By GREG JORDAN
I have heard of civil disobedience, but is there such a thing as breaking and entry in the name of democracy?
That question came up Monday when I was writing a story about the recent school levy election in Mercer County. Despite a heavy snow that previous Saturday, the election went ahead as scheduled and most of the precincts opened except one, the one at the Matoaka Community Center. Apparently, nobody had a key to open it, and after waiting for several hours, the poll workers left.
Naturally, we wondered whether this would derail the levy election in any way. Would it have to be redone or could the canvass of the unofficial totals proceed as planned? How this will work out remains to be seen; meanwhile, the West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office said the vote’s canvas could proceed.
After the election, members of the public suggested that the election should have been rescheduled due to the weather. It seemed like everybody had an idea about what should have been done.
One of our photographers, Eric DiNovo, went to Matoaka and saw that the lock keeping the poll workers out was a padlock. His suggestion involved getting a pair of bolt cutters, cutting off the padlock and buying a new one to replace it.
Would breaking and entry in the name of democracy be allowed? I’m not sure. Finding an alternative location may have been a better option, but I’ve got to admit that getting a bolt cutter sounds pretty exciting. My literary hero Sherlock Holmes and his faithful companion Dr. Watson resorted to burglary more than once in order to achieve their goals, solve the case and catch the bad guys. Cutting a padlock so voters could cast their ballots shouldn’t be any different.
Then again, Holmes and Watson never got caught, and they were fictional. I’m not fictional and the consequences I’d face would be very real. One alternative possibility involved setting up the poll at another location in town. According to West Virginia Code 3-1A-6(e), this would have been allowed.
Of course, it should be pointed out that all the other precincts opened, plus it was the first time I can recall when a poll did not open. No matter how this works out, it can be a learning experience for everyone involved. Alternative locations could be found in case weather, flood, fire or some other unforeseen circumstance makes a polling place unavailable.
Still, I like the sound of breaking and entry in the name of democracy.
lll
Snow keeps closing schools, leaving school systems wondering how they can make up for the lost time. I don’t envy their job. When I was a teacher, snow days were welcomed by everyone in the school where I was working. It was a chance to catch up on sleep, and make sure one was extra ready when classes resumed.
A couple of snow days were fine. The problems began when they started cutting into state and federal mandated requirements. Throw in the regular pressure of getting kids who had missed class due to illness or suspension caught up in their studies, and you had a recipe for stress.
Such stress got worse when we had long stretches of days with no holidays, snow days or breaks of any kind. The teachers would get tired and the kids would get tired. Honestly, there would be days when everybody was just going through the motions; it’s not that the teachers or the students were not dedicated — they were just tired.
Having been a teacher, I have to question the idea of making school years longer just to keep the students in class longer. Unless that extra time is quality time, it’s not going to make a lot of difference.
I’d like to find out more about the year-round school concept. From what I understand, you get the same amount of class days and days off, but they’re distributed in a different fashion. You go to school for a couple of months — about seven or eight weeks — then you get a couple of weeks off that usually coincide with a holiday. Then you get about six weeks off during the summer. Students then don’t come out of the holiday season looking at a gulf of time that offers no breaks at all. You also don’t have weeks without end of unrelenting pressure to achieve; and that goes both for students and teachers.
Since each student learns in a different fashion, there likely isn’t going to be a solution that pleases everybody. A recent study indicated that many students dropped out of high school simply because they were bored and could not see how their lessons would have any positive impact on their lives. More days in school won’t make school more relevant for these students.
If a solution adjusting school calendars creates more days of school, then thought must go into how those days will be spent. New avenues should be explored for those students who won’t benefit from more class time.
And we should explore ways to make sure kids won’t miss the joy of watching snow fall and hearing that there won’t be any school tomorrow.
Greg Jordan is a reporter for the Daily Telegraph. Contact him at gjordan@bdtonline.com
