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I appreciate what Josh Blakely wrote last week, but I’d like to approach it from a different perspective. I’m a bit too old to have kids in Prince Edward schools, but I can still look at this from a taxpayer’s view. And what I see doesn’t make sense. The argument has been that poverty has been the cause of all the district’s problems. ‘Well, if only we had enough money to offer Person X more, they would have stayed,” I’ve heard that. Or “we’re a rural school district, what do you expect?” 

Those statements just don’t hold water. How is it that Charlotte County, right next door and with a much smaller budget, population, you name it, can produce a school system that constantly has all schools fully accredited, that produces test scores in the Top 20 in the state and manages to do it without any fussing or fighting on the scale we constantly see here? How is it that Lunenburg schools, again not a bigger district or one with a larger budget, can produce programs that earn state recognition and get praised because their kids are being trained and prepared for the workforce? Isn’t that what we should want for all kids? To give them an education where they’re able to get that diploma, go to college or go to another career path and already have a leg up in terms of knowing what to do? 

How is it that chronic absenteeism, one of the things long held up as a reason for struggling classes, just isn’t as much of a problem in neighboring counties? How is it they can come up with ways to get kids to school but we can’t? Are families here struggling that much worse than Cumberland, Lunenburg and Charlotte? If an incentive program, like what they do at my grandkids’ school in Charlotte County, is the solution, what does that say? The kids could have showed up at any time, but just didn’t want to? Do parents here just refuse to do the hard thing and force kids to go to class, rather than sleep in? 

And before anyone gets their hopes up, that brand new school isn’t going to help either. Prince Edward Elementary isn’t the problem. Think about that for a second. The school in the worst condition is in fact producing the best grades in the district. Don’t talk to me about all the programs and plans in Prince Edward schools or what’s being worked on or how, year after year after year, I just need to have patience. Talk to me about the results. 

Scott Denny
Prince Edward