Ocean Park Elementary School

…but I don’t think I saw the words “kids” or “learning” or even “students” or “education” when I read that front page article in today’s Observer, Citizen group endorses $90M+ school bond.  The entire report seemed to be about public dollars and interest rates and efficiency and what-will-happen-to-the-dear-old-Ocean-Park-School-building.  Oh, yes.  And the clincher words: “tsunami” and “safety.”  But only in terms of parental concern.

Ocean Park School, 1936

So I guess the Facility Advisory Committee bought into the idea that the tsunami would definitely arrive here during school hours.  And that having their kids in a centralized location would cause parents less angst when it arrived.  Hmmm.

I think back to the years  that I taught in Hayward, California within a few miles of the Hayward Earthquake Fault, an offshoot of the better-known San Andreas Fault.  We had earthquake drills once a month, as I recall, but in the sixteen years I taught there, I do not remember a single earthquake making an appointment and arriving during school hours.  There were earthquakes, of course — just when least expected and totally unplanned for.  Sorta what a “disaster” is all about.

And… just how short are our memories, anyway?  Ocean Park School was closed from September 1972 until September 1981 and the District’s youngest children, K-3, all went to Hilltop School in Ilwaco.  It wasn’t for the tsunami back then, but it was for cost savings.

By 1976, however, O.P. parents realized that their Kindergarten kids were going and coming on the school bus for more minutes a day than their half-day Kindergarten class was in session.  For the next several years,  Margaret Staudenraus taught two Kindergarten classes a day at Ocean Park School — the only “T&K (teacher-and-kids) Act” in the entire school building which, by then, had become a Community Center.  FINALLY!  Someone had thought about the kids.  Or at least some of them.

I wonder what it will take this time?  And don’t get me started on all the research that says small, neighborhood schools are the best learning environment for students, especially for young students.  When it comes to elementary education, folks, bigger is not better and $$$$ savings do not equal excellent learning environments. Truly.