Our City Schools

I have lived in Fairborn all of my life and I am the third generation of my family to attend the Fairborn City Schools. My grandmother attended Bath Consolidated School (Central School) before and after the merger of Osborn and Fairfield and my mother is a 1973 graduate from Park Hills High School now known as Fairborn High School. I always figured that when I have children and it is time for them to start Kindergarten that they too would go to Five Points until 7th grade at which time I would find an alternative to the Fairborn City Schools.

A couple years ago the school board decided that to conserve money they would combine all of the elementary schools and close down Black Lane and Wright Elementary. I understand that this caused a problem when deciding how to incorporate the students from these schools into the remaining elementary schools. However why did the school board find it necessary to completely change the names of the schools and which grades are taught in each building. I think that having Kindergarten through 6th grade in the same school building offers a social atmosphere that helps children understand how to interact with other children of different ages. Not to mention the safe feeling many children and parents have when a younger sibling starts Pre-School, Kindergarten or 1st grade knowing that an older sibling is in the same building and sometimes either walking or riding home on the bus together. The way the schools are set up right now children from the same family in grades pre-school through 6th grade are separated between 3 different buildings. Pre-School and Kindergarten through 3rd grade is at Fairborn Primary in the Five Points building, 4th and 5th grade is at Fairborn Intermediate in the South-Palmer building on Maple Ave and 6th grade is being taught at the East elementary building now known as the Baker Middle School, East Wing. According to the Fairborn Daily Herald next year Wright Elementary will be opened up for 8 all-day Kindergarten classes which will cost parents $185 per month while pre-school and the ½ day Kindergarten classes will continue to be held at Five Points. If anyone can make since of this I would like to hear his or her reasoning. I am sure that the school board has a good excuse but I do not see how separating yet another grade is a good idea or how re-opening a building for 8 classes is worth the money they saved by closing the same school a couple of years ago.

I want to know why the Fairborn City Schools are insisting on keeping the schools split up the way they are now. How will children know how to relate to older/younger children or know what it is like to be in a school with their siblings and neighbors without having to switch schools at 4th, 6th, 7th and 9th grades? I still remember how nervous all of us were to go to Baker in 7th grade and then to the High School in 9th and now this is an experience children will have every couple years. I do not see how the inconvenience this has caused most parents is still worth the money saved. Is there anyone that sees the benefits of having the elementary schools teach Kindergarten through 6th in the same building? One benefit is that many parents want to take their 5-6 year olds to school during their first year. However, while parents used to do this at 5 different schools now they all have to squeeze in at one. I constantly get stuck in traffic around Fairborn Primary School (Five Points) because of this. It happens at 9am, 12pm and 3pm and there have been times I was stuck in the line of traffic trying to pull into the school parking lot well after 9am. So this inconvenience is not just for traffic or parents but is also causing students to be late and teachers to have to wait to start class. Giving families back the luxury of having all of their pre-teen children at the same school could help solve this problem. Two families from different parts of Fairborn would take their children to different schools the way they used to instead of having to drop their children off at the same school because their grade. Parents would not have to drop their 6th, 4th and 2nd grader off at different schools at different times. Teachers would have less trouble during certain events because they would have assistance from older students. For example, right now at Fairborn Primary there would be a limited number of adults to control approximately 1,500 children under the age of 10 in the event of an emergency.

While the whole country is being asked to conserve fuel, students that go to the Fairborn City Schools that could walk to school now have to either ride the bus or be driven by parents because they attend a school on the other side of town. In the past there would be a bus to bring home high school students around 2:30 followed by another from Baker around 2:45 and then a bus from the nearest elementary school after 3pm. Not too long ago I was stopped by two busses less than a block apart, one from Baker and one from Fairborn Intermediate (4th & 5th). The bus from Fairborn Intermediate would normally run after 3pm as a bus full of elementary school students grades Kindergarten through 6th. This is an added trip that is only necessary because of the changes in the schools.

Maybe people will read this and think it is just another rant about a successful change made by the school district. I hope more people see it as an attempt to expose the problems created by a school district that was desperate to inconvenience our city enough to pass a tax levy. If parents and residents make the school board aware of their feelings we might be able to change how things are now.

