needs.

When mandates come down without funding to implement them, the corporation must adapt. When laws change, the corporation must comply with them. When something new becomes available, it should be examined to see if it is beneficial to the meeting of the corporate goal of education and within the limitation of funding even at the expense of giving up something that is not as beneficial. This leads to many questions that should be asked and answered before a decision is made.

Should we replace chalkboards and dry erase boards in all classrooms, which we are in the process of doing, to eliminate environmental factors while allowing people to write so that every student can see? Yes, we should for education, our people's health and to remove any legal complications. (Schools have been sued for personal injury on this very issue elsewhere.) When we replace the Central Office and the Bus Garage, should they be near the Northview campus? Yes, to reduce annual operating costs. Should we examine the using of NetBooks or even laptop computers instead of textbooks and e-mailed school-to-student or parent communication instead of printed material that is mostly thrown away after reading? Yes! However, such changes will be met with the arguments "...but we've always done it this way" or "We've never done it that way" or even the one that has always been the greatest impediment to progress until someone overcomes the fear of change, "no one has done that before!"

The fact that the public is not very concerned is apparent from the lack of participation in matters of education, although a small minority show great concern. Students start school every summer and every spring the majority that started over a decade leaves our schools holding a diploma. For many of the public that is "good enough for government work", a phrase that irked me the first time I heard it over three decades ago and a concept that has irritated me ever since. Tasks should not be done to meet the minimum standard, the goal should always be to do the very best that can be done with the resources available, period.

There are people who say that I have a negative attitude because I bring up what I see as problems. To them I say, "If the wheel doesn't squeak when grease was needed, friction would cause far greater damage before the problem is solved." I'll keep on squeaking. We must keep improving, replacing assets as needed, and meeting the needs of the corporation's basic goal of educating students to live in the world as it will be in the future in the best way to serve all of its stakeholders, which includes everyone.