Back to School Hopes

Summer vacation for youngsters officially ends on Monday with the first day of school.

Here is hoping that the next 180 or so days is a productive and meaningful one for all involved.

Here is a hope that the state’s coffers come a little more in line, or at least that state lawmakers stop thinking that education is a swell place to cut and try to balance the budget.

As Gulf District Schools have seen over the past year the vagaries of Tallahassee and its esteemed lawmakers can be the difference between a job and the unemployment line.

And there is also hope that the school district will continue to show responsibility and accountability for its own spending, ensuring that dollars received become dollars applied to the classroom and to the learning environment at each of the county’s schools.

Here is also a wish that the H1N1 virus proves, like many an Atlantic storm, to be much bluster with little impact on the school year.

The news on a vaccine for the swine flu, which seemed on schedule for a mid-October availability, may now not be ready and available in the United States until after Thanksgiving.

The may be no more important school year for the emphasis on personal hygiene to applied as fundamentally as reading, writing and arithmetic.

Learning at a young age that washing hands thoroughly with soap, covering coughs and sneezes and not sharing cups and utensils can provide a lifetime lesson just as useful and necessary as that taught in any book.

That the district has a school health team that is top flight, a team that has been preparing for the opening of school for weeks, is cause for comfort.

But nothing can replace vigilance and instilling in each young child an understanding of cleanliness and the values and joys of simple hand-washing.

Here is also a hope that the coming school year brings with it plenty of triumph and joy on the sports fields and hardwoods.

Some of the familiar names of the last four years have moved on to the next level, but in their place come a host of talented and enthusiastic young student/athletes.

And the scholastic sports year will be capped next spring by the final track and field season of Kayla Parker of Port St. Joe High School, arguably as fine a woman track athlete as this county has produced, certainly in the last 20 years.

While making wishes for the coming year, let’s also include one for the youngsters who excel off the fields that bring so much of the spotlight, those in National Honor Society, NJROTC, Odyssey of the Mind, Student Government Association, Key Club, those clubs and organizations that positively shape young citizens and minds.

Let us hope that the coming prom and graduation season that serve as passages into adulthood do just that, instead of the tragic end of young lives to drinking, driving or drugs.

Here is also a desire to see the list of those in the community who volunteer their time, energy and often money to support the local public schools continues to grow.

The schools face a difficult year in terms of finances and the years to come will also be challenging, though less so for the passage of the additional one-mill referendum in March.

In recent memory, no year seems to cry out for assistance from the community across the board to support local education.

Parents volunteering to assist in certain instruction, such as Traci Gaddis and art in Port St. Joe, the Women Athletes Assisting Women Athletes (WASWA) providing some funding for girls’ sports in the county, the Shark 100 Club, the Wewahitchka Quarterback Club and on and on.

These organizations and community initiatives such as involvement in coaching Odyssey of the Mind or Project Graduation may never play a more important role in the public schools as they can this year.

Here is a hope that the school district continue to perform as students and teachers have in the past when it comes to the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

The test is a meat grinder that will never provide the material for a clear picture of all that is good and exciting in the schools, but as long as the state mandates accountability in this fashion, the reality that Gulf District Schools can meet that challenge and then some speaks volumes for the dedication of many.

Most of all, though, here is the hope that this is a year of achievement for the 2,000 or so children in the public schools. That the students who enter schools next year, regardless of lot in life and start to the day, will be better students come next May.

That they will have learned knowledge both from books and from social interaction; that they will have grown as human beings and as the next generation of thinkers. That the steps they take in the coming 180 days will be forward.

Almost time for the bell to ring, may the 2009-10 year be one of reward and achievement in the Gulf District Schools.