Thoughts About the Glover School Project

Let’s be clear from the start.

I am not a Glover School parent.

Also: I have only lived in this town for 16 years so I understand how that defines me as a newcomer. As I type, I feel the trouble that my “newbieness ” might engender.

My interest in this fight? Despite the fact that I’ll see my limited property value collapse when word gets out that our community doesn’t support its most fundamental assets, I also find it uncomfortable to raise kids in a community that denies positive change as much as ours has in recent years.

I wonder where the loud voices in opposition to the Glover School project were thirty years ago? Or forty years? Was there a fight as aggressive to shore up the schools then -- when it might have made a difference? I was a child and living a thousand miles away, so I don’t know the answer. But it’s worth asking.

I am among the generation that cannot count on Social Security. I am among the generation where the stay-at-home-parent is rare. I am among the generation that has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars -- beyond tax fees -- to fund our Town’s public schools and public spaces.

I, like many of my friends and neighbors, worry how I’ll fund a retirement or if there is anything resembling “job security” these days. I don’t have an unlimited bank account by any means; I feel stretched and stressed a lot of the time. But I’ll support the plans to rebuild the Glover School.

Buildings do not inhabit the spirit of our selves, I know, but it many ways the Glover School projects represents a litmus test for our Town. The best of us live not in our memories of a place or a time, but in our ability to make our childhood dreams come true in our present. The best of us look toward the future – and try to make it happen in the now that we can touch.  The demands that our children face in order to thrive in a rapidly changing culture and economy require that we invest in that future now… No matter how much it might hurt in the present. 

My 9-year-old daughter recently told me she “would like to live here forever.” I kissed her cheeks and like many parents, didn’t answer. I know that her scope on the world will widen the older she becomes, just as I know that she may not always want to be a professional soccer player when she grows up. Still, it would be comforting to know that if she does stay here forever, she will find a vibrant and growing community, and not a mess we’ve left for her.