Community is key, and I wouldn't want it any other way. by Madeline

Community is key, and I wouldn't want it any other way. by Madeline - July 2018 Scholarship Essay

I’m going to start out by saying that my school doesn’t have anything like the student body council. Well, we do have a Leadership club that plans school events and fundraisers, but anyway, I know that’s not the main focus of the question. What you really want to know, is how I would change my school for the better if given the chance and authority to do so.

Well, at the moment, my school is at a turning point, a very painful turning point; We’re a charter school, so all the students are homeschooled and get their curriculum through the school. They also come once or twice a week to optional enrichment and core classes, meant to help with their grades or provide electives. But these classes might not last. My charter has multiple locations, and the one my brothers and I go to is slowly being fazed out; it’s disappearing right before our eyes. Teachers are being let go, the regional manager (our equivalent of a principal) has been “promoted” to a position where she has no contact with us anymore, and the weekly classes are not allowed to run. I’m afraid that soon it will all be gone.

This school has been a wonderful, amazing, perfect place for me: When I first arrived I was shy, quiet, and unable to speak in front of any size of crowd, compare that to last semester when I was a lead character in the school play, and I relished every minute of it. When I first arrived I didn’t have any friends. Anywhere. Now, I know everyone in the school. Granted, it’s a small school (only about 100+ students at our location), but the amount doesn’t matter. Everyone’s genuine, everyone’s kind, and everyone, student, and teacher alike is a dear friend. In the five years I’ve been there, my school has hardly ever felt like a school, it’s always felt more like a home: everyone so eager to grow, and do, and learn, and care. Always so happy to see you no matter how long you’ve been there, whether you arrived last week or you’ve been there your whole life, everyone is always welcome.

But now none of us may be seen in the same place together ever again. Our little community is breaking apart in the course of one summer. And so if I had the authority, and the chance to do anything, conceivably, I would keep us together. I would organize a day or two a week, every week, all year round, when we could all meet. All the teachers, all the students, all the parents, everyone who has come to love our little school. There would be workshops that the former teachers and the parents could run. The kids would participate, learn, and create together. And everyone would stay together. No one left out, no one left behind; Not the friends who make me laugh, and feel more like family than anything else, not the teachers who have helped me to grow academically and personally, not the parents who have volunteered so much of their time to help with school functions and fundraisers, not a single person. All I want is a community that will support and care for each other for as long as it can. And If I could, that’s what I would ensure. That is the one way that could possibly hope, and want, to impact my beloved school.