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Comment by jmpman | Hacker News Reader

My son is taking a woodworking class in high school. First week, he came home and I asked him what he was doing in his woodworking class… “Disassembling the library bookcases”. “Why???” “Because they’re getting rid of the library”.

Apparently the school board decided to save money by cutting the librarian, and then decided to just move the books out of the school library and into the “nearby” public library.

In reality, there were 95 books in the school library which were being questioned by some parents. Instead of removing just those books, and being accused of book banning, they just removed the entire library. For all intents and purposes, it was a book burning.

Yet the football team is fully funded, and the baseball diamond is kept up.

This society has priorities which aren’t education.

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Ugh, I was born in 68 and I always advocate for doing some research in libraries. The important factor is the serendipity of finding random stuff as you walk around and the narrowed part when you get to your target's area on the shelves and seeing other volumes in the same subject area.

I'm much younger than you, but I had the experience of having a difficult-to-find-info-on-the-internet subject for a high school paper, and the opporunity to researching the subject at a well stocked library. There was a lot of friction to the process that I wasn't used to, but the serendipity aspect was absolutely revelatory. There is something fundamentally unfiltered about walking past shelves of books with titles on subjects you never even knew existed.

Wow, I spent 90% of my free time as a kid in the school library. Reading this hurts. At least they are protecting them from using their brain

+1. Libraries are about more than just lending out books.

I got shunted into remedial reading in the 1st grade because I had a visible disability. I was there for about a week before the teacher noticed I was bored to tears. Bless her, she had me tested. Turns out I was reading at a 4th grade level, so I immediately got taken out of that class and put into the 'gifted' class.

That class was the best kind of unstructured. We had a new teacher with little experience, but she just turned us lose on the school library and let us read whatever and then talk about it in class. I *ADORED* that class. It was getting an hour a day to basically do what I wanted to be doing anyway.

Here in North Texas, school districts drop tens of millions on artificial turf for junior high and high school football fields. Some even run bond elections to build stadiums and training facilities that would make an NFL team jealous. Meanwhile, academics sit dead last on the priority list—kids are walking across the stage barely able to read or write. Honestly, if AI came in and torched the whole education system, it might be an upgrade. Hard to do worse than the geniuses running things now, who seem to think Friday night lights are more important than literacy.

It's very sad... I went to schools in Arlington that were quite good when I attended in the 70s and 80s. Our high school routinely ranked high on the academic achievement ratings (% of students going to college, average SAT score, etc.) _AND_ we routinely sent our high school football team to district and state competitions. Our soccer team was undefeated for years.

I've often thought it would be a good idea to separate academics from athletics. Have a "school district" that runs the schools in a building next to the football field run by the "athletic district." I think both are important, but you're right, North Texas public schools have fallen quite far from the academic standards they used to hold.

> I've often thought it would be a good idea to separate academics from athletics. Have a "school district" that runs the schools in a building next to the football field run by the "athletic district." I think both are important, but you're right, North Texas public schools have fallen quite far from the academic standards they used to hold.

It’s my understanding this is what they do in much of Europe.

Are federal public schools a bad idea then? Wonder how much of this kind of thing would be unlocked without their interference. Presumably the bottom would also get a lot lower though

I presume if AI does come in, it won't be replacing those "geniuses running things now". They'll be fine; it's all the teachers who will be replaced. They're expensive, and all that money can go towards more sports!

If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance.

The cost of ignorance won't be felt for at least a decade or two, and by then it will be somebody else problem. Or at least that is what the people making the decisions are hoping.

I really want to down-vote this for being overly snarky. But... I can't argue with the underlying logic, so +1.

Bread and circuses seem to be the most important things.

People keep talking about education cost. By and large, this isn't a cost issue. The lowest performing schools get the most funding per student, and while school boards and teacher's unions always are going to advocate for more money spent on education, spending in the US isn't low objectively or based on per-pupil averages elsewhere.

The issue is who is ultimately in charge of students and who is responsible for raising them (which should be the same thing, but doesn't have to be), making this ultimately a control issue.

Certain people want to use the school system to raise children based on their own moral system because they could be learning the "wrong" thing at home, and other people want the schools to defer to parents' wishes. Most people want their kid to get a good education and otherwise be left alone by teachers and administrators, but that group gets very little attention.

