Ideas Blossom

I’d like to tell you about Cuyahoga Falls High Schools new greenhouse. “Promise” is the name it has been given. It is an effort that involved too many people to mention but a few groups of people deserve some kudos.

Last fall the board took its annual tour of the buildings. While at the high school someone mentioned that they’d like to see if a greenhouse could be erected near the multiple disabilities area of the building to benefit these children academically as well as therapeutically. It was one of those comments that seemed more like wishful thinking than something that could happen.

Then three weeks ago DECA (the marketing class) scheduled a presentation for the board. They proudly unveiled their class project. Promise Greenhouse. They worked tirelessly and creatively all year long to market and raise funds to purchase a top notch greenhouse and have secured the labor and materials necessary to install it this summer. They have collaborated with the city to incorporate the Adopt-a-Spot program into the greenhouse by winter housing plants for sponsors.

Not only that, a 2001CF alumni Tim Madden of HydrOranics has donated a hydroponics system along with installation as a congratulations gift to the class and Promise Greenhouse. Not just any system either. An 8 section, solar powered system. He has also offered to come in and help with set up and training with the staff and students on optimum usage. I’m getting choked up writing this because this project will help people with special needs in more ways than most of you realize. Besides the obvious therapeutic and sensory experiences these kids will have, they will also gain life skills. A DECA student said it best when he said “they will leave with something on a resume”.

Promise will be wheelchair accessible. All students in the MD unit will be able to grow and learn, pardon the pun, and leave high school with a real world skill. Something usable and a local job source boon. Just leafing through my check book register I can tell you there is no shortage of greenhouse and nursery businesses around these parts! And my hope is that the district can forge partnerships with these businesses and learn what their needs are so that this special group of kids from Cuyahoga Falls can graduate and have a usable skill, rather than have to face long waits for social services and the few resources currently available once you age out of a protective and coddling public school system.

This is also an example of how to be selfless rather than selfish. DECA needed a project for a grade. They chose something that not only helped them reach their goal but something that gave to many layers of our community. From the kids in the MD unit, the sponsors of Adopt-a-Spot, the citizens of Cuyahoga Falls with beautification projects and even those grouchy tax payers. How Taxpayer may ask? By providing job training and skills before the “system” must get involved.

Thank you to everyone involved in this project but especially Ms. Kilgore, the DECA coordinator. The lessons taught this year reached far beyond your classroom.

Project Projections

Sorry, I’ve been a slogger. That’s my new word for a slacking blogger. First I’ll fill you in on the upcoming agenda. The new five year forecast is up for approval. The never ending review of policy. Personnel and stipends, and my favorite, approving the granting of diplomas. For your presentation entertainment we will be having Curriculum and Intervention Program items. Under board business we have summer meeting dates (ugh!), board goals, and a discussion on paperless board meetings. Should be a quick one. That is sarcasm for my fans with no sense of humor.

Now on to something that has been bothering me all weekend. I wont go into the whole mess but to sum things up I was accused of twisting my children to believe what I believe. Apparently this is a bad thing to do.

This all started with a city project. City infrastructure problems have caused property damage through out my neighborhood. Our environmentally friendly administration offered a solution that did nothing to alleviate the infrastructure problem, but it was a really cool idea that would put Cuyahoga Falls on the map if successful. Nobody had ever done it this big before. In fact it was so innovative that the City administration suggested they would do these projects all over the city.

Unbeknownst to me the City had a poster contest for my child’s class. I was not aware of the contest or that my son had entered a poster until the Grand Opening was over with and I picked him up from school later that day and after seeing a few of his friends receive awards, asked him about it. He described his poster as he saw the project with his own eyes; after all it happened directly across the street from us. For months he saw standing water, smelled the stink of the manure and mulch, and heard his parents concerns and questions. So yes I suppose his rendering was what he knew. The city saw it as mockery to them, and told me so. I suppose I should have taught my kids to blindly follow and never question.

Even though the project is a disaster and did nothing to solve the infrastructure problem, according to the letter I received, I should teach my children to place trust in the people spending your tax dollars but never question how they spend them, or what they spend them on. Heaven forbid you have a voice in where your money goes. Sound familiar?

I almost felt as if the letter writer felt she was somehow smarter than us peasants. What could I possibly know about the problem? I only live it. Three quarters of a million dollars spent on this project and none of it on the infrastructure problem. This project has turned into exactly what Madam Kellie predicted it would be two years ago. A stinky mosquito hatchery. But I somehow did my kids’ wrong by trying to convince the city that this project was not the solution to the neighborhood problem. Trying to convince them before they spent our tax money on a fashionable “green” solution.

I’m proud of my son for coloring his poster in the fashion he did. It wasn’t ugly or a mockery. It was a pond with frogs, bugs and sunshine. I’m glad he didn’t conform and color a picture of what he was told it should look like. I’m not raising a sheeple.