A Plea for Reason and Tolerance

Concern is continuing to grow over how to accommodate the surge in kindergarten enrollments for next year. The Board had a discussion of the issue last Thursday, although it took no action, instead asking staff to evaluate certain options. Recommendations on how to proceed are expected in mid-May.

For those who are just tuning in, here’s a snapshot of the situation: around 80 more children enrolled for kindergarten than expected, causing Arundel, Brittan Acres and White Oaks to be impacted, with White Oaks seeing the biggest surge (i.e., 53 more children than what the school typically enrolls).

Naturally this resulted in a lot of unhappy people, particularly in the neighborhood around the White Oaks school, some of whom have banded together to seek an outcome other than having their kids attend Heather. Being action-oriented, they have proposed a number of ideas for increasing White Oaks’ kindergarten capacity. Which, in turn, has sparked negative reactions among the White Oaks, Brittan Acres and Heather school communities, for different reasons.

I’m not going to analyze all of the alternatives, or respond to circulating rumors, some of which are quite weird. Doing so would (a) take a lot of text, (b) probably fuel fires already starting to rage in various quarters and (c) miss the bigger picture issue.

Which is really quite simple.

Everyone needs to take a deep breath, stop circling their wagons and remember that we are all in this together. The issue is not, and should never be, “how do I protect my piece of the San Carlos educational system from outsiders?” Instead, it must be “how do we work together to get the best education we can for all our kids, and model the kind of community we want them to create as adults?”

Humans are tribal animals, and given even the slightest excuse we will immediately come up with rational arguments on why “they” are different from “us”, and undeserving of tolerance, respect and help. But it’s also true that we have the potential to rise above that reflexive behavior. In fact, I like to think that education is one of the main ways we train ourselves to look for the bigger picture, to identify with the bigger community.

So it particularly saddens me when I hear people complain about the impact an influx of “outsiders” will have on “their” school. In point of fact, the schools don’t belong to any one particular subsection of San Carlos; they are “owned” by the entire community. But forget the legalities — the attitude is what’s disheartening. What happened to the idea of helping your neighbor?

I also shake my head when people elevate their desire to attend a particular school to the level of a right or an entitlement. The District must educate every resident child who enrolls, but is under no obligation to do so at any particular school. Being a community member sometimes means having to accept, and make the best of, a situation one may not like.

And I feel embarrassed when educational leaders encourage division, or evidence a lack of compassion, or even just keep parents in the dark. All that does is add fuel to those already-burning fires. Sure, we can always just stay the course, and not consider adjusting to circumstances. But don’t we owe it to ourselves to at least try to find a better solution first? And shouldn’t our educational leaders help guide the way?

We have lofty goals for the education of our children in this district. We want them to be creative, life-long learners, who seek to improve their communities through tolerance and reason. Maybe it’s time we all started practicing what we preach.