reopening schools

Tonight, at 6:00 pm, the Shippensburg Area School District directors will meet to (hopefully) decide on a plan for school reopening. While the past months have been full of work and planning and a lot of hand-wringing, the board has yet to approve a course of action.

In the build-up to this decision, I've received quite a few letters and calls from concerned citizens. I appreciate their input and feedback.

Yesterday, I received one such email from a Shippensburg Area High School student. While this student sent their comments to the superintendent and all board members, I was not given permission to make their comments public, so I won't reproduce the letter here. However, I do want to share my response. It's not perfect, but it's not bad, and it gives a sense of where my head is in making this decision.

Also, it will be interesting for me to return to these thoughts in a month, six months, next year, five years from now, and so on. Likely, I will think differently about many of these things.

...

Hi _____,

I really appreciate you taking the time to write this letter and for sending it. It is very much appreciated.

The district has yet to make a final decision on our re-opening strategy. There is a public board meeting tonight, at 6:00 pm, and I encourage you to attend (it will be broadcast publicly--you can find the link on the district website).

However, I wanted to respond quickly to a few of your points.

First, I know EVERYONE would like to be able to go back to school as we're used to doing school. I would like that. Your school administration would like that. So would your teachers. However, that's just not possible. So we have to find a way to do the best we can under the circumstances.

A few thoughts on some of the points you've made.

I'm afraid you're very much mistaken on the negative health effects of wearing masks. I suggest you check your sources, and research this a little more completely. Your blood oxygen levels absolutely do NOT drop by 5-20% when wearing a mask. It's just not true. But imagine if it were...imagine if a surgery team of 6-10 people, all wearing surgical masks, for sometimes well over eight hours straight, were experiencing blood oxygen levels 80-95% of normal. Would you want that surgical team operating on you? Of course not. Because there is no such disability. Sure, masks are uncomfortable, but so are pants, and we've all got fairly accustomed to wearing them.

You are right that children get sick from COVID19 much less often and experience milder symptoms than do adults. However, older children (think 10-19) can still carry and transmit the virus. So, while the district must be concerned for the health of children, we also must be concerned about how the virus can be transmitted within the school, and then carried from it to more vulnerable demographics. School children do not live in a bubble. They interact with each other, then go home to mothers and fathers and grandparents, etc. Children can become the vectors for disease which can debilitate a community.

Furthermore, kids aren't the only ones in our schools. There are teachers, administrators, and all manner of support staff. These people matter too. Their health matters too. And, as you're already aware, these individuals are at much higher risk of suffering serious negative health consequences should they contract COVID19. Any decision the district makes regarding reopening schools must also consider their health and well-being.

The herd immunity argument you offer is compelling, but unfortunately it just doesn't seem to work quite that way with COVID19. In March, when we first realized--as a country, and beyond--that there was a global pandemic at play, we thought herd immunity would be the eventual answer. But what we're learning about how COVID19 is contracted and how our bodies build antibodies to it suggests that it may not be that simple. You're thinking (as I used to think) that once you get C19 and get over it, you're good. But we're learning that's probably the wrong way to think about it.

I appreciate your thoughts on a culture of fear, and I am sympathetic. Still, I don't let my children cross the street on their own until I know they are capable of making smart street-crossing decisions. I can't just say, "Don't live in fear; just send it!" when I know there's a high probability that "sending it" will result in serious injury or death to my child. There are limits and lines. I wish I knew what those limits and lines are in the present case, but I do not. I do not think anyone does. But I do know that doing nothing--pretending that COVID19 is just another flu--is dangerously irresponsible behavior for making either personal life decisions or decisions for the public good.

As to your comments on freedom, I'm afraid that argument falls on deaf ears here. Going back to my pants analogy, do you also feel that we should be "free" to go to school not wearing pants? Would you feel comfortable sitting next to someone not wearing pants? Or how about sharing a chair with another student who was not wearing pants? No? Well, what of that person's freedom to dress (or not dress) how they like? Should they not be free to not wear pants as you are to wear them? 

Freedom isn't getting to do whatever you want. Our freedom is curtailed everyday in myriad ways by powerful (and usually quite functional) cultural norms. That is a good thing. Personally, I'm quite glad that my freedom to drive is moderated by traffic signals and right-of-way laws. It's makes things work. It keeps us safer on the roads than we would be if we were "free" to use them however we like. 

Like it or not, you live in a community. You share space with thousands of other people. They also have rights. And your ability to exercise your freedom cannot infringe on their ability to exercise theirs. In civics, we call this idea "the social contract." I encourage you to look it up, and perhaps rethink your paradigm of what it means to be free.

