Minneapolis schools are explaining big changes in words families shouldn’t have to untangle. Up here, we managed something similar with a church basement and a pan of potatoes.
I got onto the fall supper committee because somebody said they needed a person who could write. In a small town, this is how a man with no particular qualifications for handling food becomes responsible for where everybody eats it.
The plan was simple. Move the supper from the community hall to the church basement. The church had a commercial dishwasher. Our volunteers had dishcloths and increasingly firm opinions about how late they ought to be standing there.
Last year, by the time they sat down, the gravy could have held a spoon upright. This year, we hoped everybody might eat a hot meal.
I wrote three sentences explaining the move.
We should probably avoid “move,” somebody said. People might think it was permanent. Mentioning the dishwasher could sound critical of the old kitchen, which people had worked hard to equip. And we needed to make clear that the supper still belonged to the whole community.
Those were reasonable concerns. I had coffee and a pen. We went to work.
By the time we finished, we had “a coordinated supper arrangement across two community locations.” The hall would remain “a participating site,” and volunteer assignments would be “aligned with the updated service model.”
That last part was mine. It got us past a disagreement, and I was pleased with it.
Then I read about the Minneapolis schools.
The district is considering bringing schools together because, as its leaders explain it, they are spread too thin. They want to put more of what they have into teaching children and helping them along. Families would have to deal with some big changes.
You would think explaining those changes would keep everybody busy enough.
But the district’s presentation describes “unprogrammed buildings” and offers this sentence: “An optimized footprint creates the conditions and resources to deliver on the MPS student experience.”
I read it twice. Then I looked at our supper notice, which was lying beside me on the café table, and decided I ought to hold off on feeling superior.
An unprogrammed building may have another use someday. Fair enough. But a parent whose child goes there probably starts with whether it will still be their school next fall. There ought to be a fairly short route from the question to the answer.
At our end, the first question was whether one ticket covered both suppers.
“Well, now,” I said. “There’s only one supper.”
“Then what’s happening at the hall?”
I explained that the hall remained a participating site. Hearing myself say it out loud did not improve it.
The committee agreed we needed a clarification. To make the hall’s participation clear, people could drop their food off there. Somebody would take it over to the church.
That somebody turned out to be Earl, although nobody had reached the part where they asked him.
He found me at the café and wanted to know what time he was supposed to pick up the food. I told him we were still working that out.
“How much food?”
We were working that out, too.
He considered this while pulling his gloves out of his jacket pocket. “You moved supper so there’d be less work?”
I said that was the idea.
A woman called about whether to bring her bars to the hall or the church. I started explaining the arrangement. She interrupted to ask which place had the people who would eat them.
By then, I was less attached to my sentence.
The trouble that finally got my attention was quieter. One of our longtime volunteers caught me outside the café. She was usually responsible for a roaster of potatoes large enough that you checked the handles before lifting it.
She said she understood about the new assignments. It was good to get younger people involved. She would buy a ticket this year.
I told her we were counting on her potatoes.
“Oh. I thought you were trying to tell me.”
She had read our notice carefully. That was the part I felt worst about.
I went back to the school proposal that evening. There are things in it a person can understand perfectly well: plans for arts and gym teachers at elementary schools, help for children struggling with reading and math. Those are worth explaining. If bringing schools together makes those things possible, tell families how.
Then tell them what gets harder. Where does their child go? What happens to the friends and teachers they know? How do they get there? If something hasn’t been decided, say so.
I don’t expect a school district to have every answer the day it offers a plan. I do expect to recognize the question in the answer. A family can understand a proposal and still have a very good reason to dislike it.
We were having enough trouble moving potatoes. These people are being asked to move their children.
I found our volunteer the next morning and explained about the dishwasher. We wanted her help. We also wanted her sitting down with a plate before somebody started wrapping the leftovers.
“Well, why didn’t you say that?”
I couldn’t think of an answer that would improve matters.
She asked who would unlock the church kitchen early. She needed to plug in the roaster. We hadn’t arranged that.
So we arranged it. We called Earl off, corrected the notices, and told people where to bring the food. One committee member still preferred the hall, but agreed the dishwasher sounded nice.
On Saturday, I carried the potatoes into the church kitchen. Our volunteer was already there, making room on the counter. The roaster was heavier than I remembered, and I had begun to regret wearing a good shirt.
“Where do you want this?”
She moved a stack of towels and pointed.
“Right there, Lars.”
I set it down.