At the end of the day, parents are legally responsible for their children, and unless that is changed, schools play an important but secondary role in caring for and raising them. Until that is widely accepted or changed, conflict will continue.

I think it's mostly that too much is spent on administration and middle-management type roles both in public schools and higher education. They're IMO largely a less than useful drain on funding that could be better spent elsewhere. At least as far as budgeting is concerned.

I have completely separate views on how kids are being raised and educated and how things have changed just in my half century on this planet.

I taught in the Japanese school system for 2 years. Very low funding, but actually the opposite of your example. Teachers had a high level of respect and ability to act in the child's life.

Also almost every kid had club activities in and in class all day long. Primary goal is to drill in discipline and conformity over education to be honest.

The ironic bit here is the local high school where I live in the Pacific North-West doesn't have a copy of Homo Ludens (either in print or as an e-book for lending) which is sort of the Sine Qua Non text on the philosophy of sport (which would explain why having a Football Team is important.)

I tend to think sports is good for kids. Not football though. My kids in high school marching band so I'm at the games. It's stupid how many kids get hurt on any given Saturday and some will go on to have CTE

Yeah. I was the only kid in Texas who was vaguely interested in athletics but completely uninterested in football. I mean... I was never insulted for playing baseball or soccer, but yeah, we need a better game than football as the go-to for Texas sports.

>we need a better game than football as the go-to for Texas sports.

Freestyle[0] FTW! Let's Jam!

[0] https://www.freestyle-frisbee.com/index.html

Why the downvotes?

Just because it doesn't require a cup or serious risk of CTE/TBI doesn't make freestyle bad, does it?

Sounds like a reasonable decision to me: let the schools teach and let the city/county maintain the library separately.

But disassembling the library bookcases is hardly an appropriate woodworking project.

I consider the 'freedom' felt in the library as a successful part of my growth in elementary and beyond, and I don't like moving that further away from the education environment--even though city/county libraries in my experience have been fantastic.

Having a library on location at a school is valuable. You can do research, you can discover new books, you can have a quiet place to study... I have loved every school library I've ever been in.

Any library is a nexus of knowledge and learning. They should be in schools.

The libraries in the schools I attended were primarily used to detain misbehaving students in quiet. The public library was much larger and was indeed worthwhile as a library per se. But our school libraries were small and poorly funded. That was fine: they still served a useful purpose.

It appears that today's school libraries and libraries in general have become a means for activist liberal political groups to introduce children to political/social ideas that, perhaps, those children are not yet prepared to deal with (YMMV). As a child I went to the public library for science and they had it in spades. Nowadays the science is still there but the librarians would rather you read something else.

My inclination is to de-fund any organization that pursues a political/social agenda by taking control of established institutions of government (schools, libraries, etc.). If necessary, I would de-fund the institution being abused.

Not to me! But then I think we should stop trying to think of K-12 education as a national issue because clearly there are regional differences and regional preferences. And I don't mean this as a red / blue thing-- there are places where the challenge is bilingual education and their are places where parents are uncomfortable with a non-christian education.

These challenges are more than a hundred years old! We have turned this into a national issue, made national standards and its not clear we are making that much progress. Many US states are effectively large countries. Why don't we let them decide what they want to do democratically. Whether you agree with it or not, it is what happens effectively. In the US you can move if you don't like where you live.

The woodworking teacher also doesn’t have much funding, and free furniture grade lumber is attractive. I completely understand why the woodworking teacher is doing it, and I have no problems with my son helping in that endeavor… besides the… getting rid of the library thing

Sounds like a town named Southlake.

The future needs serfs, not readers.

Perhaps, but the past also needed more serfs than readers. I don't think that is good, but maybe it is too idealistic to think you can create a nation of 330m critical thinkers. Not because it isn't possible, but because not everyone wants to approach life that way.

The past needed more serfs than readers until the Industrial Revolution, but once we got those going, all that machinery required skilled people to operate.

Did making things without machinery require fewer skilled people?

Depends on what you're making. Pre-industrial society was mostly concerned with growing food to feed itself. Things like say blacksmithing or advanced weaving certainly did require skilled professionals, but they were proportionally a tiny minority of a society consisting mostly of farmers.

