Closing school not in Vernon's best interest

I am an alumna of Vernon high school and next year, my daughter will be enrolled in kindergarten for the Vernon school district. My graduating class saw the change-of-school configurations in order to make room for the growing class sizes. It saw the "purple and pink" addition to the high school. I personally enjoyed the schools coming together, having made friends that I otherwise wouldn't have met until I was in high school, one of which is still my best friend today. Aside from the social aspect of this restructuring, I do not understand how any parent would want their fourth grader in school with seventh graders, or their 8th grader in school with a senior in high school. The age gap is more than 4 years: it's hormones, attitudes, temptations, and behaviors that I do not want my child experiencing. Why are we trying to shorten their childhood and hamper their education? We live in a rural area. Why can't we embrace the smaller class sizes, and let the teachers be teachers and not moderators of the masses? Let's utilize the technology we have spent so many tax dollars brining into the classrooms the way it was intended to. Let the children have classes in the arts and music fields so they can explore other ways of learning. Can we all agree that whether you have children in the school system or not, no one wants to send their kids to a school where they don't have every opportunity available to them, especially when it was there and we voted to take it away. This is our future, it doesn't say much for our community as a whole if we are only thinking about the bottom line instead of how it will affect our children. I do realize not everyone has a child in the school system, so to those individuals, it may seem more important to conserve where you can. However, those people are not the governing board, and I'm just not sure how any Board of Education member could even entertain this idea. These individuals are elected to represent the best interests of our children. I do not know how closing a school, bridging large age gaps, and cutting programs is ever in the best interest of our children. And as a side note, to rebuild Vernon, to increase our school enrollment, to make this a place people want to live, closing a school is certainly not the way to start that comeback.

Jennifer Vough
Vernon