Are the parents of Nokesville crazy?

Linda Dimino
Published: March 14, 2008

As many know there’s a proposal to replace Nokesville Elementary School (420 students) with a new 850 student school. My children attend a school where the staff, parents and bus drivers know them by name. They’ve been in class sizes of 14 and 20 students.

There are families who have attended NES for as many as five generations. How many kids can say they were in the same classroom as their grandparent or great-grandparent? NES was awarded a School of Excellence with a 100 percent rating. It’s said that when teachers come to NES they retire from NES. 

We have fathers who dedicate their time to being our WATCHDOG for a day. In talking to friends and neighbors with children that have had or are attending larger schools, I hear the same thing: “Bigger is NOT better.” 

One neighbor had an experience where their children attended a small elementary school and then the boundary change occurred due to a new school. In less than 2 months at the new “bigger, better” school, they had had enough of anonymity and pleaded to be transferred back to their old “smaller” school. There is something to be said about the whole feel of a smaller school.

We are asked to send children as young as five-years-old to attend a school that is the size of a shopping mall. Would you let your young children walk the mall? How many parents, given the option between a large (850) or small (420) school, would jump at the chance to send their children to the small one? Yes, we have an old school. It needs repairs and upgrades, but whose house or office doesn’t. There is no argument that these repairs should be made immediately.

Given the choice between remaining in an old building for 420 students that needs some TLC and having a brand new school for 850 students where our children and teachers will be left as faces in a crowd, then, call me crazy, because I’ll choose a smaller school every time.

LINDA DIMINO

Nokesville