Whitewater High School has the advantage of a new principal and assistant principal. I’ve written before that I’ve no particular advice for Messrs. Lovenberg and O’Shaughnessy. See For Your Consideration, Dr. Jonas Salk. (Indeed, in that post I offered only a question, but – to be sure – one that implied how very much their efforts are needed and welcome here.)
For general views on education in this community and elsewhere, see An Opportunity at Whitewater High, An Opportunity at Whitewater High (Part 2), Mentoring, and The Erosion of Political Norms (Part 3 in a Series).
An optimistic view of recent administrative changes is widely shared in this community. There’s undoubtedly satisfaction – and for some outright & legitimate relief – that Whitewater High has a new team.
An addled nostalgia for the past shows either ignorance of actual conditions or a preference for inferior ones.
Those committed to high standards and fair practices should expect from a collectively-run school board a collective commitment to Whitewater’s current team. There’s something particularly risible about a single member whose candidacy was based on ‘planning for the future’ but whose outlook is to the past and whose direction is one of retrograde motion. In any event, one could confidently refute each and every contention that single member might make in this regard; it’s no more than a reckless presumption that invites such a refutation.
Longtime readers know that – to be mild – I’m not without occasional words of criticism. (Nor, in now saying so mildly, without a sense of humor and awareness.) And yet, and yet, one criticizes truly from love and hope. It’s this community one loves, this community to which one is forever committed, and this community for which one is hopeful.
We would do well to put nostalgia aside.
To move backward will prove quickly destructive, to remain motionless slowly debilitating, but forward – of all other directions, however unfamiliar by comparison – alone offers a hopeful future.