When I was younger, I had a terrifying dream where I was trapped in a corner with some non-descript beings slowly coming toward me. For whatever reason, these beings were a great danger to me, but I was unable to move—I could not run or even lift my arms or turn my head. I could not call for help, even as these things crept closer and closer. The terror and panic in me grew and grew, finally with me waking up in a cold sweat, trembling, and unable to forget the unusually vivid and clear images from the dream.
Several years later, the same dream happened again—slightly different details, but the same experience: inability to escape, paralyzed, exceptionally vivid, and a horrible, approaching threat. Then it started to happen more frequently—every few weeks, then every few days.
It was then I learned that these dreams were not just a random phenomenon, but a rare and terrifying condition called sleep paralysis, where the brain becomes “awake” during a deep sleep cycle and believes that its dreams are reality, but the body remains paralyzed in sleep. Because the body can’t move, the brain’s instincts interpret nearly everything as a threat, believing it to be defenseless.
After a while, I learned to recognize when the sleep paralysis was happening—after all, my brain was awake. I had this notion that if I summoned all of my will in my dream to try to utter a noise, some scream or cry, someone might hear it and check on me, thus fully waking me up. Eventually this worked, although never soon enough to avoid the terror.
After reviewing the most recent Holly Area Schools Board of Education meeting, I couldn’t help but think that the school board must feel like they’re in a similar condition—in extreme duress, needing to cry for help, and no ability to do so.
Holly is one of the top performing school districts in Oakland County, with test scores on par with school districts with many more resources and with higher socio-economic populations. Nonetheless, enrollment continues to decline, resulting in decreasing budgets, cut services, and further reductions in enrollment. The district is as lean as it can get without making cuts that will significantly impact quality, which would again cause more harm.
Holly Area Schools relies on state appropriations for operations, which is based on the enrollment headcount. There are only very limited uses that the school district can use property tax millages for (mostly capital improvements and physical plant maintenance). In short, money is needed to maintain our quality schools and the school district has little, if any, control over what it gets.
The Board of Education requested of Superintendent Kent Barnes to begin exploring more marketing and advertising options in an attempt to stem the outflow of students that is whittling away the district, or to attract new ones. While this may be the best and only initiative that Holly Area Schools has full control over, it won’t help the root problem.
Advertising and marketing strategies might retain or lure students from private or charter schools. It might attract students who are near the district borders and can choose which district to enroll in. Although less likely, commuters to Holly might be affected by marketing and bring their children with them.
All of those possibilities might patch the bleeding, but it won’t cure the disease for one simple reason—public schools are community institutions. They serve and are a part of the geographic locations and communities they are in. As the community goes, so goes the school district and vice-versa, and right now, the schools are paying dearly for the torpor of the community. People are leaving Holly because of the need for sustainable employment, because of absurdly high water rates, and the low purchasing power of the tax rate.
The Village of Holly’s water woes are a double-whammy on our schools—not only do the high rates drive away residents that contribute to the tax base, Holly Area Schools also coughs up a small fortune for its own water every month. The only way to bring the rates down is to attract more residents and businesses.
Although our quaint downtown boutiques, parks, and outstanding schools might attract some residents here and there, real economic development comes from one core notion—Holly needs jobs. Our public officials, volunteers and activists need to take a vigorous approach to attracting businesses that will use water, pay property taxes, and attract and hire workers with families that will also use water, pay property taxes, shop in our stores, and put children in seats.
While many others in the community have repeatedly made this clarion call for true economic development and leadership from our officials, the Holly Area Schools has remained reserved. But the cry needs to be made—if we value our schools, if we are proud of our students, and if we care about our future, economic recovery and development in Holly needs to be everyone’s first priority, if for no one else but our schools.
Unfortunately, it’s not a dream or a misfired brain that is causing us to see buildings that need maintenance each and every day, or empty desks, or shrinking balance sheets. And a simple scream will not result in magically waking up to a less terrifying reality. But the cries of community activists have fallen on deaf ears; Holly Area Schools must summon its will and break out of its terrifying, paralytic spiral and cry out for help itself, so that our governments and our residents might be stirred to act and help end our schools’, and our community’s economic nightmare.