Brake in the Action
by Keith Brake
To stay on the highway, we need a roadbed
Sept. 2, 2010
How do you paint a face on the future?
What will our Montezuma schools look like in 30 years?
Would you run out and take a picture of blue sky? You might as well, because you can't photograph students working with technology that hasn't even been invented yet.
It's pretty difficult to put your arms around a concept. People who sell any kind of a service know how difficult that can be.
With a thing, it's a little different.
If the thing is a vehicle, for example, you can sit in the driver's seat, enjoy the fresh smell of the upholstery, kick the tires.
You know what good service is. But can you take a real, tangible picture of it?
No. But you can imagine it.
We learn by turning all input to our brain - words, concepts, etc., - into pictures. Until the picture appears in our mind's eye, no learning takes place. Concepts remain abstract and formless.
I have been wrestling mentally with how the Montezuma school bond issue has been presented. So have some others. Some have said it has been presented as a maintenance issue - that we're needing to pass an $11.5 million bond issue in order to fix some broken clocks and unify the color of floor tiles.
That's not true, of course. There is and has been money available to repair those things. It happens that those particular items haven't been repaired yet for one reason or another and now, they're convenient for illustrative purposes.
They are symbols of a much larger issue.
An ever-changing information superhighway is being built across the globe. Unless we want it to bypass our children and theirs, we need to lay down a roadbed that's strong enough to support it.
That's part of what this is about. That is what it has always been about in American public education.
The late Lew Lundy, who was a teacher, coach and superintendent here for many years, told me once that you can tell a lot about the pride of a community by the quality of its public school facilities.
If you're going to use more appliances and devices that need electricity, you need to make sure you've got enough wiring capacity to handle all the juice.
You might have to do some re-wiring.
Or, let's say you have a young family and you buy a small starter home with no garage.
Your family grows. You add vehicles.
There might not be anything wrong with your starter home - but maybe it's time to make it someone else's starter home.
So, you upgrade.
Now, let's say you're the school district, and you run new wiring in behind the walls, and to do that you need to knock out the walls . . .and if you do that you might expose asbestos . . and if you do that, you need to get rid of it . . .and so it goes.
If you've got a "crooked" hallway, like we do in the 1928 junior high, you can leave it that way. But if you change it, by remodeling classrooms, for example, state mandates say you must straighten the hallway and have exits at either end of it.
One thing adds to another . . . and it adds up.
People say they can't get their arms around the idea of $11.5 million.
Neither can I, for that matter . . but maybe this is why . . . Montezuma passed bond issues in the late 20s, the late 50s and the late 80s. The first time, it cost $115,000. The second time, $585,000. The last time: $1.5 million.
Things get more expensive. Water that has gradually gotten warmer since last we voted looks like a boiling caldron at $11.5 million. Our reluctance to jump in is understandable.
The project could be done in segments - perhaps one part every five years. If the Sept. 14 issue fails, that is probably what this and future boards will attempt to do. It will be increasingly expensive each time and it may get irksome to the voters.
We might just say 'forget it' and go to assisted living, which in this case would be a merger, forced or otherwise, with a neighboring district.
Assisted living often is nice. It has a cost.
We'll still be paying taxes. All of the districts around us have higher tax rates at present. They're all consolidated districts.
We still have that big blue "M" label on all our stuff and it has meant something to us. I can't take a tangible photo of that "something," but I just sense it has been there. Control. We're still in control . . of us.
History is on our side.
We really don't know what the state is going to do. It would seem that districts which have already consolidated would be targets for more of the same.
An independent old cuss usually is given some space. They stay in their homes longer in the first place.
There is no guarantee that an updated, well-equipped building will keep our school under our full control for a certain number of years.
But it will buy some time.
It will put some bounce back in our step, some arch in our backs and some bow in our necks!
And that's the other element this bond issue is about. It's about being able to rise up as a community and throw a celebratory fist in the air . . .and not worry about whether the person sitting next to us is doing the same.
There is an element in our community that is trying to make it grow. Bigger will be better in the Iowa of the future. Getting this done would make a statement. It would be a huge step.
We won't sink like so many blue and white rocks if we don't pass this or future school bond votes. And there will be others - coming right up, in smaller portions, if the Sept. 14 issue fails. Or, should history repeat, in about 30 years, if it passes this time.
Every failure would reduce our forward speed. It would be like a cancer. Our lights as a community would dim . . .slowly.
I think that Montezuma is a community that has lost some confidence in itself, over time. Maybe our real colors are faded blue and white, rather than royal blue and white.
Our confidence is not all gone. But do you hear yourself or others saying, "they can't do that," or "we aren't good enough/big enough/qualified enough for that," or "we're probably going to lose the school anyway"?
When you're constantly cutting down others, it's a symptom that you don't like or value yourself, either.
It wasn't just the school board that hired Dave Versteeg to be the superintendent. It was a committee, representing a cross-section or at least a sampling of the community, that made the recommendation.
They brought in a gentleman who is relentlessly, obsessively optimistic about building our school and the community. He is systematic. He can measure and quantify and explain things that are abstractions or formless to many of us. He has vision.
He has developed professional relationships with experts who know how to get things done.
We need to control what we can control, which means we had better continue down the path we put ourselves on.
There is still time to do that.
Money is a replenishable commodity. If you focus on ways to make it - or lose it - you likely will . . .
Lost confidence is more precious. Drive through any number of Iowa towns and you know the end of their vibrancy is gaining on them.
I have been discouraged at how little effort many in the community have made to learn about what is going on with this issue.
There is still time to learn.
Every voter owes it to themselves to make an informed decision. Not voting is not a choice. It's a no-choice.
We have that precious right to choose, so let us exercise it.
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