“I thought you were from Louisville!” another one of my communication professors exclaimed to me after class. Although it was the fifth time that day I had been referenced to my hometown, I still beamed like a toddler on Christmas morning.
“We have always had amazing students from Louisville, and I can tell right off the bat because they are usually much more prepared than most other freshmen,” Dr. Capuzza explained.
Reflecting as a senior communication studies major in my final semester at the University of Mount Union, I have a matured perception when I review the milestones that led me to become the woman and professional I am today.
As a communication studies scholar, I comprehend the power of language to a significant degree, so believe me when I state that words cannot express how lessons (both in and out of the textbook), life advice, class labs, values, attitudes, and commitment to students (especially me) from the Louisville City School teachers has immensely impacted my life and success.
With all of the truth and conviction in my heart and experience, I use something Louisville City School teachers have taught me EVERY SINGLE DAY of my life, and that would still be the case even if I did not attend college or pursue a career in communications. I was able to manage college and the stress of life with much more direction and confidence than many of my college peers.
I saw the vast differences between those of us who were Louisville alumni and those who were not at Mount Union. The disparity of preparedness, knowledge, and understanding stunned me. No one realizes how truly blessed and lucky they are until they have left Louisville. I am not the only Louisville grad who notices this.
My teachers not only imparted lessons and the course material in an engaging and approachable manner, but they always gave me a nugget of a life lesson that have encouraged and guided me through my life academically and personally. Not one teacher ever took shortcuts when he or she interacted with me, and as a Louisville Leopard from kindergarten to alumna, that is over twelve years of solid, continual commitment and excellence.
I watched my teachers pour every ounce of their energy and compassion into every one of us every single day. I am appreciative, grateful, and respectful to Louisville teachers beyond description. What my teachers have given me extends far beyond what worksheets, textbooks, and PowerPoints can provide.
These teachers have fostered my love of learning, my confidence, knowledge, and passion to discover and share all the greatness life has to offer with others. I will never be able to repay my teachers for all that they have sacrificed and given to me and every other student that has passed through the district.
All teachers, especially those that grace the halls of Louisville City Schools, are priceless and irreplaceable. It sickens me to witness my hometown losing some of the teachers and administrators that were truly exceptional in and outside of the classroom for their students. I, as I am sure all of Louisville feels, do not want to risk losing any more of the genuine teaching talent, compassion, and commitment that teachers at Louisville City Schools possess that make Louisville the distinctive school system that it is.
Despite my years of communication study and research, I will be the first one to tell you that I am not a communication expert; however, I can diagnose major communication dysfunctions when I see them.
Louisville Board of Education, LEA, students, parents, faculty, and community members … we all want the same things. We want safe schools, effective curriculum, well-rounded and healthy students, an engaging learning environment, and—above all—hardworking, genuine, committed, and talented teachers.
What I wish the Louisville Board of Education would understand is that Louisville has always had these components of success. Our past excellence ratings have reaffirmed that fact. Now, the key to instill and sustain success district wide is to support and protect the most important element of the entire education process: the teachers.
Teachers are so much more than a portal of information for our students. Our teachers are the liaisons between administration and parents, students and course material, concept and understanding, and success and failure for students and school systems. Teachers are on the front lines of bullying, learning disabilities, mental illnesses, classroom behavior, test scores, personality disorders, distressing home lives, eating disorders, and so much more—while teaching numerous state benchmarks along with course material and life lessons.
Louisville Board of Education, please communicate with the most paramount element to your success for Louisville: the teachers. The best aspect of Louisville City Schools has been pushed beyond the limit of understanding. No one wants to strike, especially not the teachers who have poured every ounce of themselves into sustaining Louisville as the remarkable school district it is and can still be.
By suspending communication with the most valuable asset Louisville possesses, the Louisville Board of Education suspends the potential for district, parent, administration, teacher—and most importantly—student success for all of Louisville.
A Louisville City Schools’ education is an invaluable treasure to me; Board of Education, please do not threaten or tarnish that priceless gift of education from your effective teachers to your students. To communicate is to create a community, and Yehuda Berg, a renowned Jewish clergyman from Israel, stated: “Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.”
I implore all members of the Superintendent Michele Shaffer, Louisville Board of Education (Frank Antonacci, Cheryl Shepherd, Brenda Ramsey-L’Amoreaux, Dr. Michael Thomas, and Mark Sigler), and Louisville Education Association to communicate not just for you, but also for all of Louisville, and to communicate effectively.
