Why Ogilvie Matters and the Demise of Small School America
by A look into why small schools and their towns are eliminated and why we should care if they do. When accountability and budgets are only paper documents its these documents that can destroy a community.
A levy is an object of strength to support a community in time of need. Maybe you have passed Ogilvie on your way up to Mille Lacs Lake on Highway 47. Maybe you were heading to the North Shore and went through on Highway 23. Maybe when you go through next time you will remember reading this and wonder what happened to Ogilvie. With this election this levy was to get a grade of pass or fail. In education this can mean you might have to take the class over again or worse…take that grade over again. A fail, which this election produced, caused an even greater failing mark…an incomplete. The town’s evolution will forever be stopped in its tracks, like the trains that grew this community and later dismantled it, as its inhabitants couldn’t afford to give this town and school a passing grade and allow it to continue on with its path on history. The levy broke and the flood has begun to breach its banks and with it take a town into obscurity. Ogilvie matters because it can be your town next. It can happen to your child, relative, or loved one. It can happen because the state allows it to happen. We have the power to make sure it stops here. Ogilvie matters because it can be the start of the end of watching this happen every year here in Minnesota and across the country. The only school closings you should ever hear about are the ones that come after another Minnesota Blizzard. Ogilvie matters because our children should never be an afterthought in budget cuts. Is the phrase, “Our children are our future,” just that? Is it an empty statement by politicians to get elected? I believe children; my daughter, your sons and daughters, every child across Minnesota and our great nation ARE our future. I don’t want to believe that this is an empty promise. I don’t want to believe this as a false hope. I won’t accept it! I am my father and mother’s future as they were to their parents and my daughter is to mine. It’s a legacy that we pass down with every generation that is offered something better than what we were offered with the changing environment. This legacy…This future…and these promises we make are why Ogilvie matters.
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