Dear Editor,
If you’re like me, you stayed up late on Tuesday night or got up early Wednesday morning last week to see the results of election day. You were probably either content or disappointed when you realized that the Dodgeville School District operating referendum failed to pass by 61 votes. Now, even though I supported the referendum personally, I’m not here to shame anyone who voted against it; those who did are perfectly entitled to their opinion, and expressed it with the poll results. This letter’s purpose is to give a message to everyone in the area: to both those who are feeling disheartened or are satisfied with the referendum’s failure. Whatever your stance was, for or against, I ask you to briefly consider the thoughts of a highschooler who lives in and cares about this community.
To begin, some words of warning. We’ve had two successful referendums over the years that I’ve been in school in Dodgeville. We built an auditorium and a gym, and remodeled the high school. Those were building related projects. But this referendum wasn’t like those. We weren’t trying to add new things or expand anything: this was purely to keep the Dodgeville School District running as normal. While operating referendums may ask for more money, they don’t do so for the sake of more things.
Because there have been several failed referendums recently, and the school has kept going, you might be of the opinion that things aren’t really that urgent, and surely we haven’t gotten to the point where it’s really necessary. Well, let me tell you that we are at that point. This referendum was to keep our school the same as it was. To keep the lights on, the heat running, and the teachers teaching. This is the point where we will start to not have money for the basics. Where the environment where our children spend seven plus hours a day starts to falter. This is a fact.
Because the referendum failed, the future is uncertain. The school will have to find ways to cope with its lack of funding, scraping by until the possibility of passing a new referendum. Looking at the number of referendums that have failed recently, it is easy to fall into a mindset of “What’s the point? They never work anyway!” Well, I’m here to remind you that the point is the same as it always was: to raise our kids well. And just because this referendum didn’t pass doesn’t mean that we’ve given up on that goal.
To those worried about the future, and disheartened by last week’s results: yes, the future is a scary place. We don’t know what will come tomorrow, or the next day or month or year. We can’t control the future, or fully prepare for it, no matter how hard we try. As a highschooler who can’t vote yet, it’s hard to watch people continually turn their backs on me and my freinds’ education.
But what we can do is keep fighting. Keep standing up and speaking out and holding on to hope no matter how futile it seems. Because hope burns in the darkest corners, and it must never be extinguished. But change rarely comes overnight, or by sitting on the couch and hoping that people have finally changed their minds. Change comes when hope becomes action; a refusal to stay silent and still. Change comes when defeat becomes resilience, when pain becomes determination, and when fear becomes courage. Change comes when a community is hit in the place it hurts most — it’s future, its children- – and that community stands up and looks defeat and pain and fear dead in the eye and has the courage and resilience and determination to know in its heart what needs to be done.
Because for hope to become change, it must be wielded by purpose. I’m here to remind everyone of our purpose: to give our children the best possible future. It is a purpose as old as humanity, as pure as family, and as powerful as love. And as long as that purpose is kept in mind, and hope is kept in heart, change will have no choice but to follow.
Felix Wieczorek
Junior at Dodgeville High School