This is probably an unpopular opinion, but is there still much purpose in a modern high school libraries except as a work/study space?

Elementary school libraries are important because kids can check out books at their reading level and you don't need a huge variety.

But in high school, when I wanted a book for research or recreational reading, 99% of the time my high school library wouldn't have it anyways. You had to go to the public library anyways for decent fiction, and the local college library for non-fiction you would need to cite.

I think it's important to preserve the high school library space for working and the computer access. But I'm just not sure how relevant the actual books are. Especially since public libraries now have e-books, so you don't even have to go there in person if it's inconvenient.

Should maintaining a collection of physical library books really still be the job of high schools, when public libraries will do it better and are open to everyone, not just high schoolers?

Convenient access is a huge deal. Students are at school every day whereas with public libraries they are limited to their parents' schedule. I know I was able to read nearly twice as much fiction as a teen because I could checkout a new book the same day I finished the previous one rather than waiting a week or so until we could go to the public library. Having the library is also useful for integrating into classes, for example my English classes would alternate between assigned books and reading a book of your choice, and we would make trips to the library during class time to be taught how to use libraries for research. Lastly, in rural areas the school libraries are often the only library.

Libraries are about more than lending books (or media). Start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library

Your patronizing comment is unhelpful. My high school library certainly didn't do anything but lend books and store some AV equipment, and provide a computer/study space, and I already referred to keeping the space for those other purposes.

If we wanted information or recommendations on books to read, that was definitely what our English teachers were for. The library wasn't helping with that.

Okay. You don't have to read about libraries if you don't want to. But you'll likely sound a bit more informed if you do. Your comment makes it sound like the only thing you think ALL libraries do is lend out media. Maybe you just had a crap library.

Learning about a library's complete range of services is a decent idea and I encourage you to do so. If you don't want to read about it on the Wikipedia, I encourage you to engage your local librarian. Just ask them what they do. They will be delighted someone took an interest.

Here are a few examples... In the 70s, our high-school librarian was the go-to person to ask about where to find specific types of information. Before the internet, I think most people didn't know how to look up raw data in the reference stacks. My high school librarian showed me where to find state and federal data and departmental reports. I learned what "semiotics" was by asking my Jr. High School librarian about how the library was structured. When I worked for the government, we had a departmental library whose librarian was much more like a research assistant. The Seattle Public Library maintains 3-d printers they let the public use. I mean... I would not have guessed that was a thing the library would do. (Though I didn't see them the last time I was there, so maybe they're not doing that anymore.)

My previous comment wasn't intended to be patronizing, but I guess I can't control how you interpret comments from other people. Feel free to think I'm a jerk... but please ask your local librarian what services their library offers.

I know about reference libraries, government libraries, etc. -- believe me. I use them professionally.

It sounds like you had an exceptional high school library. On the other hand, my high school "librarians" knew how to check books out and shelve them when they were returned and that was pretty much it. And this was one of the best high schools in the area, one of only two that had AP classes.

So my original comment was questioning the utility of book lending in high school libraries specifically. And specifically asking if the focus shouldn't be on public libraries instead, where they do have the funding to hire actual real librarians and put together book collections that are actually decent.

Your point would have been clearer if you said "But most high school libraries limit their services to circulation" instead of taking offense and down-voting. But I'm happy you're currently familiar with your library's services.

I'm not one of the people downvoting you. HN doesn't even let you downvote replies to your own comment.

And I guess I didn't find it necessary to say most high school libraries limit their services that way because I think it's common experience? But I'm very happy for students who were lucky enough to get more. Still, like I said, English teachers were usually there if you wanted fiction recommendations at least.

I got my first reading itch from my school library. For most of my childhood the fiction I read (and I read a LOT) was from my school library.

It’s a place for students to get exposed to a wider range of material than they otherwise would have.

Wish I could say we were moving in the right direction, but it's going to be getting worse for the foreseeable future. What part of the country is this?

> there were 95 books in the school library which were being questioned by some parents. Instead of removing just those books, and being accused of book banning

Would those parents really have support in your community if they were named and shamed?

In my community, those parents occasionally get elected to the school board.

