{"id":1444,"date":"2011-10-04T16:23:03","date_gmt":"2011-10-04T20:23:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/perceptions-on-school-unification-clinton-beeland.html"},"modified":"2011-10-04T16:23:03","modified_gmt":"2011-10-04T20:23:03","slug":"perceptions-on-school-unification-clinton-beeland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/perceptions-on-school-unification-clinton-beeland.html","title":{"rendered":"Perceptions on School Unification —Clinton Beeland"},"content":{"rendered":"Well,\n\nI was wrong:<\/a>\nthere is<\/em> still somebody willing to try to link\nschool consolidation in Troup County with the Kia plant,\neven though\n\nthere’s no evidence there’s any connection and the mayor of the\ntown with the plant complains about the results of consolidation.<\/a>\nThe appended LTE appeared in the VDT the other day. -jsq\n
\n
\nPerception (from the Latin perceptio, percipio) is the process of\nattaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing\nand interpreting sensory information\n
\n– Wikipedia\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<\/a>\nI have sat on the sideline for a while on the issue of\nconsolidation. Perhaps I am still on the sideline since I am not going\nto tell you how to vote. Regardless of the decision on November 8th I\nwill continue to support education in one or two systems. In any event\nI feel compelled to at least provide some words for consideration.\nHere is my perspective from the sideline.\n

\nIt is very apparent that we have pride in our schools. Pride is both\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

\npowerful and destructive. In the Bible it is one of the deadly sins. We\nneed to set aside our pride and be humble as we make our decision and do\nwhat is best for our kids and our community when we vote – “Yes” or “No”.\n

\nIt takes a good bit of planning, time, and energy to effectively\nconsolidate anything, whether it is a school, hospital, or business. It\ntakes hard work. Consolidation of any entity rarely comes from within\nthe organization, but from the outside or the top – the leadership. In\nthis case from the citizens of Valdosta who happen to be Lowndes County\ncitizens. The length of time it takes to consolidate two entities varies\nand is complicated and takes due diligence to even establish a plan. We\nhave an opportunity to vote “Yes” or “No” and having a plan or not having\na plan should have no bearing. It will take time, leadership, hard work,\nthe community and coordination from both systems.\n

\n“Where is the Data?” A consistent echo in the community as if we are\nlooking for results for the future, I guess something like an economic\nforecast. In fact I have asked for it myself. It is a tough thing to\nproject the future as we can tell by our current economic condition. The\nreal answer is we don’t know what will occur. That goes for both\nconsolidation and for no consolidation. We will have to defer what will\nhappen to the future. What is true is Troup County got KIA Motors nearly\n15 years after consolidation. What will happen in Lowndes is up to us. We\nhave an opportunity to vote “Yes” or “No” and to build our future based\non that decision.\n

\nWhen I saw the shirts worn by many opponents of consolidation with the\nwords “United We Stand”, I could not help but to think of the other part:\n“Divided We Fall”. It gave me a moment of reflection and I began thinking\nin a broader sense. It is not about our two schools, though our pride\nwould say it is. It is not about our race, though our prejudices would\nsay it is. It is not about our state’s ranking in education, but our\ncompetitiveness would say it is. It is not about our nation, but our\npatriotism would say it is. It is about a few simple things. It is about\ncoming together as a community with a common focus. It is about helping\nour children to become the best educated they can be and establishing\na learning culture. It is about improving who we are and how we are\nperceived, locally, in the state, and in the world. Americans are a\nminority in this world and we will not receive a handout if we fall. That\ngoes equally for White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, and all Americans.\n

\nWe must come together with a focus to become the best. If you believe\nthis is best done in two schools then vote “No”. If in one then vote\n“Yes”. But no matter which way you vote, be sure you understand that to\nbecome the best will take hard work. Make sure your view of the future\nis who we want to be and the perception we want to project.\n

\nDoes that mean consolidation is our best interest or no consolidation is\nour best interest? And is this the right time to consolidate? I can’t\nanswer either of these with 100% certainty so again, I am not going to\ntell you to vote “Yes” or “No” on November 8th. But I will say this\nopportunity to decide is rare and will not come about often and that\nthe hard work required is part of any equation. And, I do know that our\nperception is our reality whether we accept it or not. We will decide\nhow we are perceived today and in the future, plan or no plan, data or\nno data, focus or no focus, with pride or humility.\n<\/blockquote>\nHm, he doesn’t want to say whether you should vote yes or no.\nWhat does that remind me of?\n\n<\/a>\nAh, yes,\n\nJeana Beeland explaining why she was going to vote against\nthe Valdosta School Board’s statement opposing consolidation.<\/a>\nAs I said to her afterwards, I don’t know whether that was brave\nor foolhardy, but I did want to compliment her on saying what she meant\nand being willing to actually put her vote where her mouth was.\nShe didn’t pretend to be on the sideline.\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Well, I was wrong: there is still somebody willing to try to link school consolidation in Troup County with the Kia plant, even though there’s no evidence there’s any connection and the mayor of the town with the plant complains about the results of consolidation. The appended LTE appeared in the VDT the other day. […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,40,1376,14,15,49,3305,2,19,21,22,1106,3666],"tags":[3122,1636,8701,3709,3710,7,3669,1635,6],"class_list":["post-1444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-community","category-cuee","category-economy","category-education","category-elections","category-fvcs","category-government","category-history","category-planning","category-politics","category-vboe","category-vboe-29-august-2011","tag-clinton-beeland","tag-consolidation","tag-georgia","tag-jeana-beeland","tag-kia","tag-lowndes-county","tag-troup-county","tag-unification","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-ni","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1444\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}