July 27, 2013
A Different Perspective
Kathy Kenworthy 

Editor:

Countless times I have heard people asking if a new building can really change the learning environment. I feel obligated to bring a different perspective, a firsthand answer, to those who ask this question.

I want to paint a clear picture of Randolph Southern school district in Lynn, Indiana. In March of 1986, a tornado ripped through my hometown. I was 4 and off to school in the fall. The tornado destroyed the elementary school I was to attend. I started school in a modular. We were a small district, with 3 classrooms per grade, approximately 20 students in a classroom. The set up included Kindergarten through 6th grade, the library, and all elementary administration. We weren't crowded like the students at Woodland and South who seem to be packed like sardines in a can, and we did have restrooms in our modular for 2 classrooms to share.

Our safety was always a concern. Someone always had to be conscious of the weather because if we needed to move, we had to do it before the warnings were out. This meant walking across an open parking lot to the high school. This also meant getting about 350 students to safety in inclement weather by walking them outside through whatever Mother Nature threw our way, just to be placed in hallways with students in grades 7 through 12. The late 80’s and early 90’s were safer times, but anyone could have walked in to any classroom at anytime and committed any horrible act of violence. Really, they wouldn't have needed to walk in because we were in TRAILERS. There is little protection afforded by their construction.

As students, we watched our new school grow before our eyes. We toured the new construction through many stages of its development. I fondly remember construction crews explaining how the principal’s office would be equipped with an automatic paddling machine, and the paddle was to have Purdue Boilermaker’s design. (Mr. Roach was a lost soul, we were in Hoosier country!)

We were excited to have our OWN gym, with a specially designed logo just for the elementary. We were a small school, but we were very proud! We had our own cafeteria as well. No more walks in the rain to have lunch at the high school. It was a common area with two hallways leading to all classrooms, lower grades on the left, higher grades on the right. The library was well equipped and laid out to allow for studying, book fairs, research, with plenty of room to look for books. A computer lab had been added (this was something we did not have in the mods), and this was the early 90’s. It was the first time I had ever been on a computer and we learned them from the ground up.

Each grade level had a “pod.” Each pod had a skylight to allow natural light in. The pod allowed each grade to be together, a quiet, and private, space easily accessible to all 3 teachers in the grade level to allow for students to make up tests, work on projects, or just have a time out. Each grade worked on projects that went with a theme (for example second graders made dinosaur soup for the whole grade and decorated their pod with information gathered about dinosaurs and the different eras in which they lived).

The classrooms were large. Students were not sitting on top of each other. There was plenty of storage space in the classroom to allow teachers to store books, supplies, and games for those rainy days. There was ample room for each student to put their belongings in the lower grades. 5th and 6th graders had lockers in the hallway. We had science fairs in the gym. The architects had placed a loft/weight room above the gym. A teacher used it as an opportunity to put an astrolab there. We lay in the air filled dome and learned about the stars and the solar system. The kindergarten classrooms had their own drop off and pick up so the little ones didn’t get lost in the shuffle.

Above all, my fondest memory is a cold day in 1991. We carried all our belongings across the playground to the new building. 350 students, hearts filled with pride, moved into a new classroom, in a new building. The rules didn’t change. The QUALITY of education didn’t change. However, the environment in which we learned DID change. The focus was centered more on teaching, learning and how each classroom had so much to offer, rather than the weather, the temperature inside or out, safety, or anything else that my young mind could not understand at the time.

I am aware that the scenario is different. There was a disaster followed by insurance money. But to all the students that moved that day, it was so much more. Our needs, the staff’s needs, the administration’s needs, the parent’s, the district’s needs, and the community’s needs were all met that cold day.

Later, I moved to Greenville. I went to East. That was 20 years ago. I was nervous moving to a new school. I walked in the door and immediately missed the comforts of Randolph Southern. My school career was never the same.

I go into the schools with my children and I worry about their safety. I worry about how crowded a classroom is. I worry when my children arrive home feeling ill because they are overheated. I worry about collapse, and I know I never want my own children stepping into the junior high building. My job takes me into the schools as well. I see the lack of space, the safety concerns, and the general downfall at all of them. I know when the district puts out a report on the dangerousness of each building and the safety concerns they each hold, it is the truth. Some believe the district just wants money. I believe our students deserve a new building and all it has to offer them.

As a community, it is time to build pride in our young people. We have a duty to show them people do care and the public wants the best for them. I for one would like to see young people staying, or returning, to the community in which they grew up. This town has little to offer, but yet so much. Let’s give the young people a chance, a fighting chance, to be something. 

Kathy Kenworthy

Greenville