Those parents genuinely believe the presence of certain books in school is harming children, they are unlikely to throw in the towel because someone runs a shame campaign against them for it.

That doesn't make the school caving on the topic any more forgivable, but we can't trivialize how difficult small but dedicated groups in a local community can make things either. The community typically only shows up to worry about it after a bad decision is imminent, the small group shows up 24/7/365 pushing the issue.

> Those parents genuinely believe the presence of certain books in school is harming children, they aren't looking for community support

I'm not saying their feelings aren't sincerely held. My point is they need community support to ban books in a public school.

They just need the school board to cave to the constant annoyance. The community only shows up when the bad decision is imminent (or, often, has already passed) because they cannot treat this issue as their only #1 priority, as a small group can.

What the school board did here is sneak out of the battle, which would continue long after community says "no" once.

> community only shows up when the bad decision is imminent

That's where naming and shaming comes in. In a small community, there is a long-term cost to trying to game inattention.

I dunno I agree, it's at least not been my experience with these types of parents over 10 years in my local meetings. Again - if you genuinely think children are being harmed in your community you're unlikely to care Jim from down the road doesn't let you borrow his tractor anymore (or whatever).

Maybe it's not something that can be said for every community, but the same point would apply here in reverse.

That mechanism usually goes the other way in these escalations - all it takes is one of the school librarians being a stubborn ideologue, not stocking classical literature (effectively censoring) and filling shelves with anti-capitalist pop lit and low-brow Tumblr graphic novels with obscene sexual depictions. It reaches the point where it's obvious to anyone walking into the library, replete with colorful signage on frontal shelves dedicated to narrow progressive fads. The kids post about it or check it out, parents notice. The librarian is named and shamed. Then, sadly, the library overall loses support in addition to the librarian.

The root cause is unfortunately lost in the ensuing battle between library-defending parents and library-critiquing parents, but the ultimate fault in this situation lies in the needless and self-destructive politicization of librarian training and the lack of standards for younger librarians. They seem to lack the common sense that loud politicking is not exactly befitting of a library, nor beneficial for their ulterior motive of gradual ideological persuasion. Another sad case of politicking and safe-space-signaling ideation being prioritized over preserving institutions and professional integrity.

This feels like a comment from a person not from the USA. Where my wife grew up there are really nice, established people who are proud to tell you that they don't believe in evolution and do believe in a young-earth creationism (though they wouldn't call it that). Essentially they believe stuff some people would laugh at and are proud about it and would be glad to attach their name to banning a book like Anne Frank's diary.

That isn't most places, and it isn't that the majority is that extreme almost anywhere. But you can't make assumptions about people having the same point of view as you, or that otherwise reasonable good people believe things you consider only reasonable.

The town I’m in has grown 1000% in the last 20 years. The original residents were almost all from a very conservative religious group. That group had power over all politics back then, and have retained power today. They’re very aligned with removing the books, and there’s no communication to the 90% of parents in the district who, although conservative, aren’t from the previously dominant religious group. They do it quietly, don’t communicate what they’re doing or why, and they just get their way with nobody to object.

People in power pushing their ideology is a common thing. Not exclusive to religious people.

Shame, shame, shame... is that really the way we should be dealing with things, or is there any better way?

I went to a high school with lots of kids that read and nobody ever checked out a book from the school library.

Their interests were specialized and they got their books online or from larger collections not offered at a school.

It’s fine - libraries aren’t sacred. If nobody uses them we don’t need them.

The joke about football is often made but they pay for it, because people use it.

> “Disassembling the library bookcases”

I am skeptical. This is not the subject of wood working. And why would the school entangle students with a task to be performed by professional vendors.

> why would the school entangle students with a task to be performed by professional vendors.

Why pay a vendor to do it when you can get the students to do it for free?

Because of legal problems if the job is performed improperly or someone is injured. This is basic administration.

Also once again, this sounds like what someone would imagine they did in wood shop if they never took wood shop.

maybe they used the wood to make something else

At my HS in the 90s students were frequently used to do stuff like this. Ex: this ravine/brush area we want to clean it out and chop some stuff down to make it a "nature center".

Similar in woodshop and metal working - doing stuff to fix the schools infra/bldg.

It's actually the basis of community building. The students take some ownership of the area they work/live in by fixing/building for others.

