I want to commend Kelley Williams, Jr.’s recent letter to the Northside Sun (Perfect Storm). In his letter one of his compadres, Sam, says, " Pretend ... you were living in any American city. Now pretend that city - for whatever reason - shut down all its public schools, elementary through high school. And further decided to discontinue all extracurricular activities for students.”
"So now you’ve got thousands of teens not only with no structure during the day, but nothing to look forward to at nights and weekends - no games, band performances, dance teams - nothing that meant so much to them and they had worked so hard to prepare for. The interaction with their coaches and mentors is gone, and any positive peer pressure from the team, band, drill squad, etc. is replaced by negative peer pressure.”
I appreciate Mr. Williams pointing out some of the importance of a community’s public schools. He could have gone further and described the role they play in preparing young people for college or work. Tomorrow’s doctors, lawyers, business owners, construction workers, pharmacists, nurses, etc. will come in large part from our public schools. To be successful public schools need broad-based support and involvement from the communities they serve. Often one can predict the future of a city by the degree of that support and involvement. One can carry that reasoning a step further and postulate that a state’s future can often be predicted by its support of and involvement in its public schools. Will its young people stay or will they leave when given the chance? Will a business that is looking to expand choose a state that provides strong support for the education of its youth or one that provides weak support? Mississippi’s future is in its hands but we must make it a place where people want to live. Part of doing that is providing the support and involvement our public schools warrant.
George Schimmel
