I’ve been actively involved in our school district for years and have never seen our morale as low as it is now. I’ve been wracking my brain what to do about it. On the one hand, my kids are learning by leaps and bounds. My 8-year-old was astonished last night when she realized that she had lost herself in a book and finished hundreds of pages in one sitting. Last June my older daughter, who is 11, gave a speech to her schoolmates in which she said into a microphone, “I have loved all my teachers here at this amazing school. This has been the best school year of my life.” I am grateful for the thousands of hours of well-directed energy and personal care that everyone from the principals to the teachers to the bus drivers and janitors put in to allow such growth and confidence in the world to bloom.

On the other hand, I have been saddened to see two outstanding educators leave our district for jobs in a neighboring town. How can we stand by and let extraordinary teaching talent go? Our high school is overcrowded and outdated (and in some rooms barely heated). Eighteen percent of the entering freshman class chose to go to school somewhere other than Freeport High School. I have lamented for years that the community pride we have could be stronger, brighter and more cohesive, if our school leadership didn’t shrug off the exodus of talented students and teachers as if nothing could be done about it. Because we can do something about it. It just takes people in leadership positions who will.

If you want excellent schools in your district like I do, here is what I propose we do: Elect and hire a leadership team (school board members and superintendent) that is unafraid to identify clearly what the sources of the problems are, generate a clear strategy for fixing them, communicate it well, and inspire the community to create excellence together. Elect a leadership team who has the stamina to see the district through to the day when our school system is so great that no one would ever want to leave.

This Nov. 4th, Freeport voters will have the chance to do that. They can vote for school board incumbents, Nelson Larkins and Beth Parker, or they can vote for new school board members: Charly Haversat Matheson and me, Lindsay Sterling.

Lindsay Sterling

Freeport