I drove by the school yesterday as I wanted to visualize its potential as imagined by my community creation posting. I was struck by the bland faceless facade of the exterior, and the faded colors of the school itself. Much like the tract where the school is located, the school comes across as a symbol of decades old suburban planning in an area where land was at one time cheap and available. Many houses have changed with the advent of the new century, sporting new facades, additions, color schemes and landscaping. And the school sits, its edifice aged to a bland patina, utterly without character. The landscape is plain, open and indifferent. It has no texture, and little distinction. Yet it sports the moniker "California Distinguished School." Distinguished is defined as "marked by eminence, distinction or excellence." Where then, is the distinction? If one were to refer to earlier postings, which suggest that all is not as it seems, a distinguished school Village View is surely not. We have been hanging on to this moniker because we imagine it for our children. What then?
Realizing that the usual excuses of empty coffers apply in these troubled budgetary times, I began to consider a new view. A new Village View. I found myself conceptualizing a Village View which could evolve beyond the acrimony and childlike behavior of the school district officials, state and federal agencies, and the administrators themselves. I saw paint, color, trees, benches and beauty. I saw expressions of childhood experienced in all its imaginative forms, with murals, landscape features and welcoming elements. And then the fog moves quickly in, obscuring my view. I am left with the place I saw yesterday, with its distinction set in the painted parking spaces for special parents and school administrators.
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