MEDITATIONS-TRAVEL

I am sitting in a Holiday Inn Express in Brevard, North Carolina. It is a wonderful town in western North Carolina, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I have been tasked with assessing the schools here for the past week, before moving on to a major project next week in Charlotte, North Carolina. I’ll be back home on the 16th, then head back after the new year for a month.

The people in Transylvania County Schools are friendly, open, honest and are earnest in their desire to protect the children in their schools. From the Superintendent, Dr. Lisa Fletcher, to the school Principals, to the School Resource Officers (SROs), and the teachers, they all have the interests and welfare of the students in mind.

The folks here are salt-of-the-earth people. They hunt, they fish, they hike. As a matter of fact, this area has over 250 waterfalls. They have a large county, and this morning they had a two-hour delay. There are students and a school up in the mountains. They had rain overnight, and this morning the temperatures suddenly dropped, causing ice to form on the roads. The people in the lowlands were 10 degrees warmer, and didn’t have this problem. Safety first.

People here don’t care what you look like. What they care about is whether you are a good person. If you are not, they will have little to do with you. They don’t care about your politics, your causes, or your beliefs, except how it leads you to behave. The issues they deal with here are similar to those faced elsewhere. They have Christmas decorations in their schools, which I find refreshing.

Each school has a full-time SRO. This is an outstanding example of police-school collaboration. The SROs I met are dedicated, highly trained officers who deeply care for the students in their care. The educators I spoke to are extremely happy they are there. They use the true SRO model, which stresses the non-enforcement aspects of their job. They are there to make connections with students and staff, and from what I saw, they are magnificently succeeding in this mission. They were very open with me, treated me well, and were very receptive to the ideas I had, and in the observations I made.

I’ve visited and assessed hundreds of schools, across this country. This little town in western North Carolina should be the model for school districts across the country. The police, especially trained SROs, are not the enemy. They should not be de-funded. They should be fully funded and supported. Lieutenant Greg Stroup, God bless you and your SROs!

I’m finished with this project. Tomorrow I head to Charlotte for my next project. But first, I saw one of the 250 waterfalls, Looking Glass Falls, in beautiful Pisgah National Forest. Tomorrow, before heading to Charlotte, I’ll visit Triple Falls and Hooker Falls. These waterfalls were featured in The Hunger Games, and The Last of the Mohicans. I wish I could stay, but duty calls!