Thank you again for taking the time to write and express your concerns. Again, it is very much appreciated. I hope this letter helps clarify some of the issues the district must consider in deciding to reopen schools for "normal" operation. 

Again, I encourage you to attend the virtual school board meeting this evening. 6:00 pm. Link on district website.

If you have any further questions or comments, I welcome them.

Take care,

ng

"That’s all of ’em, Uncle George!"

A story about George Goates, little brother to my great-great-grandfather. It's a story I grew up with. A story that's had an outsized impact on my world view.

This version is a retelling of something Les Goates' wrote. Les Goates was a career sportswriter for the Desert News, and George's son.

It's 1918, in the midst of the Spanish Flu Epidemic. George would have been 55 at the time. Francis was 20, Charles 35.

...

“Winter came early that year and froze much of the sugar beet crop in the ground,” writes [Les] Goates. “My dad and brother Francis were desperately trying to get out of the frosty ground one load of beets each day.” One day they received a telephone call that George’s nine-year-old grandson Kenneth “had been stricken with the dread ‘flu,’ and after only a few hours of violent sickness, had died.” George was asked to go to Ogden and take the boy to Lehi for burial.

When George arrived at the home he found his son Charles was also sick. Charles asked his father to take the boy and return for him the next day. “Father brought Kenneth home, made a coffin in his carpenter shop, and … with [my brother] Franz and two kind neighbors [dug] the grave...

“The folks had scarcely returned from the cemetery when the telephone rang again.” They learned that Charles had died and four of his young children were also sick. Charles’s body was sent to Lehi by train, but the next day George had to return to Ogden to get one of the grandchildren, seven-year-old Vesta, who had since died. Before he returned to Lehi with Vesta, a call came again that one of her sick sisters, five-year-old Elaine, had also died. So George made yet “another heartbreaking journey to bring home and lay away a fourth member of his family, all within the week.”

The next day George told his son Francis, “‘Well, son, we had better get down to the field and see if we can get another load of beets out of the ground before they get frozen in any tighter.’ …

“As they drove along the Saratoga Road, they passed wagon after wagon-load of beets being hauled to the factory and driven by neighborhood farmers...

“On the last wagon was...Jasper Rolfe. He waved a cheery greeting and called out: ‘That’s all of ’em, Uncle George.’ “My dad turned to Francis and said: ‘I wish it was all of ours.’“

When they arrived at the farm gate...there wasn’t a sugar beet on the whole field. Then it dawned upon him what Jasper Rolfe meant when he called out: ‘That’s all of ’em, Uncle George!’

“Father sat down on a pile of beet tops--this man who brought four of his loved ones home for burial in the course of only six days; made caskets, dug graves, and even helped with the burial clothing—and sobbed like a little child."

#thelobsterroll, day 5

I read a line in a novel the other day that struck a cord. The cord is still resonating.

“People feel pain, and it shrinks their souls.”

Context: There are parents. Their baby dies. Unexpectedly. They just find him, cold and lying unnatural in his crib. Nearly two decades on and these parents still hurt. The author offers this observation, that pain is a given, and that we are the worse for it.

It is a melancholy truth. Life is full of melancholy truth.

I read something the other day—someone posted a link on FB—and unfortunately I don’t remember the title or the author so I can’t look it up and cite, but, in it, the author made a point about relative social closeness to someone suffering from some sort of illness, like cancer. It had to do with license to complain. The point, I think, was that the person who is ill gets to complain about whatever they want, to whomever they want. Then there are those who are super close to them—say a spouse, or children, or parents—they get to complain, but only to others, outward, but not to the person who is ill. Then you go out a bit more—close friends, say—and they can complain to folks that are still further removed, but not inward. They don’t get to complain to the person who is ill, or their spouse, etc.

Anyway, imagining these people grouped in concentric circles by relative social distance was a helpful mental image for me. Not so much in thinking about who gets to complain to whom (which I didn’t really find that interesting), but rather in who feels the thing. A diagram of the relative domains of sorrow, maybe. Or something like that.

I don’t know what it’s like to be suffering from a life-threatening illness, but I can imagine. And the thing that I imagine is the emotional toll such a thing would have on those close to me. I’m sure I would complain and whine, such is my nature. There would be good days and bad. I might curse my luck and genes and the stars—“Is it even so? then I defy you, stars!” But I think (I think) that I would worry most about how my being sick hurt those I have been lucky enough to have loved me.

