As I read about suggested plans to centralize the elementary schools on the island I was reminded of those days when I would walk or bike to my local school perhaps as often as three times a day and except for stormy days I would go home for lunch.
My grandmother would always have some combination of hot Campbell’s soup ready: tomato, chicken and rice, chicken noodle, cream of mushroom and occasionally for some unknown reason some kind of soup with asparagus or broccoli. And if I was good that week she would cut a large slice of black peasant bread, spread it with butter and then fry it. She always had the radio on and listened to The Guiding Light everyday religiously. I often wondered about that because she did not speak English very well and used to read the publications in her language from Chicago every month.
On foul days I would march through the snow joining friends from the neighborhood. Everyone knew everyone else and knew where we could go in town and where we could not. Which dogs were friendly and which were not. All the schools had PTA meetings which were well attended and because different parts of the town had different issues only locals would be able to address them.
Perhaps to alleviate increasing costs the seventh and eighth grades could resettle in the new high school to be. They would take the same buses as their older siblings and their friends from grammar school. Their grammar schools could use the vacant class space for new students or for additional space for music and the arts. And because all the studies for the past 30 years or more show that all students would do better academically if they started school later, then the school day for all should begin at 9 a.m.
John Crelan
Oak Bluffs
This article appears in March 20, 2026.