It's An Institution

We live about a mile away from the local elementary school. My neighbors have frequently acted shocked when I say I homeschool, because the local school is supposed to be so wonderful.

My kids sometimes have Little League practice at this school. The first thing Lucretius noticed about the school is that none of the classrooms have any windows. In order to make up for this problem, I guess, they've put in some little gardens and some signs that say things like "Self-Esteem Street" and "Diversity Garden" (I am not making this up).

There has always been a 4 foot chain link fence around the playground, which, I would think is pretty standard in schools. When we first started going to the school there was a little gate that you could go through to get directly to the playground. A couple of years ago, the gate disappeared, but the kids could still drop their gear bags over the top and climb over the fence, which I gladly helped them do. Then I would wind my way through the school to get to the playing field. I figured that the school must have had some trouble with people coming in after school and messing with the playground equipment and wanted to make it a little more difficult to get in.

Last week I noticed that the chain link fence has been replaced by a six-foot wrought iron fence all around the play area. It, quite literally, looks like a prison fence, although it has no barbed wire coiled on top. It suddenly occurred to me that this fence was not put up to keep people out of the playground -- I have never noticed any graffiti or broken playground equipment.

This fence was constructed to keep the children in.