It seems, to me, that the lion’s share of the emotional pain associated with serious illness lies with those who love those who are ill. And this, I think, falls into the category of what I would call a beautiful tragedy—tragic, for obvious reasons, but beautiful, because if we could not love we would not feel pain, but to love is to suffer. But love is also beautiful, maybe the most beautiful thing. Thus, a beautiful tragedy.

What a terrible irony, no? Born of a terrible paradox…

Well, here’s another paradox (sort of): Riding bicycles to promote a cancer-hating charity.

But it works for me. Doing hard physical things, pushing bodies to new limits…there is beauty in this. A celebration of life. Or, as Eric Liddell put it, “God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His presence.” (God didn’t make me that fast, but I still feel my most human—like I am most fulfilling the measure of my creation, when I am at my most fit, and doing a thing at my very capacity.)

The effects of cancer, or any serious illness, are the opposite—it is our bodies betraying us.

So it makes sense to me to promote a cancer-hating charity by pushing personal physical boundaries and celebrating what it means to be alive. It makes all the sense in the world.

If you haven’t yet, please consider tossing a couple dimes to the Flatwater Foundation, which works with therapists to provide mental health services to folks impacted by a cancer diagnosis at a fraction of the market rate.

Mmm… Smell the salt in the air. We’re in Maine now, and tomorrow, our last day, we’ve 96 miles of coastal riding and then we’re done. It will be a celebration of life.

...

Maine! We made it! So we can stop now, right?
Another front-ended day...these small, fairly steep climbs took a toll.
Full ride details here.

This cool little store came at mile 33 today. It's apparently famous for being a regular campaigner's stop. The backroom is full of old political campaign posters. Some Thompson guy with the catchy slogan "No Drugs" (I failed in my picture taking). If only we had elected that guy, I'm sure all our drug problems would not be problems.

Below, a number of unfinished shots from our professional photog, Tyler Northrup. You can follow him on the 'gram: @tylernorthrup (no shots from this week yet, but hopefully we make the cut).

(CJ photo cred for the shot of this tall drink of water.)

Oh, and don't miss my second guest appearance on Pie Guys!

#thelobsterroll, day 4

Woke in the middle of the night with this distinct thought: God is numbers.

Also the realization that CJ (our support driver) won’t be able to drive if there’s pulled pork involved. (Involved with what? I'm not sure.)

And somehow this shed light on the problem of getting the small girl and her cute pink bicycle--complete with handlebar streamers--over the curb and onto the sidewalk. This, apparently, was a problem too difficult to deal with without knowing that, indeed, God is numbers.

Is it weird that I slept very well after day one, but rather poorly the last two nights? Perhaps having worked out what God is I'll be more settled this evening.

...

Today was new kit day. Which is always a joy.

New kit day means photo ops. Lots, and lots of photos.

We stopped at this lovely outlook for photos...and drone filming fun (no picture of drone included, unfortunately.)

A lot of the photography (and videography) was done from this white van, either with side door open or back hatch. We were, I'm sure, very handsome.

And there were a few segments of gravel travel, which is also joyful. (As it watching Brian descend the gravel roads with reckless abandon.)

But then Tim destroyed a rim. This was not joyful.

Pictured above is the offending hole, which really seemed a nothing. All of us were left scratching our heads over that one. (We had a spare set of wheels in the van, so it wasn't long before we were rolling again.)

You'll all be quite happy to know that I have now finished my grading, summer class grades have been submitted (at 10:30 pm), but the threat of rain tomorrow has prompted plans for a 6:00 am departure, which means bed. Now.

For tomorrow, we ride.

...

A reminder of what we're doing this for--please support The Flatwater Foundation, which provides mental health services to folks impacted by a cancer diagnosis, by supporting us. Click here to donate now.

Thank you.

#thelobsterroll, day 3

I’ve had tremendous difficulty composing a blog post for today. I’ve written a couple thousand words, but haven’t been able to sort them in the appropriate order.

And now I’m very tired. And I’ve eaten too much. And I need to grade papers (because I do actually work for a living).

So, instead of lots of writing, I’m going to send you to my guest appearance on Pie Guys (just go with it).



Follow THIS LINK, click play. Enjoy.

...

Our long day. 114 miles, 8,200' of climbing. The route today was 100 percent.

Early on. Spirits high. Actually, I think they stayed pretty high all day (we started slower and it made a huge difference).

These New England towns are just adorable.

Crossing the Hudson. (Ok, so the last picture wasn't technically New England, but I think close enough.)

A delightful surprise. Brian's family waiting for us at our lunch stop.

More New England delights.

No more Clif bars for me; I've taken to just eating pie at our rest stops.

