Bye-Bye Knot In My Back!

I didn't realize how much stress I had been under the last month or so until this morning when I lept out of bed with a skip to my step. (OK, maybe I rolled out of bed, but I did have a smile on my face).

Two Cape Cod towns have been struggling with the question of regionalizing their school systems for the past year and a half. Things really started to get heated in the past month when the regionalization study committee recommended regionalizing the two districts. Last night was a special town meeting vote.

Both sides of the question were passionate in their pleas. It is hard to envision your small town joining forces with a town that was at one time your arch rival. However, the reality of Cape Cod is that it is becoming smaller. It is expensive to live in other people's summer paradise. There are no big corporations on Cape Cod, so most year rounders are teachers, landscapers, fishermen/women, Realtors or retail/restaurant workers. Winters can be bleak financially and environmentally. That being said, Cape Cod is a great place to raise a family. It is nice to live in a community where you bump into someone you know in the grocery store every other aisle, not every other visit. How many people can say that they live in the same town as their parents, sister/brother in law, in laws, brother/sister in law and your sister's in laws?

So the vote on regionalization became personal. I dreaded going to the dump or the grocery store because inevitably I was going to run into someone who was going to bring up regionalization. I accept the fact that I am an elected official myself and it is my job to listen to the people of the town, but when people start sending you hate mail, you begin to wonder what you got yourself into.

The vote was closer in one town than the other which was expected. The Patriots helped us out by creaming the Jets, so when the score was broadcast at the meeting every touch down, I think, more people felt OK to be exercising their right to vote instead of wondering how the vote would turn out while they were sitting on their couch watching the game.

The goal now is to move together as one system and do whatever we can to give our children the best education possible. There are endless opportunities for these children and I am excited to watch my girls be a part of this change. There will be bumps along the way, but as long as we keep the goal of giving the students the best education and extra curricular choices, this new district will succeed!

And maybe now I can concentrate on my Christmas shopping....


Please do not take my italicized sarcastic comments as not caring, for I did and do care exponentially. For you new comers, I like to add humor (sarcastic or otherwise) to everything.