Wonderful idea.

> Because of legal problems if the job is performed improperly or someone is injured. This is basic administration.

You do know what goes on in wood shop class right? Some light demolition is nothing compared to the power tools they'll be using soon.

Well, this is what they did in wood shop. Happy to send proof. My son documented the full process.

Yeah please share his documentation.

> The joke about football is often made but they pay for it, because people use it.

This is not a joke. At all. There are a LOT of high schools that actively prioritize football facilities over education. I grew up in one. It's very frustrating, and that's coming from someone who DID play football.

At my school the kids asked for donations to fund their equipment and they brought in money on the games for their budget.

But once again… students and community use football. They do not use high school libraries.

What is your point? One of education’s primary goals is / were to help learning to enjoy the “right” things. Football field or library are not “good” in themselves, people learn to enjoy reading books and playing football via guidance.

My point is you don’t need to spend money on high school libraries if nobody uses them. You can even just buy students books.

> students and community use football. They do not use high school libraries.

That's literally the problem being presented, the "joke" as you called it. This isn't something to be weirdly proud about. This is something to be extremely concerned about. Prioritizing football over education in a place dedicated to the latter is absurd. Like, Idiocracy-levels absurd.

How has it gone so far over your head?

So which is worse? - funding something people benefit from but is not part of your mission - funding something which is in your mission, but nobody uses?

The former is questionable. The latter is a just a waste.

Do you care about education outcomes? Or do you care about 90s symbols of education, like libraries.

Which is worse, buying Marlboros for the students, or buying books for the library?

You got me. Especially with the edit from heroin.

funding something ... but is not part of your mission

That is worse. It's education, not a startup in need of a pivot.

Most Americans disagree and see athletics as an integral part of a rounded education.

You're the one who drew the contrast in the first place!

You characterized it as outside the mission and now you're trying to say it's part of the mission. Come on.

I think the point is that the average person in a community cares more about football than education. There are place where they really do. You think that is idiotic and absurd -- I don't disagree. But we live in a democracy. You can't force people to care about what you think they should care about.

Let's do away with the blackboards, school books, pencils, pens, and edutech. Replace all of them with tablets loaded with TikTok, Youtube, Instagram, Minecraft, Roblox. I'm sure they'll see much more use than what they're replacing. Such efficiency!

Who said anything about replacing school time?

I agree - having an after school video game time would be a better use of resources than an unused library.

The the big ironies of North Texas school districts — taxpayers foot the bill for those multimillion-dollar stadiums, turf fields, courts, and gyms, but the second class is out, the gates get locked like it’s Fort Knox. Meanwhile, kids are dodging cars in the street because they can’t set foot on the pristine facilities their parents literally paid for.

It’s not even just a summer thing — a lot of districts have blanket “no public use” policies year-round. They’ll cite liability, vandalism, or “preservation of facilities” as the reason, but the result is the same: empty fields, fenced-off courts, and taxpayers staring at what they bought but can’t touch.

>This is not the subject of wood working

Sure it is, it's free wood for the woodshop. Unless the library is very new, those are probably solid planks. No shop teacher is going to say no to free wood.

The real mystery is how the woodshop survived longer than the library did. Usually woodshops are the first thing to go.

> Usually woodshops are the first thing to go.

Perhaps your experience is with states whose legislatures are dominated by trial lawyers, who can hope to retire on one really good, fat personal injury judgment?

Mine is, but I hope that's not the case everywhere.

Wood shops don’t have books in them that have naughty words or share ideas to children contrary to their parent’s conservative beliefs.

I doubt there’s a true budget crisis. It was manufactured to justify getting rid of the books for political reasons.

Libraries are more than checking out books, but your point is well made. I prefer printed books, but absolutely use e-books when they're more convenient. I still think it's useful to have a librarian AT THE SCHOOL to help students with all the things libraries do that aren't related to circulation or lending. Having the librarian at the point of use increases the chance that students, faculty and administration will make best use of the library's services.

The woodworking teacher had a source for free furniture grade lumber. Of course he’s going to jump on it. If you demand “proof” (not very HN like), I’m happy to send pics.

Good riddance. Libraries are totally pointless and a waste of money.