Generally how I feel after six hot hours in the saddle.

This place was everything I could have hoped for. A+.

#thelobsterroll, day 2

When cyclists meet, and start to get to know each other, they often ask for the cycling version of an origin story.

When did you start riding bikes?

Mostly north today. North, and into a headwind. Tomorrow, mostly east. More ride details here.

In the answer, you learn a lot about a person. At least, I like to think you do. A bit of history. Maybe something of their values.

The question we don't ask, but maybe should, is this:

Why do you keep riding bikes?

I think the answer to this question is a bit harder to answer.

Early in the ride. Spirits are high, and so are the watts. We started slower, but at 70 miles in had averaged just under 21 mph. At the finish, still over 20 mph. (Did I mention we were battling a headwind?) We're all committed to riding a more reasonable pace tomorrow.

In the cyclocross documentary "Transitions" (watch the trailer here), you hear a disembodied voice answer the question this way, "It's just that I like it. I'm good at it."

Fair enough.

What the disembodied voice does not provide is the answer a sociologist might give, which, perhaps, would be to discuss the cultural tapestry of privilege that even allows him to do such a thing. I think about this a lot. I mean... A. LOT. I often dislike where the train of thought takes me.

All the same, as with the person behind the voice-over, I like it too, this riding bikes thing. Whether I'm good at it or not depends on who you ask, I suppose. That is, if you're looking for an objective response. Subjectively, though... Sure, I think I'm good at it. I like how I feel when I do it. I like what it does to my body. I very much like the sense of personal empowerment cycling affords. To me, it is of unquantifiable psychic value (see Nietzsche quote in right sidebar). And I like the machines. They're beautiful. Some of them, I could stare at all day.

Ashokan Reservoir provides New York City with 40 percent of its drinking water. It provides me with a stunning backdrop for one of my favorite machines to stare at.

I teach my students that people do their best work under conditions in which they are given autonomy, the opportunity to master skills that they value, and where there is a clear, meaningful purpose to the work they're doing. In fairly obvious ways, cycling ticks the first two boxes. How I find meaning in the sport is a question I've stewed over since I began doing it.

There's a kind of life cycle arch to the cycling career of most serious cyclists. A flirtation stage, as they're getting to know themselves and the paradoxically delicious and repulsive cultural nuance of the sport. A stage of deep infatuation, as they immerse themselves into the culture and spend nearly all their time and more than all their money creating a cycling self. A stage of escalated commitment, as cyclists reach the initial boundary of their natural talent, realize the commitment it will take to be excellent and begin to make that commitment. Then, sooner for some and later for others, resignation... Better understanding their physical, mental, emotional, and lifestyle constraints (i.e. the cost of the sport), cyclists decide how much they can give to the sport and then proceed to give it less...every year, a little less.

There are some of us, quite few really, who resist resignation. Terminally. We can feel it. It's there. It's the hungry lion that, were we to stumble, would close its angry jaws around our fleshy shaved thighs in a heartbeat.

We're Team I Hate Cancer. Please consider a donation to the Flatwater Foundation on our behalf. The Flatwater Foundation provides mental health services to those impacted by a cancer diagnosis. Which is most of us. Help the helpers help those that need the help. Click here to help out.

Why do you keep riding bikes?

Tomorrow (as I expect day 3 to be the most difficult of the 6), the answer may have as much to do with stubbornness than anything else. Will. Determination. Grit. Proving a thing to myself (because no one else really cares). Because I can. Because I choose to.

Every December, as I begin to ramp up the miles and plot out the next year's training goals, I reflect on the places cycling might take me. Every year. And cycling has taken me to some amazing places. Here's to the new places that tomorrow will bring.
 

And here's to many more cheery cycling-related ice cream stops.

Why do I keep riding bikes?

What else would I do?

#thelobsterroll, day 1

What is this Lobster Roll thing, you're asking. Well, some may be asking...those that haven't been bombarded by my social media blitz over the past several months.
Well, this is what it is:

Five guys, six days, riding bikes from Philly to Maine, 625 miles...to raise money for The Flatwater Foundation, which provides mental health services for folks impacted by a cancer diagnosis.

The five of us, we are Team I Hate Cancer. Well, we're part of that team. You can be on that team too. It's easy. Buy a shirt or something. Take a picture. Post it. Hashtag teamihatecancer. You're on the team.

Five riders require five bicycles. Notably, though not purposefully, all have mechanical rim brakes and mechanical shifting. Even with expensive carbon hoops this, in 2019, constitutes old school riding.

