I love spring.  It is that season that reminds us what optimism looks like.  It is the battered, ice-damage tree pulling itself together, sprouting new shoots and leaves, despite winter’s best efforts to bring it down.  It is a town, pulling itself together, rising up in common cause to preserve excellence.  It is springtime in Marion. 

Some remarkable things are happening this spring.  At least two of my neighbors, who voted against the last Marion City School levy, are now ardent advocates of increased local school funding.  After some discussion, they have decided that the high quality inherent in this city’s schools is worth preserving, even if it costs a few dollars more per day.  They understand it is their town, their property values, the quality of their community that is at stake.  And they’re not alone.  Watching the enthusiasm build for this campaign has been almost magical.  The first levy meeting was attended by about 20 volunteers.  The next filled half of Harding’s cafetorium.  And nearly 300 were at the most recent meeting.  I am ever more confident that momentum will translate into success for the school levies on the ballot this spring.

As a community, we are experiencing an epiphany.  One by one, it seems to me, the realization is sinking in that Community, with a capital C, is important and worth preserving—that good schools are an essential element in that preservation.  Some evidence:  To date, money raised for this levy campaign is at least four times the amount raised for any previous City Schools campaign.  A thousand yard signs have been requested and are in place around the city—three and a half times the number ever placed before.  Hundreds of students, parents, teachers, and volunteers are planning a parade and rally Wednesday, April 27th to support their schools.  The parade steps out at 5:00 PM from the Marion City Schools Administration Building at 910 East Church Street, headed for City Hall, where bands will play, singers will sing, and young people will demonstrate the quality education they’ve received in Marion.

Standout kids like sophomore Kevin Hardy, senior Glendale Lim, first grader Samantha Werley and dozens more are volunteering their time, attending levy meetings and going door to door to tell their stories, putting a real face on the crisis confronting education in this community.  In one sense, it is a shame that our kids must be burdened with worries about whether they’ll be able to take the courses they need next year.  On the other hand, it is an inspiration to see them engaged in the fight for their future.  In that sense, it is they, our kids and students, who are teaching us, the “adults” of this community. 

We value those things we’ve had to fight for.  So, perhaps the up side to this fight for our schools is that as students, parents, and teachers—as a community--we will value education to a greater degree than we might have previously.  As other Americans fight for freedom in far off lands, our fight is here. 
 
Our enemy is apathy and decline.  Our mission, too, is freedom--the freedom that quality education brings to individuals and to a community.

In this campaign, we’re witnessing a coming together of young and old, Republican and Democrat, black and white, north, south, east and west sides of our town into one common cause.  It is that rare occasion that transcends culture and class.  In this process of contemplating our future through the lens of our schools, we are, I think—I hope—uniting as one community.  

Hope springs eternal.  In Marion, this is a spring of hope.