My name is Noah Navas and I attend The Ohio State University. I went to Greenville High Senior High School. I enjoyed my time at Greenville very much. When I come back from break its very disheartening to see/hear that the new school levy didn’t pass. To add to that when I open the paper I read articles that disdain the hard work of the teachers and students that go there.

I graduated Greenville with a 3.7 gpa and that’s while taking calculus, Spanish 5, and other series of advanced classes. Every experience with an advanced class I greatly appreciate and I learned a lot from. There were days where the teachers who taught those classes would come in early to school to help us work on homework and pass advanced placement exams that would save me money and time in college. With the help of my calculus teacher I received a three on my AP exam and skipped a $500 class that would have taken up a quarter of college and put me more behind to graduate. As for my Spanish classes, I was taught enough to pass an entrance exam that helps me bypass 3 classes of Spanish at the university. I am very thankful for the efforts that those teachers put forward to us students and saved others and me time and money.

When I discuss high school experience with friends in college and other peers I realize that there is so much more schools are capable of when the community backs it up and helps pass levies for it. Others that go to OSU talk about having smart boards in all their classrooms, proper computer facilities, and other equipment that not only helps the teachers but helps the students, as well. I can’t help but envy the opportunity that they had. I know its not the equipment that teaches the students, but as an aide to the teachers to help them teach. All of that makes me believe that the community isn’t fully behind our schools.

If I were a teacher at Greenville it’d be demoralizing seeing other schools around the county receive grants and new schools. Honestly, it’d be hard for me to stay a teacher here. Soon, if we’re not careful, we will lose the great teachers that I had. That brings even more misfortune to the future students of Greenville. The kids will then be put even that much more behind other students that are trying to attend college. Which will make it that much harder for said students to be accepted in the colleges that they want to go to because they won’t have the advanced classes to take the advanced placement tests that will help them get into college.

Then why would people want to move to a town with poor schooling?

If we want to make this town a better as a whole, we have to place more effort into the schooling. Who likes to see their favorite sports team not be #1? No one, I assume. Why shouldn’t we feel the same about our town? If we improve the schools we can improve the town. A better school means more people would want to move to the town, which would bring more businesses, which would bring better economy and our town would flourish. As of now many other recent graduates and I are not looking to come back to this town because we feel there is much more out there. Towns, where when we open up our papers to read in the morning, praising the schools and people thanking the teachers for improving our young minds and our future!

Noah Navas can be reached via email at navas.2@osu.edu. Viewpoints expressed in these opinion pieces are the work of the author. The Daily Advocate does not endorse these viewpoints or the independent activities of the author.