Raising money... Our goal is $50,000. We're over halfway there. Me, personally...I'm not doing so well compared to my buddies. You can see how well here. You can help me (but you're not really helping me...I'm not getting paid) here. 

Look at these poor, befuddled middle-aged men. I mean, they need help.

Anyway, the Lobster Roll... Today, Friday, June 21, was day one. One hundred five miles from Philadelphia to Newton, NJ.

I pretty much get overly excited about any long point-to-point ride, but this route had some true gems. The 5-10 miles of road (including some priceless gravel travel) prior to crossing the Delaware, for instance. And the last 20 miles into Newton. Roads that leave you doing a little double-take every once in a while you're so excited to be doing what you're doing. The scenery. The camaraderie. The feeling of being overwhelmingly blessed to be physically capable of such a thing.

I'm not super into charity rides. I'm not super into fundraisers. Several reasons for this. I'll save that discussion for another day. But I am into this. Over the next few days, I'll try to explain why.

Let me start with this. I was asked to write a "This is Why" post for the Team I Hate Cancer blog. You can read it (punctuated by cute pictures) on teamihatecancer.com right here. But you can also read (the text version) below. It was hard to write. I hope it's easier to read.

Enjoy.

-----

This is Why

In April of 2008 I went for a bike ride. I’d had a rough day. An emotional day. I needed a release.

My six year-old daughter was a patient at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. We were prepping her for a bone marrow transplant. Trying to save her life. Or that was the narrative.

When seen from a distance, it’s an easy narrative. Kid is sick. Kid goes to the hospital. Kid has a procedure. Kid recovers. Kid comes home.

But the easy narrative arch that distance affords is far from the lived experience. The lived experience is excruciating.

Imagine this, for instance: As parents, you’re weighing the decision to treat your daughter’s unnamed illness by bone marrow transplant. You’re told, by the appropriately credentialed authorities, that if you opt for the transplant, there’s about a 33 percent chance your child’s health will improve substantially, there’s about a 33 percent chance that she will experience no real improvement, and there’s about a 33 percent chance your child will die from complications. How does a parent make such a decision? How does anyone make such a decision on behalf of another human being?

Or this: Having chosen transplant as the treatment option, you watch as the “medicine” slowly weakens her, takes her energy, her hair, her pep. Because the reality of the thing is that to prep her tiny body—a body which has been its own worst enemy thus far—for this potentially life-saving treatment, we’ve got to weaken it to something that looks very near death. It’s part of the protocol. It’s called treatment, but it feels like something very different. And then there are surgeries for PICC lines. And delays for fevers because of worrisome infections. And really a hundred small tortures en route to this thing call “treatment.”

It was in the midst of all this, on a lovely spring day in 2008, that I went for a bike ride.

I’m not from Philadelphia. At the time, I didn’t know the roads well. I was told there was a trail that followed the river northwest out of the city. I found the trail, but as it dissolved into the city streets of Manayunk I lost my way. Wandering around I saw another rider, who I followed, and we began to talk. First, of directions. He was going where I wanted to go, I could just ride along with him. Next, of other things. Noting that I was unfamiliar with the area, he wondered if I was new to town. I explained why we were there. I explained that it was a rather hard day. I explained that I needed a moment to myself, to get out, to sweat, to ride my bike. I found it was easy to talk. I felt like maybe I shouldn’t, but I also needed to. I couldn’t help it. I needed to unload.

The next day, a care package arrived at my daughter’s room. Cookies.

It turned out this random bicycle commuter I’d met the day before was a physician. He worked at the children’s hospital. I’d given him just enough details for him to figure out who my daughter’s oncologist must be. He got in touch. He shared the story. He didn’t know my name (and didn’t ask; you know, HIPAA). But he left the package with our doctor and our doctor did the rest.
Treating cancer is an expensive enterprise. It seems impossibly expensive. And I’m so thankful for the avenues of funding that developed the procedures, medications, treatments, facilities, and expertise that allows for its treatment. Cancer is a betrayal. A cellular uprising. We may treat the betrayal by quelling the uprising, but the effect of the cellular treachery transcends the corporal and wounds the soul, as betrayals do. Wounded souls also require treatment.

During the months and years of watching our daughter descend into illness and then, slowly, miraculously, climb out, our souls were wounded by a thousand small daggers. But these weren’t left unattended. By countless acts of kindness and compassion of family, friends, and strangers—like a bicycle-commuting physician to whom I just happened to ask directions—our souls were healed. Well… A little. Some. Eleven years on and I’m not sure one ever really heals from such a thing, but we do get better.

