Open letter to Athens voters
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
To the Editor: We have an important issue to vote on in our school district this November. I know the dollar amounts seem staggering: $900,000 and $1.67 million. I also know for many district residents having a tax bill increase is just one more financial burden on top of an already strained budget.
But I also know, first hand, the downfall a no vote will have on the children of our school district, not to mention what it will do to the small village of Athens.
I grew up along the shores of Lake Superior. I attended public schools, starting in kindergarten at Ondossagon Public School. Ondossagon was a school district of rural kids. There was not a city or village within the school district. Just townships full of farms. We were the Aggies. Our mascot was a big bright blue bull. I still remember the words to our school song. I was an Ondossagon Aggie, through and through. I was surrounded by peers with a similar background, similar beliefs and lifestyle. We were farm kids. We were the Aggies.
During my late elementary school career the school needed funds, the buildings needed repairs and we were out of space. The school board went to referendum to try to raise the funds needed to keep the district afloat and address the needs of the students and build an elementary, or add on to the existing building.
It failed.
The taxpayers didn’t want to spend the money to build an elementary school. They thought we had more time.
We didn’t. The school district closed after the 1989-90 school year. We didn’t consolidate. Ondossagon dissolved. School district lines were redrawn and we were split up amongst three neighboring school districts: Ashland, Drummond and Washburn. I went to the latter where my family was one of two families living on working family farms, but that’s a story for another day.
Fun fact - and I was amazed to learn this isn’t common knowledge amongst land-owning, tax-paying in* dividuals - you will still pay school taxes even if the School District of Athens ceases to exist. Your land will become a part of a different school district.
I cannot stress enough how difficult the closure of Ondossagon Public School was for us as students. As a child, your job is to learn, to be a student and to prepare yourself for life as an adult and to be a contributing member of society. Your identity is your school. As children you don’t even recognize that. I didn’t. But I can tell you when that identity was torn away from me, and my peers, we felt it. It hurt. We felt alone. We felt unseen. We didn’t feel understood and we were facing a new school where we’d have new teachers, new classmates, and a lack of understanding for our lifestyle. And we were certainly seen as the outsiders. And not everyone welcomed us with open arms. We were also reminded that we weren’t wanted in their school See LETTERS/ page 15 I am not from Athens. I don’t identify as a Bluejay. But my children do. Their school is their identity. Athens is the identity of those children that walk through those doors each and every day to learn and prepare themselves to become functioning and contributing members of society.
Looking back as an adult I can now recognize how the loss of my school affected me. And yes, it was that loss of identity that, at the time, I didn’t realize was the loss I was feeling. I don’t swell with pride at my alma mater (Washburn) the way I see my friends and neighbors here do for Athens. I didn’t grow to love my new school. I cannot sit here today and tell you I am a proud Castle Guard. I may have played on the Castle Guard court, and worn the Castle Guard jersey. I may have graduated with the Washburn High School class of 1998. But I am, and forever will be an Ondossagon Aggie. Now that I’ve shared the emotional side of the story. Let me dive into the financial side a bit. Remember how the taxpayers didn’t want to cough up the money to build a new elementary school? Well, they ended up doing it anyhow. Within a few short years, maybe five, all three of the schools (Ashland, Drummond and Washburn) built new elementary schools.
Also consider the bussing costs – do you think it will be cheaper to bus kids to further away schools than it is to bring them to Athens?
Which brings me to my last point for today, and this wasn’t the case when Ondossagon closed. The village of Athens: do you think the grocery store, restaurants, gas stations will remain unaffected if the school ceases to be in Athens? I can tell you I have spent more money at Athens IGA, Cenex and A& L Oil since school started this fall than I have in the past 10 years. Driving to town every day to pick my son up from practice made it convenient to stop to get milk at the gas station or a few groceries from IGA. Living 16 miles out of town, I typically don’t make a trip to Athens for these things and will instead grab them when I make my biweekly grocery run to Wausau. And I am one person.
I can’t tell you, fellow Athens taxpayer, what to do with your money. But I can tell you a failed referendum may save you some tax money for a year, maybe two, but it will cost the students of Athens so much more.
Kristen (Tetzner) Winter Town of Hamburg