Almost every book that is available at all can be accessed within seconds on any modern digital device. You will learn how extremely valuable that is when you actually are doing research.

Students should be taught how to actually do research, not how to waste time looking things up in some small buildings which doesn't have the resources they need.

Have you not been in a library in like 50 years? It’s a hell of a lot more than a “small building which doesn’t have the resources they need”.

Without a doubt in my entire academic life the books have been the least useful thing libraries contained. Getting rid of them provides space for the good and productive things people do in a library.

It is important that students have quiet space to study. But libraries as book storages have very little utility and seem very hard to justify.

Ah, from that point of view, I can agree. It’s shocking how few books I can find in my local library. Not a single one by GK Chesterton, and half a million people live in my town. Wtf?

Still, I think we should keep books as available to citizens as possible.

>Still, I think we should keep books as available to citizens as possible.

I agree. But it is obviously far more cost effective and useful to have that access be digital first.

Do not understand me wrong, I like physical books. But for doing research it is almost always preferable to have the books be available digitally. And students should learn to make use of that.

>libraries as book storages have very little utility and seem very hard to justify.

Great, let's pass laws that give parity rights to digital goods, including ebooks. You have a copy? You can lend that copy. Yes, forever.

> Yet the football team is fully funded, and the baseball diamond is kept up

The football team makes money, why do people constantly ignore this. There's always money for ventures that have positive ROI. It has nothing to do with priorities.

At schools with top theater programs they're also always fully funded because they bring in outside revenue.

I seriously doubt that most highschool football teams make a profit. I would be surprised if ticket sales even cover the cost of the staff working the game.

Then you didn't go to a football school. We had a multi-million dollar stadium that could hold a thousand-ish fans and it was packed every game. Most of them were season ticket holders. We also raked in $$ from other schools who wanted to host their events using our stadium.

Also none of the people working the game are paid except for the ref (and the TV crew if you have one). It's all volunteers and students. Our principal was the announcer. The revenue from football paid for every other sport and then some.

Schools that weren't football schools had much more modest stadiums, usually just a field and a pre-fab bleacher.

The vast majority of high school sports teams aren't coming anywhere close to a profit. Your experience is unusual, which answers your question:

> why do people constantly ignore this.

Because people who talk about "the football team always is fully funded" are from schools that are turning a profit. We played teams from schools that weren't. They had ancient gear and a field. The public HS across the street from us didn't even have a field, they used ours.

The implication of the original posters mention of his district's "fully funded" team was definitely not that it was turning a profit... but that the school is instead still spending on it while cutting services like the library.

Why would he complain, in this context, about a football program that is generating income for the district?

Yes, that's exactly the implication I'm challenging. The amount of times I've heard the "they're cutting thing-i-think-is-important but keeping the football program" but who don't know that it's because the football program is self-sustaining is so frustrating. They're not choosing football over music or art or whatever. For sports which aren't local cash-cows the parents are having to buy the new equipment and uniforms. Sadly, no one stepped up for the music program like that.

People also ignore how these football stadiums are financed. Some with public bonds, others with private agreements with outside organizations. (Looking at you, Flower Mound.)

You're always beholden to the person who pays the bills. If your football stadium is paid for by public funds, you're beholden to the voter (by way of elected representatives.) If your football stadium was paid for by the local Ford dealership who asks for a cut of concessions, well... you give them a cut of the concessions.

People in North Texas seem to trust corporations more than they trust local governments. I think that's because they're familiar with whom they elect to office. The local corporations might be run by sociopathic dorks, but at least they're SUCCESSFUL sociopathic dorks. And while it might seem that I'm dissing North Texans... I'm really not. We may be on the road to neo-feudalism, but at least they know what side their bread is buttered on.

I’d like to see how much my school district spends on football. Unfortunately they don’t release the numbers anywhere for public scrutiny that I’ve found. How can I find the actual numbers? I don’t want to go to the school board accusing them of wasting money on football if it’s actually net profitable.

Yeah I know schools like that exist, I just doubt that they are anywhere near the majority.

The games I have been to recently have a medic of some kind, the coaches, band/drumline director, police officers for security, plus a bunch of teachers doing other things. They may not be getting paid extra to do it, but they're still employees and a portion of their time is being used for the game.

Can you prove the school made money from the football?