A dollar spent on treating or researching the physical treatment of cancer, while still sacred, seems hardly a drop in the bucket given the enormity of it all. However, a dollar spent to care for wounded souls of those impacted by cancer… Well, that can go a long way.

The Flatwater Foundation provides mental health services to people impacted by a cancer diagnosis. It’s a cause I believe in. It’s such an important, beautifully compassionate service. I believe it’s a cause worth a buck or two.

 

O'dell Anderson Frandsen (1925 - 2019)

Last week, Valerie's grandfather died. O'dell Anderson Frandsen. He was an old man. He lived a good life. And he had a family that loved him.

I only knew one of my grandfathers, and he died when I was quite young. So, when I married Valerie, I acquired a new grandfather. A cowboy grandfather. Maybe we could say something of a cowboy intellectual.

A one sentence biography: After WWII, he went to school on the GI Bill, earned a degree in range science, then spent his career looking after the Utah and Idaho BLM rangelands, raising five kids with Ona, and then becoming a beloved grandfather and great-grandfather to more than I'm comfortable guessing.

I loved Grandpa Frandsen an awful lot. We hung out quite a bit when I lived in Utah. I asked him a lot of questions. He told me a lot of great stories. Stories no one else had seemed to have heard. I liked that. I was the outsider that had a special insider relationship. Or at least I liked to think I did. (I mean, he trusted me enough to let me drive his truck. Actually, it was his suggestion. On a rutted dirt road, even. Just to see the sights. Those of you that know Grandpa, you know this was no small thing.)

Anyway, the funeral is in Utah, tomorrow, and while Valerie is there I am not. So I'm going to remember Grandpa by posting something I wrote to him nearly 14 years ago. I don't exactly remember the context, but I'm guessing it was for his 80th birthday. Probably we were all asked to write a memory. This is what I came up with.

...

September 6, 2005

Dear Grandpa,

Sometimes memories are like spiderwebs. Spanning time rather than space, they seem to collect scattered thoughts and impressions and conclusions and ideas that stretch out across our consciousness. Bits and pieces of reality, real and imagined, all tangled up and connected to a single event. The event isn't meaningful in and of itself, but mean is given to it by the thoughts that cling to it.

I've one such memory--a memory littered with the debris of stray thoughts which, over the years, have given it meaning.

The day before Val and I were married was a Friday. May 16th. Idaho Falls. I was nervous. I was anxious. I was wearing out the carpet with my pacing.

I remember walking all over that house. Upstairs. Downstairs. In the mudroom. In the dining room. In the living room. I remember worrying about things that seemed pretty important. Tuxes. Rings. Shoes. Family.

While I was walking around aimlessly, I remember that you were sitting comfortably on a living room couch. You were wearing a smile as big as a truck. The kind of happy and satisfied smile that starts at the eyes and works itself outward from there, so that your whole face reflected a sort of joyful, content, curious appreciation of what you were watching. While I wore a path in the carpet from pacing, your expression and posture seemed to say that you knew something that I didn't. A secret. A joke. Something happy and sad but on the balance good that you'd like to share if you could but I wouldn't understand so you didn't. You just smiled.

So while I worried about trivial things to keep from worrying about important stuff, you just smiled. While I was blinded by a kind of temporary insanity, you just smiled. While I remained convinced of my invulnerability and infinite wisdom, you just smiled.

See, with this memory, it isn't so much the event or the players or the punch line, but the thoughts, collected over time, that are now all caught up in that night of pacing and smiling. It seems to me now that I was worried because I didn't know anything (though I didn't know it then) and that you were happy and content because you knew maybe two more things than I did: that I knew nothing and (this you at least hoped) that it would all somehow be okay. I like to think you had more confidence in us than I had. And you hardly knew me. But you were okay having me around (I didn't yet smell of three-day old fish) and you seemed to believe that perhaps Valerie and I really did love each other. Well, maybe not really loved, but maybe we had just enough optimism and blissful naiveté, coupled with perhaps just enough responsibility and desperate stubbornness, to make of our marriage a humble success. And that maybe over the years, as we come to know in each other people completely different than who we thought we were marrying, that maybe, with a bit of luck, we'd be happy and content too.

Phew... That's a lot of meat to hang from a teeny, tiny memory. But I've found a great deal of motivating goodness in our teeny, tiny conversations. Even in just a smile. you're my kind of people.

Love,

Nathan

some thoughts on yesterday's school board meeting...

Some (sort of lengthy) thoughts on our school board meeting yesterday evening (Tuesday, April 23):

(1) In a 7-2 vote, the board passed a budget that does not call for increasing local property taxes while earmarking funds for additional personnel and capital investments. This hasn’t happened in a while. It’s a good thing.

