“Perception is reality.”
It’s unfortunate that this is the case, but in all aspects of life, it is very true.
Years ago in Franklin Township on the southeast side of Indianapolis, the school board approved the construction of a 4.3 million dollar football stadium. The majority of residents were furious at the time… and still today that decision made many years ago resonates with every education funding issue in Franklin Township. The school system has a second referendum in May up for public vote (the first attempt failed) and without support for this referendum, 81 teachers will lose their jobs and all bus transportation in Franklin Township will go away. Yes, back to the days my grandparents talked about walking 5 miles to school with no shows… uphill both ways! Or, more likely, a bunch of furious parents will all be dropping off their kids at exactly the same time and traffic jams will ensue the likes of which have never been seen in Indianapolis.
Do you know the number one reason this referendum may not pass? And I quote, “Because if ‘they’ (they being the schools) wouldn’t have wasted the money on that stadium, we wouldn’t need this money today.
Is that true? No. Most people have no idea the state funds education today and that Franklin Township is ranked around #306 out of 349 schools in funding per pupil. Most people don’t know that Franklin Township has been getting inadequate funding for years based on the fact that they have always been a growing school district and the school funding formula from the state has always been unfair to growing school systems. Most people don’t even know that all schools don’t get the same amount of money per child. Most people don’t know there are seven different funds for schools and you can’t just take money out of one fund to pay for another.
Perception is the stadium sits there, so the schools don’t need any money because they could have used that money to pay teachers.
Is it true? No.
So what does this have to do with anything?
Well, if this referendum fails, then my freshman daughter likely loses her show choir director. You see, forget his incredible job performance and forget the countless hours spent helping kids outside of school. Forget the fact that this past weekend, when they had a show choir competition at Ben Davis High School, he arrived at about 7:30am to prepare for the competition and the buses got back to the school after 1:30am on Sunday morning… so he probably left around 2:00am. Ignore the fact that he has dedicated weeks to the kids during the summer and invested ridiculous amounts of personal time to help these kids. He just doesn’t have enough years of service. So his job will go away and he will likely be replaced with a more tenured elementary education music teacher who will shift to the high school. This will be possible because Franklin Township will no longer have music, art and physical education in the elementary schools if this referendum passes. What is wrong with this picture? And this is not in any way being critical of the current school administration... they are in a "no win" situation and I have great respect for them.
So, here is my musically inclined daughter who has given up sports to pursue her love of music, along with about 100 other musically inclined kids active in show choirs at Franklin Central… who will no longer have the opportunities they have today. Add to these kids another 400 kids who participate in the other high school choirs and the orchestra that will also be a casualty of the referendum, and you have now just affected 20% of the high school age kids in Franklin Township. This is just one example of one segment of the student population that will be negatively affected, not to mention every elementary age student who will not have art, music or PE.
Why? Perception about the waste created by the construction of a football stadium built almost 10 years ago.
The continuous improvements our society has made over the years are incredible, but somewhere along the way we have lost our priorities. I’m not a big Hillary Clinton fan, but her concept years ago of it takes a village to raise a child… that has some merit. A community should support the education of its kids.
So do me a favor this week if you would… the next time you are forced to make a decision of any significance, please take the time to gather information and get the facts for yourself. You just may never know the true ramifications of an uninformed, emotional decision.
Have a great week everyone!
