I’m not going to lie, I really wasn't brought as a flag-waving patriotic guy. My parents believed in this country, my mom is still alive and still believes in this country. But I'm not someone who wears patriotism on my sleeve like a badge or anything.
 
I’m don't stand behind a flag thinking doing so protects me or the even the meanings behind the words that mean something. I just try to live by what the words mean.
 
The founding fathers had a lot of faults, however, the one thing that they wrote down for perhaps the first time in the history of humankind was that all are created equal.
 
​I know they wrote "all men are created equal," but the true nature of what they were trying to establish was that all of humankind is equal. I could go into a very long diatribe about why they couldn't get this simple wording right, but I won't here. The truth is they meant that this country will strive for the notion that all of humankind is equal. We're advanced enough today to understand that that is what they should've meant.
 
We are, right?
 
That said, I’ve gone on a tangent I know (and I deleted much of my rant), but I’m what I'm trying to get out here is a frustration for why we cannot figure some things out for everyone.
 
The folks running the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association are saddled with an incredible amount of responsibility to coordinate the district and state finals. I wanna make sure it’s clear that I understand the difficulties of that and what these good folks are dealing with.
 
​Maybe I'm wrong but I don't remember games years ago scheduled for the morning of Memorial Day? If they were I perhaps was working for a staff where we had multiple people to both cover the sporting event and the Memorial Day festivities. But mostly I remember being able to get to both. It wasn't easy, but it was doable.
 
It literally pains me to have to make a decision to cover one thing over the other.
 
I truly believe in my heart of hearts that I should be covering Memorial Day observances. The folks who believe in honoring those who have left this planet and who served this idea we call America deserve our moment of recognition. Yes they are the same folks every year and yes I have covered them year after year. But these are folks I've grown to respect and admire for what they do.They sometimes only do these ceremonies alone without fanfare or even being acknowledged.

In comparison to many things, very few people attend the observances. Yes there will be people along the parade route, but a lot of participants toss out candy to incentivize participation. So are the lessons learned that of taking a moment to observe? Hard to say.
 
I also believe, and this is important, that these young people people playing these sports live in a country that affords them to live their best life. This was given to them, all of us really by those who sacrificed for or stood up for our ideal.
 
I believe that alone is a reason to insure their memories are given our full measure of devotion. Without living our best life why on earth would we stand up for a handful of words written nearly 250 years ago.

I am going to take a few moments out of my day to reflect and give thanks for the life that I live in this country that I believe has the right motivation and eventually will get more and more of these ideals right.  I might be standing on the first base side of a softball game or cruising down I-79 to get to another game, but I will be thinking about my dad and those friends I have in Meadville and Franklin who will put aside their lives for a moment to help us remember to reflect on what freedom costs. Like worship, we don't need to be at a ritual to give thanks.
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​And I will go cover the girls softball game and then a boys baseball game because that truly is the life we are trying to uphold. 
I hope the PIAA does something to fix this in the future. Parents and grandparents shouldn't have to choose between their feelings of duty to country and watching their future generation living their best life.

On the bright side, our May 16 board meeting was well attended by people who gave the board valuable advice on how to look at things moving forward. This is two months in a row we've had misinformation sharing as the reason our meeting was well attended. Typically, there is no one in the audience. 
 
Recently the communication between the administrators and board members has improved dramatically. This was done through face-to-face conversations and open sharing of information. How can we do this between parents and the school? 
 
The hiring of a new superintendent brings with it hope that things will improve in that area as well.

Come to the meetings. Send an email. Give feedback. Ask questions.
​Don’t wait for the panic of social media misinformation to push you to get involved. 
 
Let’s all get back to talking and having open communication lines. ​

Sabrina Backer, President - [email protected]
Andy Boland, Vice-President - [email protected]
Erin Leccia - [email protected]
Tracey Leyda - [email protected]
Misty Nalepa - [email protected]
Donald Judy - [email protected]
Ronald Richburg - [email protected]
Alesha Hartsfield - [email protected]
Ben Andrews - [email protected]
Jennifer Gornall, Solicitor, Knox McLaughlin Gornall & Sennett, P.C. - [email protected]

Ms. Kimberly Eaton, Board Secretary/Business Manager -[email protected]

​I'm done, I'm done talking about this with endless babble of the same babble that was the babble one, five, ten, twenty, fifty and so on years ago.