Why were there two objections? I can only guess. (And I'm afraid the answer has more to do with politics than policy.) One of the objectors was making a recorded comment to a News-Chronicle reporter as I left, so perhaps we’ll get to read about it tomorrow.

The budget calls for dipping into the fund balance (which is a kind of district savings account that accumulates, primarily, from one-off revenue--real estate transaction fees like from a warehouse sale, for instance) for some much needed capital improvements, including long overdue renovations to the high school auditorium. However, it is only a dip. Our overall budget is around $50 million. Remaining fund balance (though some of it is already earmarked for specific projects) is about 16 percent of that. To me, that’s a pretty healthy rainy-day fund (especially as this fund continues to grow through these one-off revenue sources; in other words, we don't have to actually set money aside to still grow our savings account).

Which brings me to this point: I believe this is a fiscally responsible budget. However, fiscal responsibility is not the only or even my primary concern as a school director.

It puzzles me that some would criticize the budget as being too aggressive (too spendy), and in the same breathe complain about the lack of resources to adequately fund this or that program.

Quality public services and infrastructure require spending. Without spending, infrastructure collapses and services simply don’t meet the end for which they were intended. Fiscal conservatism as a value to the exclusion of other values does not make for responsible government. It also does not make for communities that anyone wants to live in. I understand the duty of public institutions is to provide value for investment. Underfunded services are of poor value and therefore reflect poor governing. (Though, to be sure, sometimes those who govern are hampered by the tightfistedness of their constituents.)

In short, our schools don’t get better by not spending money.

I’m happy we’ve passed a budget without having to raise taxes. But I’m happier that we’ve passed a budget that will result in hiring three new teachers, an intervention specialist, and a much needed secretary (to deal with some state-mandated data reporting requirements), as well as upgrades to facilities (auditorium, student computers, classroom tech, and various deferred maintenance projects and equipment). These are not earth-shattering changes, but they will make our schools better—BECAUSE we chose to spend rather than save.

(2) From time to time I’ve heard grumblings about the time the board spends in executive session. The implication is that the board is conducting business in private that should be conducted in public.

I can’t speak to practice before my time on the board, but since December, 2017, I can say that this charge is unequivocally false.

If the board is meeting in executive session, then we are discussing a matter that CANNOT, by law, be discussed in public. Which means it’s a personnel matter or a student disciplinary matter.

I don’t think any board member enjoys these meetings. We’re often discussing matters that weigh heavy. We all feel it. We all take it seriously. And, as annoying as it is to the public to see the board disappear behind a closed door—and in some rare cases for an hour or more—you should take the length of absence as a sign of our diligence in trying to fully understand the issues and engage in good-faith debate on the consequences of any particular action.

Personally, I’ve been impressed with the tone of compassion and demonstration of good will I’ve experienced in these meetings.

(3) The budget passed yesterday earmarks $100,000 for hiring a school resource officer. No decision has yet been made to hire a resource officer, but the money is in the budget should the board reach that decision.

There are several resource officer models. For instance, an armed security guard that pretty much is just that. Or, the district could fund the salary of a borough police officer who is specifically trained as a school resource officer, but is not a district employee and reports, ultimately, to the borough chief of police. The board is just beginning this discussion. Neither has the board made a decision to hire a school resource officer, nor on what model the district would choose should we decide on one.

However, based on the research I’ve reviewed, and given what I understand of the district’s needs, I am NOT in favor of hiring a school resource officer of any kind.

Presently. Which is to say my mind can be changed.

My review of the literature on school resource officers suggests that their presence tends to result in at least two negative consequences: (1) Ordinary disciplinary matters tend to escalate from the administrative to the criminal. (2) Reliance on school resource officers in managing disciplinary matters tends to contribute to what’s called the ‘school-to-prison pipeline’.

I’m less concerned about the later (in Shippensburg) than I am the former. However, I’m mostly concerned that (1) the desire to have an officer in the schools is a knee-jerk response to the fear of an event (school shooting) that having an officer most likely wouldn’t do anything to prevent anyway and (2) that the salary of a school resource officer would better serve our students’ needs invested in some other way—hiring a couple of social workers, for instance.

I look forward to what I hope will be productive debate on this matter in the coming months.

…

If you’ve comments, questions, or insight on any of the above, I welcome them.

