Get involved with schools

To the editor:

As I sat at the school board meeting Feb. 20, I was quite surprised by the low numbers in attendance.

The board is hearing reports that show Jay School Corporation is in very bad financial shape. They are hearing that we need to save money, and closing Pennville Elementary seems to be the first step. That’s right, the first step.

As a community member of Pennville, and an employee at Pennville Elementary, this is not something I want to see happen. This town has been my home for 50 years, and the school has been my employer for 32 years. There have been many changes since I was a 10-year-old child. One thing that has not changed is the support and caring I have felt from this community in educational endeavors.

The closing of our school will destroy our community. Our children will attend several different schools, no longer feeling a part of the family of our school. They will not see each other, play together or learn together again until middle school. This concerns me greatly.

In today’s society, every child needs to feel that they belong to a community, a community in which they live. Our town will suffer from the lack of traffic that a school in our town provides. We will no longer be one family, but we will survive because the citizens of Pennville hold each other up.

In closing, I would like to inform other communities in Jay County that you need to be involved with the school corporation. Many changes are coming.

Right now, we are only looking at the closing of one school, the devastation of one town losing it’s school. More will come. No one will be exempt.

Don’t think that your school and community are safe. It is my hope that no other school in Jay County will be on edge for years with fears of closing at any time, as Pennville has been.

Save our schools and save our communities. Contact our school board members.

Respectfully,

Brenda Cash

Pennville