Grow Where You Are Planted...

Grow Where You Are Planted…Slice of Life 5 of 31

Tonight my blog post wasn’t going to be about this but sometimes life just stops you in your tracks and you have to take in a deep breath or you’ll just drop to the ground…

Unfortunately, our local school board (the landscaping pruners) officially voted this evening to close(cut) three elementary buildings in our family of schools. One of the buildings is where I am currently working as a literacy coach (gardener of literacy lives). This is being done as a cost “cutting” measure so that we can “right size” our district with declining student enrollment, funding cuts by the state and sky-rocketing utility bills (eliminating unnecessary and ornamental trees). This really makes me sad, for despite our “roughed up bark” on our school family tree, it’s still part of our roots. Knowing that the branches of the family tree will be permanently pruned makes me feel a little defeated, frustrated, angered…

And then I started thinking more like a gardener (like Mrs. Spitzer or Miss Rumphius)…wondering to myself about all of the work that’s begun for our little sprouts, our seedlings and saplings. All of this work will not have been done in vain. This careful cultivation, watering and tilling of our plant life will continue to flower and be grafted with new family trees taking with them all of the learning, loving and caring that made them who they now are by all of the gardeners with whom I work. These vibrant young plants will continue to develop where they land…and maybe, just maybe, I will still have the privilege of being their gardener once more and help them grow where they are planted.