You're just saying football is popular and some revenue comes in, but nothing that proves football is money making for the district.

The take from concessions sales and tickets is actually very high.

At the school where I’m familiar with the finances, the concessions stands were run by student volunteers from other after school programs. They got a cut of the profit. It was an easy way for different programs to raise money with a much larger audience than they could get anywhere else.

This school wasn’t even a “football school”. The football events were just a big excuse for everyone to come out and do activities at the school.

And how much do they pay the coach and assistants? How much to maintain athletic fields?

They don't all make money. Why are you assuming that this one does?

> There's always money for ventures that have positive ROI.

If it can't help fund things like...checks notes...libraries then it's not really an effective ROI.

A high school varsity football team has how many players? 50? My son’s graduating class is almost 1000. So 5% of students get to play football, but 100% of them don’t get a library.

> which were being questioned by some parents

I doubt that: My experience is that people who complain about books don't read them, let alone understand them enough to "question" them.

> This society has priorities which aren’t education.

Forgive me, but it's your society: You live there. It's that way because of you.

I know that sucks to hear; it's not all your fault; it seems like there is a lot of inertia; and you definitely can't overcome it all by yourself, and it is was like that before you were born; and so on,

But I urge you to take responsibility to right the ship anyway, and at risk of mixing metaphors too much stop worrying so much about who started the fire and work on putting it out. Make friends with your neighbours, and get them to help you. Stop enabling bad behaviour by referring to those other parents "questions" in their couched weasel-words and call them out for their hate and the spread of hate and ignorance.

Because literally nobody else is going to do it, and we need you.

I live in a town of over 200k people. When I moved here, it was 12k residents, and dominated by religious conservatives. When I graduated high school, I vowed to never return. My wife however had other ideas, and as soon as my kids were school age, we were back. The town remains politically dominated by the same conservative religious group, even though they’re less than 20% of the population. Could I go to the school board meetings and raise and issue? Sure, but my son, who would be the recipient of any retribution, requested I not. I even offered to pay for private school for him, but he still wasn’t willing. Once he graduates, maybe I’ll spend my time fighting this fight. My peers from high school who weren’t from this religious group fled. None remain to fight. Even if I win a seat on the board, I’d be just one of 7, and nothing would change.

> When I graduated high school, I vowed to never return. My wife however had other ideas, and as soon as my kids were school age, we were back

Listen brother, if you do something, it is your choice. Nobody can make your choices for you. Not the government. Not a god. Not even your wife.

And the choice to do nothing is still a choice.

> Could I go to the school board meetings and raise and issue? Sure, but my son, who would be the recipient of any retribution, requested I not.

You are the adult: You are making this choice.

Your son is the recipient of the future you are creating whether you like it or not.

And what will happen is son's children (if they have any) will have a slightly worse version of the problem you are facing, because of the choices you are making.

> Even if I win a seat on the board, I’d be just one of 7, and nothing would change.

Nonsense. It always starts with one.

Didn't you know the first black person to sit in the front of the bus was just one person?

I bet if you try you can think of a lot of firsts that led to change.

As for the books being questioned by other parents - I was only aware of it when I searched for the high school name and library on Twitter. First and only hit was for a parent posting a link to some website that alerts parents for books with questionable content in their children’s libraries. Had they read the books? Of course not, but the web site allows you to read all the questionable passages. The tweet was advocating for the school board to remove the books.

> read all the questionable passages

This is what I mean: There aren't "questionable passages"

Giving their voice that credit is not necessary.

> The tweet was advocating for the school board to remove the books

People have been putting personals up in newspapers since there were ever newspapers, but a publication or channel is not a discussion forum, and you aren't required to treat it like that.

I don't think we have a singular society at this point. As in, we've got large majorities on both sides who simply don't see their opposition as a part of their society, but rather as external threats to it.

Society is the conditions of living with other people; you do not get your society and my society because if we can both coexist it is the same society.

There are a lot of unwell people; Some of them it might be a literal genetic mental illness, but a lot of them probably only ever experienced joy after misery, and never saw real kindness.

I think you should treat "those" people as if they were abused and vulnerable humans with broken brains, and how you treat "those" people is how I think you will treat other abused and vulnerable humans with broken brains.

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