It is the best of times; it is the worst of times. So says Charles Dickens in "A Tale of Two Cities."
This could now be said of Duluth. The best of times is our modern, updated and beautiful new schools across the city. It is the worst of times with a community still divided about how the long range facilities plan was done. Can we come together?
Many people remain confused about Red Plan facilities money and the operational levy money. So what is the face of an operational levy?
It is a high school teacher teaching college courses in the schools so students get college credits, in turn giving them a leg up starting college and saving their parents tuition costs.
It is a paraprofessional pushing the wheelchair of a child with cerebral palsy so his day can be spent with peers.
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It is having more than one custodian in a 1,600-student high school during the day to keep things running.
It is having nursing assistants in all schools to tend to kids' medical needs.
It is a child with autism using a communication board so her world is opened to language.
It is enough textbooks and desks for a packed calculus class.
It is a school bus taking kids to a senior center to do a service-learning project.
Operational levies used to be for excess wants; now they are used for needs. On Nov. 8, vote yes, yes and yes to make Duluth have the best of times. I think Dickens would have approved.
Leah Klein
Duluth