Babble, babble, babble.

Public safety is expensive, yet we don't want proactive social programs because people mislabel them socialism. Babble.

We think taxes are too high yet we want schools to to do things that cost money. Babble.

Regulate guns, Babble.

​I  have the right to bear arms. Babble.

Stop the endless babble.

Yes, I'm talking to you on social media. Yes, I'm talking to you politicians. Yes, I'm talking to you TV station journalists and newspaper gotcha sensationalism types.

​What are the outside-the-box solutions? Let's talk about those. Seriously, what are they?

Don't give the "give guns to teachers" crap. I know several teachers past and present that shouldn't be within a 100 miles of a trigger. And those are the types who would be first in line to sign up. Get me drunk and I'll name names and beg you to change my mind on this.

It is costly to put in metal detectors. Metal detectors become cumbersome. Security guards cost money and generally speaking are needed to help facilitate metal detector protocols and so on. And having security officers simply there to mostly sit at a desk all day reading a magazine seems a waste of time, money and opportunity.

Folks scream "it's not the guns, we have a mental heath issue!" OK.  So we need more mental heath providers paid for out of taxes? Agreed, so we can raise taxes then right? And are you going to listen or think more of your rights are being infringed upon when you're deemed not stable enough to own a gun. This country is loaded with lawsuits on this very topic.

That brings us to gun bans and/or regulations. What do you do with the millions of guns out there already? Regulate ammunition? That could be a long-term solution, but certainly not an immediate one. Again, what is already out there stockpiled?

We circle the bowl after a series of gun tragedies and it never completely flushes, but we walk away from the stall and make it the next guy's problem. Then it's gone from our cares until we hit Taco Tuesday and the discomfort sets back into our gut.
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​Maybe we shouldn't always wait until we have a mess to get serious about fixing the problem?

The lobby for the right to bear arms folks is willing to spend billions to protect gun ownership rights.

Billions.

(Imagine if billions were spent on education and  protective measures?)

​So if the lobby is strong and has that pesky piece of legislation called the Bill of Rights backing up their arguments each and every time, why put our energy there? It's been like running up against a brick wall for decades and those trying to breach it can't even find a way to work together to scale the damn thing.

Maybe it's time to go around it?

Maybe it's time to realize the wall isn't even scaleable or takes too much energy to try to penetrate or circumvent?

We do not want a police state either, so... let's consider this as a starting point for a discussion. Warning, if you start babbling incoherently, I'll likely just figure you're a wall not worth scaling.
 
Public schools are state government agencies with weird little twists like school boards made up of citizen "watchdogs." They are also predicated to follow federal education standards. So if they are government entities can we think more about other government resources that are elsewhere in our communities to combine and use the space of schools as offices?

​For example, can local and state police have satellite offices with two or three officers running their shifts out of the school? Their office is actually in the school and one officer is always present.

How about local national guard facilities, do we need a separate facility and grounds for them? what if active national guard units go with smaller details and they train at schools using the grounds to work out and drill? They could also be on hand to help educate kids on the military and if trained correctly maybe other areas.

Why have a counseling center in their own building? Can human services be split up so that their juvenile counselors and advocates have offices in schools too?

The pandemic showed us the possibilities of how teams can work from independent locations instead of always having to be in the office together.
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So why can't we take school campuses and rethink them? Don’t just bring the resources to the school occasionally, but station them there.
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I'm sure there are countless other solutions. But we can’t find any of them until we cut through the babble. The only thing that is guaranteed to fail is doing nothing. We have proved that over and over again.
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It’s time to stop the yelling, eliminate the babble and genuinely do something more than talk.

Enough is enough!