It was a simple request.
The guys who play pick-up basketball at the Linn High School gym on Sundays and Wednesdays during the winter were wanting to use the new gym instead of the old gym. Since I was going to cover the USD 223 school board meeting last night, and since I’d been one of the guys playing basketball over the last few years, I offered to make an official request to the school board to be able to use the new gym instead of the old gym.
I didn’t really know what the board’s response would be, but I couldn’t imagine that the request would be that big of a deal.
The players’ ages range from the mid-20s up to one unstoppable and unflappable 40- or 50-something bench warmer (just kidding, you know who you are). They are all graduates of Linn High School except maybe one guy who currently works for the school. Almost all are taxpayers in the district and some even helped on a committee to promote the bond that paid for the construction of the new gym. They are all pretty well past their crazier days (except maybe the old man, but he is harmless).
Their careers range from a farmer to the owner of a seed business to the assistant manager of a livestock handling equipment manufacturing company to a telecommunications company outside plant technician and on and on. Not really the resume of a group intent on mistreating a gym floor or vandalizing the facility. These guys police themselves and very clearly do not want to cause any problems with the facilities.
So it was a little strange that the potential wear and tear of the new gym’s floor was the main reason given by administration for not being able to use the gym.
Somehow it was okay for the guys to use the main gym floor on Sundays and Wednesdays (along with the school’s P.E. classes and any number of other activities) when Linn only had one gym. Now suddenly, this sort of usage could evidently cause unparalleled damage.
I disagree and think the school and school board could do a better job of offering gestures of goodwill to the community. This act only creates walls between school and community and that doesn’t do anybody any good.
After much discussion (which will be in next week’s Washington County News) the request was denied 4-3. Voting in opposition to the request were Bryce Heck, Todd Frye, Larry Nicholson and Jim Kruse.
I want to commend Bruce Meyer, Marge Schlabach and Joel Hynek for voting to approve the request and understanding that community-school relations are crucial to the success of a school system.
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5 comments:
Makes you wonder whose school it is. If the taxpayers pay for it and live in the community, doesn't it belong to them just as much as to the school board?
After sitting through a few Clifton-Clyde school board meetings (thanks to Dan) I'm beginning to wonder what the qualifications are? Somebody hungry for power?
Dan and Tom both have very good points and ones that our board needs to really consider. In a time of uncertainty for rual kansas towns and communities like Linn, you would think that our school system would want to be very proactive in the community and keeping them involved in the system. Why not have people wanting to be apart of something that each and everyone of us care about and work so hard to make sure stays in our community? Otherwise lets just shut the doors and move on! I am in no way for consolidation, as long as our schools can offer our childeren a top notch education and top notch after school programs that allow our children to excel, just wanted to get that out there. I fought hard to get this new gym approved and talked to everyone I could about why this was a good move for our district and the patrons of USD 223, but now this gym isn't ours, it's the schools!?! One of the selling points was it could be used for community activities, from what I have seen the only time the community can use it is last resort and to sit in for ball games.
By allowing people in the old gym, the school is allowing people full access to the school, but if the new gym was opened up you would only be allowed to the floor and the rest roooms in the new gym. What makes more sense in this situation? Just like we talked last night, it's nice being in the old gym because it's warmer, so I guess we have the benifit of that. Blue Valley has full access to both of their gyms at almost any given time and full use of thier basketballs, why can't Linn be like that? I coach the sixth grade boys and we had to beg to get balls to practice with, and these future athletes can't even practice in the new gym and several of the kids go Linn public schools (the rest of the kids go to Linn Lutheran).
I would like to thank Steve Joonas for getting us those basketball to practice with, also would would like to thank Tim Winter (Blue Valley's principle) for letting us uses his basketballs since we don't have any to travel with.
We need to be proactive in keeping the community involved in our school! Lets wake up and see what is infront of us here!
Also wanted to note that the Linn 6th grade boys basketball team is now 1-1. We are improving each time we play. We lost the first game to Marysville (due to bad coaching) by 7 and beat St.Gregory's by 19. For not being able to scrimmage but for 20 minutes the Wed before the first game, I am sure proud of these hard working boys. Coach
Having recently graduated from linn high school, this is just another thing for me to like (sarcasm) about linn's goofy-ass rules and excuses to things that have answers that seem so simple. But i guess you have to be qualified to be on the board, right?
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