November 3, 2008
When the ‘Levy’ Breaks…
I am a band parent. Yep. It’s true. A band parent.
I stand in the endzone at football games, where our band plays to support our football team. I take home the color guard uniforms and wash them, dry them, mend them as needed. I take home color guard flags and mend the silks.
I help my drum major daughter print and hang up signs for the band’s upcoming competitions. I ride the busses with the band kids to different destinations. I pull pit equipment onto the field, I carry flags, rifles, instruments, you name it.
At competitions, I keep tape, safety pins and windex handy, as well as a couple extra dollars for any band kids that might have forgotten to bring money for something to eat.
I can name all 80 members & instructors.
Yeah. Band Parent. This is what happens to band geeks when they grow up.
Our marching season is over. On Sunday, our kids took the field at Welcome Stadium for the state finals. They played their hearts out. They walked away with a Superior rating, the highest possible.
Now I’m wondering what’s going to happen to our music department, and more importantly, our kids that are involved in the program. We have a levy coming up on the ballot tomorrow. It’s an operating levy, and our school hasn’t had one in 13 years. This will be the 4th time in two years that the levy has come up. It’s been voted down each time.
So far, we’ve lost the gifted education program, we’ve lost school transportation, and we have pay to play fees that have just about cleaned out my bank account. Clubs have disappeared, and the ones that are left are terribly expensive and are limited in the depth of their activities. We’ve lost teachers, school resource officers, and other forms of support for our kids.
This time, it seems that we are going to lose more teachers, athletics, clubs, and music education if the levy gets shot down again.
As I rode the bus on Saturday with the band kids, I took some time to think about each one. There are a lot of kids for whom the band organization is the one thing that is holding them together. We have a lot of musically inclined kids, who otherwise may not be in any other positive social group. Our band is a family. These kids know each other and trust each other in a way that surpasses all social divisions outside the band room. We have kids of all social statuses, all GPAs, all backgrounds.
I’m wondering how some of these kids will spend their time if they lose band. How many kids’ lives are going to be affected long term?
I’m wondering, why this levy has not passed. Yes, we have several residents in our city that are in their golden years. I know their plight, I know that fixed incomes do not allow for rising taxes. Our levy bill will be the equivalent to the price of 1 pizza per month, per household.
I know that economically, we’re in the midst of some really tough times. However, the long term cost of paring our schools down to the bare minimum is what none of us can afford.
I’ve talked to several parents who are planning on taking their kids to another school district if the levy doesn’t pass this time. There goes a lot of talent, right out of the community. The current real estate atmosphere in my town is pretty bleak. People can’t sell their homes. More homes are going to be for sale when people move out of the district. Sellers are going to have to come down on the prices of their homes just to get them sold.
A community that is dying is a community that is vulnerable to crime. While I sympathize with those on fixed incomes who say they can’t afford a tax increase on their homes, I wonder how they’re going to get by once our city starts going the way of other communities that have lost funding. I can go 10 minutes south, and on the main street of another city, I see businesses that are boarded up, a shopping mall that is closed, restaurants that are closed, with parking lots that are cracked and pitted, and weeds and wild ivies covering the buildings. I want to take all of our residents who have voted “no” in the past to these communities, and give them a glimpse of our future.
Good communities, growing communities, all hold our children and their education in high regard. Good schools will bring progressive businesses, progressive businesses will bring consumers. Good schools will bring good families, good families will continue to invest in their children’s futures, which is the cornerstone of our success.
I’m a band mom. I’m also a volleyball mom, a basketball mom, a guard mom, a track mom. I love to watch my kids get involved. I love to see them learn life lessons on the court, on the field, on the track, in the arenas. I love to see them bond with their team mates, their coaches, their instructors. I am watching them grow up with lessons and values that will stick with them as they grow. I have continued to shell out hundreds upon hundreds of dollars in fees that seem to get higher every time the levy fails. I am not wealthy. There are days when I just want to scream because someone needs a check to take to school for one fee or another. But I won’t hold my kids back because of high fees. If they have an interest, I want them to pursue it as far and as long as they want to. I can’t stand the thought of these interests, these opportunities being taken away from them.
Just had to get a little bit of that out of my system.
For anyone who is reading this, in any community, any state: please support your local schools. In doing so, you can change lives and enrich your own life by maintaining a safe, healthy, growing community.
