By JoEllen Kimball, Clerk, Board of Education
I have been planning a topic for this column off and on since writing last year about school start times. Recently several topics have been stuck in my mind. One is the welcoming issue from the school’s point of view. While it appears complicated to the City of Hutchinson, it is policy for Hutchinson Public Schools. We welcome all students and their families. Diversity of people, ideas, and activities makes each school an exciting, challenging place to be.
Because it is February, I thought about the topic of kindness. This topic is quite simple. Be kind to everyone, all the time. That is not quite long enough for this column so I remembered what my High School English teacher told me when I was struggling to find a topic. She said to write about what you know about.
I know about the joy of being a grandparent.
We get to attend their games, meets, matches, concerts, and plays. We get to volunteer in their classrooms and eat in their lunchrooms. We contribute to their fundraisers and make donations in their honor when we can. Occasionally we get to care for them when they are ill or when school is not in session. We get to feed them and see them safely to school or to the bus stop. We get to hear their concerns about fair and unfair perceptions, about too much homework, or about the relevance school has to their busy lives. We are honored by each interaction and our hearts swell with love and pride.
Thank you if you are still reading this because I would like you to do one thing. Go back and reread the last paragraph as a person without grandchildren, who cares about the children of Hutchinson. Read it as if your grandchildren are too far away to allow you to be active in their lives.
These activities and many others can happen with neighbor children, children from your church, or your friends’ children. They can also be done with and for children you have never met and for families you do not know.
Here are a couple suggestions to help you begin. Go to the school district website and find a list of upcoming events. Choose one that interests you and attend it. Find an organization that helps children such as United Way or Common Cup and donate to one of their causes. Read stories, articles, and editorials about our children and make a plan to help.
Be brave and go to a school office, buy a lunch ticket, and eat with some students. Come up with an idea of your own of how you could share one of your hobbies or passions with Hutchinson youth.
There are lots of quotes about the joys and importance of grandparents. Here is one written by Jay Kesler:
“Young people need something stable to hang onto- a culture connection, a sense of their own past, a hope for their own future. Most of all they need what grandparents can give them.”
