Tuesday night, February 8th, 2011, the Board of the Mt. Diablo Unified School District voted to close two schools in the district in an effort to save money. This is something the community saw coming for months as the MDUSD went through a methodical process to determine which schools to close. I won't detail the tragedy of the schools they selected to close since this post will be long enough as it is, but tragic it was. Anyway, that night, after the vote, one board member threw out a very unexpected idea. It was something like this: we sure would like to keep all those students together from that middle school we just voted to close (especially because they have this incredibly valuable school improvement grant that we'll lose if we break the students apart). How about we also close Westwood Elementary (which is the school in my backyard to which my children attend and which was never on the radar during the methodical school closure evaluation process). Then we can combine the former Westwood campus with neighboring El Dorado Middle as one big middle school that can absorb ALL of the Glenbrook's students?!
Um, WHAT? (that was the reaction of other board members and probably everyone in the audience for the meeting)
Seriously, if that man knew the crazy amount of stress that would grasp an entire community for the next two weeks I would hope he'd have taken more thought about tossing this idea out like he was doing everyone a big favor.
I wasn't at the meeting, but I heard about it by late Tues night and went to bed thinking, what???? And then I woke up early early Weds morning with my brain spinning with ideas of how to get volunteers out into the neighborhood to spread awareness and get support for our cause to Save Westwood! So a few texts and phone calls later, I had full permission to run with the neighborhood canvassing project. My home became home base for a small army of volunteers to come for flyers, maps and information to go out on the streets and knock on doors and get signatures and opinions. It was NUTS.
I'm getting overwhelmed trying to put this all down in words, so let me just do a few things to summarize:
Saturday - about 50 volunteers came. I had maps highlighted with what streets to walk, instructions on what to do and example conversation sheets, flyers to distribute, petitions to sign that included a space to note personal opinion on WHY they oppose the closure of Westwood. People came in and out of our house ALL DAY. Most were very positive and respectful. Some I wondered if they should be out on the streets talking to people.
Sunday - I got everything ready for day two and then left for church. People came in and out while we were gone. It was a little weird, but I had my good friend hang out here to keep an eye on things. I forgot that people would bring their kids. Ethan came home to find lots of things scrambled up in his room. He was very upset. I apologized that I didn't forsee that problem but then I was (more than) a little weirded out when he said that even the stuff up in his bunk bed was messed up. Ew, really? Some stranger kids went up in his bed?
Monday - a few more volunteers to take care of some straggling stuff.
Tuesday - seriously CRAZY DAY! This would be the next board meeting where we would present our rebuttals to the proposed idea. I seriously had texts, emails, phone calls, FB posts, IMs, etc etc etc FLYING all day long. Everything was so LIVE and so INSTANT and I can't believe what it feels like to be a lobbyist. Totally NOT my thing! We had people researching issues right and left - with police (gangs, crime), the city (traffic, transportation), the DHH community (realities of relocating the DHH program to another site), realtors (effect on home values), the list goes on and on.
We presented a united, fairly organized front on Tuesday night at the school board meeting. Every speaker had 1 minute and we made sure we had speakers there to address certain critical points that we'd discovered in our research. I presented the petition with 1000+ signatures and 500+ opinions, collected in essentially 2 days. I think my 1 minute speech went okay because I was one of the few to get applause from the standing-room-only crowd. The board seemed to get my point that our neighborhood canvass effort resulted in real opinions from real people; not that anonymous banter that explodes on blogs. They also seemed to finally understand that our neighborhood is the only one within the district that has a 12+ year continuum of schools within walking distance - that we truly are a Westwood-El Dorado-Concord High community. That closing Westwood would be breaking up that unique sense of community.
So we felt good about the front we presented at the meeting, but uncertain about what effect it would really have on the board. A week later, we found out. The board voted unanimously to Save Westwood. Hallelujah!
It was a rush of relief, for sure. I think all of us campaigners were mostly happy to get back to our real lives. And it's amazing how quickly we did. It's like February exploded and then we quickly swept the ashes out and went back to pick up the pieces of our real lives.
So to summarize a few amazing moments, learning experiences:
As we sent out a call for volunteers, one woman emailed me and said she could help - I told her to come on over and she did. She spent a couple of hours helping me sort through my thoughts and compile paperwork for the canvassing. I don't think she has any idea how much I love her for putting forth the effort. And I had never met her before that day and have only seen her in passing a few times since. But somehow I still feel like she is my best friend.
Interestingly enough, the Westwood teacher who ended up being the campus point person for this neighborhood canvassing project, and thus my collaborator, was an extremely liberal, politically active, powerhouse. She makes my moderate political leanings seem ultra conservative. I'm certain that our previous campaigning experiences have been on opposite sides of the platforms. But in this case, we were together. At first it seemed fascinating, and a little miracle to me that we would work together on this. But then she just drove me c.r.a.z.y. It was mostly about empty promises to help with one thing or another and then I had to pick up the pieces. As she headed to Starbucks on Sunday when I was heading to church, she did request that I "say a little prayer for her." So I did. I didn't tell her what I prayed for, though :)
I was so impressed with the teachers pulling together to save their school. They made up a solid percentage of the volunteers in this effort. Even one teacher, who in previous times I've been known to say that I could hardly stand to breathe the same air as her, came into my house and we shared friendly conversation. I think I even hugged her after the final vote. That's progress, huh? And in the months after this experience we actually smiled at each other and respected each other on a new level.
I was so surprised by the volunteerism that poured forth from Westwood parents in this crisis because during normal times, it is really hard to find volunteers amongst our school's population.
And, of course, the people I already worked with on the PFC board became dearer to me than before. There's nothing like working together thru a crisis to bring people together as friends.
So why did this issue matter so much to me that it got my inner fire pumped and ready to rumble? Well, at the time, and still in retrospect, it's mostly about my neighborhood and my home. My back fence is the back fence of the elementary and middle school and one block away is the high school, so my home value is directly affected by the quality of schools in my backyard. Imagine 3000 teenagers within one block of my house on a daily basis. It just isn't a picture that I like. In addition, I've realized that a good elementary school is the lifeblood of a neighborhood. Somehow the elementary school dilutes and softens the effect of all those teenagers in such proximity. I believe that replacing the elementary school with teenagers would have a devastating effect on my neighborhood and my home's value. And that was why I took on this NUTTY project. I'm just glad it was short lived!
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