(Did you really read all of that? Should I be impressed or alarmed?)

school "choice" and Senate Bill 2

In the last board meeting of the Shippensburg Area School District, the board voted unanimously to approve a resolution in OPPOSITION to Senate Bill 2 (you can download and read the resolution here). We asked our representative in the Pennsylvania Senate, Richard Alloway, to reverse his support for the bill.

Yesterday, I, along with (it would appear) all the county commissioners, borough and township officials, superintendents and school board directors in his district, received an email from Senator Alloway suggesting that we must have passed this and similar such resolutions because we misunderstood the bill. I don't believe we did.

Below, I've posted Senator Alloway's email and, following that, my response (sent today). Enjoy.

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February 6, 2018

           Dear County Commissioners , Borough Officials, Township Officials, Superintendents, and School Board members, 

     A number of local school districts, boroughs and townships recently passed resolutions in opposition to Senate Bill 2, legislation that would help students in underperforming schools pursue other educational opportunities. Based on the content of these resolutions, I believe a great deal of the local opposition stems from misinformation that has been intentionally spread by those who want to see the bill fail. I have enclosed a fact sheet that includes additional information on this proposal for your consideration . 

     Most importantly, I feel it is critical to reiterate that Senate Bill 2 would not have any effect on funding for our local schools in the 33rd Senatorial District. The legislation only applies to schools that rank among the lowest 15 percent in terms of academic achievement and performance across the state. No schools in our area meet that criteria, meaning the bill would not affect local students or schools in any way. 

     The legislation only seeks to help students who are trapped in consistently failing schools. In those cases, students and parents would be empowered to redirect a portion of the money the state contributes for their education toward programs that better meet the student's unique educational needs. 

     For example, the Harrisburg School District currently spends more than $18,000 per student. A student withdrawing from that district receives just $5,700 in their Education Savings Account (ESA), while the remaining $12,000 stays in the district. Essentially, the ESA model will allow the state money to follow the student instead of the school. States that have followed a similar approach have seen improved student performance both in public schools and among students who opt-out of public schools. 

     Ensuring accountability for the use of ESA funds should be a priority, and measures included in the bill are designed to protect against fraud and abuse. Participating education providers would also be required to meet strict standards to measure learning gains in key areas. 

     The goal of the legislation is not to take anything away from public schools or school districts. Instead, the bill seeks to meet the educational needs of all students in the most efficient and effective ways possible. That is a goal I believe we can all support, and I will continue working toward that objective as a member of the Senate Education Committee.

     I hope that you find this information to be useful. Please feel free to contact me if you need additional information or would like to discuss this issue further.

Sincerely,

Senator Rich Alloway

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Dear Senator Alloway,

I appreciate your email. I appreciate your effort to attempt to clarify your understanding of Senate Bill 2. However, I do not believe that I, nor any director of the Shippensburg Area School District, misunderstood the bill.

You claim that the bill would not affect any local schools. That may be true, now, but only because none of our schools fall in the bottom 15% of districts. Presently. They have in the past and, while hopefully not, they may very well fall into that category in the future. So, your contention is misleading, because, in fact, the bill _might_ affect local students or schools.

Furthermore, you also contend that the goal of Senate Bill 2 is not to take anything away from public schools. Well, that may not be the goal, but it will surely be the effect.

Consider: if one family in a qualifying school (Harrisburg School District, for example) elects to take the option to leave the public school, the money allocated to that student ($18,000) leaves the district, but the district still has the responsibility of educating all remaining children...with $18,000 less in their budget. Their burden has not been significantly decreased, but the resources allocated to fulfill its mission have. It seems obvious to me that such a system would only do further harm to already struggling districts and put the most disadvantaged students in these districts at a further disadvantage. Why would you support a bill that will only serve to HURT those who most need help?

Even if you believe that there is no hope for these failing districts and that the best hope for children is to have an affordable "choice" to leave the public school, that move will, at best, only be taken by those families whose parents take the most interest in their children's education, but will further handicap those children whose parents are not sophisticated enough to navigate such a system. Again, Senate Bill 2 would only HURT those who are already the most disadvantaged. This is not good social policy. 

Senator Alloway, please retract your support for Senate Bill 2. The "school choice" movement is not good for our schools, and it is not good for children. (But it is good for the corporate interests that profit from "choice." Don't let them buy your vote. Do what's right for PA.)

Sincerely,

Nathan Goates

Director, Shippensburg Area School District

P.S. In regard to your "fact sheet," I suggest you revisit the evidence you think you have that supports school choice. By my review of the scholarly literature, the evidence to support the efficacy of school choice in lifting the quality of education is thin at best. By my reading, the scholarly consensus is that the market ideology of "choice" improving educational outcomes overall simply does not pan out.