Congrats to Dr. Rajeev Venkayya

In April, Rajeev Venkayya (Fairborn, '85) was appointed as a special assistant to President Bush for biodefense. In his job, he will help to plan our country's strategy for addressing the potential bird flu pandemic and other disease threats. He reports to Frances Townsend, the Senior Advisor for Homeland Security, and advises Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.

After graduating as the class valedictorian, Rajeev graduated from Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine. He also worked and taught at University of California, San Francisco, and is still on the faculty while working at the White House.

The Dayton Daily News interviewed Rajeev, and posted their Q&A session. He was also interviewed for an in-depth article about the pandemic flu risks for The Economist magazine last year.

Crossing the Tracks

I grew up on the north side of town, next to East Elementary, and in the shadow of Fairborn/Baker High School (now Baker Junior High). I watched the teenagers walk past my house on their way to school, and saw them hovering around the high school before sporting events, social events, and the annual Homecoming bonfire (one of my favorite events). I would hear the marching band practice at the end of every summer. I grew up waiting for my turn to take part in these things.

But fate had other plans for me. In the summer between 7th and 8th grade, my parents moved us across town. I suddenly found myself as one of "them" -- the Hee Hos -- the enemy. It was about the worst thing I could imagine happening to my nearly idyllic childhood. I held a grudge the entire time I attended PHHS, unwilling to accept my new school and geography, and unable to recapture the world I had longed for and lost. I was active in the marching band (HEE HO!) but it wasn't the band I thought I would be in.

I was in the school on the "wrong side" of the tracks.

I want to point out, though, that Rona Hills is also on the wrong side of the tracks!

Some of my best memories from my time on the north side of town revolved around taking unauthorized trips to Rona Hills the back way. There was a path through a huge field that I believe was part of the cement plant. The path started across the tracks along Dayton Drive just past the fieldhouse (Dayton Dr. and Jefferson St.) and ended up at Spangler Road. In the days before I-675, you only had to cross another field to end up on Roehner Drive, and the edge of Rona Hills.

If my parents had any idea of the places I traveled by foot and by bike during those years, I'd still be on restriction.

Hanoi Taxi Enshrined

I was a kid during the Vietnam war, but I have a lot of memories of the effects of the war on Fairborn from a kid's viewpoint. I remember driving out Central past the base by Skateland and seeing the SAC planes, the camoflaged B-52s, parked near the road. I remember the sonic booms when they would take off and reach Mach 1. I remember seeing peace activists and war protesters at the gates with their hippie clothes and love beads, who my parents told me were from Antioch College. I also remember neighbors serving, a friend whose dad was an MIA, and the day my 5th grade teacher at East Elementary found out that her son had been killed in action.

Today and tomorrow, the Hanoi Taxi is going to be enshrined at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. The C-141 Starlifter that brought the first POWs home from Hanoi during Operation Homecoming was renamed the Hanoi Taxi. In 2002, the plane was repainted to its Hanoi Taxi colors, and in 2004, it flew its last flight to Vietnam to retrieve two American servicemembers killed in action, flown by Maj. Gen. Edward J. Mechenbier.

The 445th Airlift Wing, Air Force Reserve Command will be assisted by more than 120 POWs and their families. It should be quite a celebration. The Dayton Daily News has all of the event details.

You Scream, I Scream...

As the spring leans toward summer and the days get hotter and hazier, it reminds me of the simple joys of summer as a kid growing up in Fairborn. Afternoons spent laying in the grass behind the garage staring at the sky, sitting in front of the box fan in the hallway, and of course, getting ice cream.

There was a man with an ice cream truck who would drive up our street, his carnival-style music coaxing us from every hiding place in the neighborhood. I remember occasionally getting a treat from his truck, but mostly I remember being told that he didn't wash his hands and we were not going to buy anything from him. As an adult, I suspect that was more about money than sanitation, and I realize that he was just working to make a better living for his family, in spite of the objections of parents like mine.

In the days before Young's Dairy was common knowledge (and perhaps before it included the store we love today), the big treat in my house was a trip to Andes for ice cream. My parents would drive the Opel Cadet with my sister, brother, and I fighting in the back seat and park along the side of the building. Confusion would reign while we decided on our order. I always wanted the same thing, peppermint stick, and my fall back choice was vanilla. The lucky parent would stand in line at the little glass window with the ledge to place our order, while the other parent would try to keep the peace in the car. It always seemed like an eternity from the time I placed my order until I was licking around the base of the scoop. Silence would overtake the car until the first child failed to catch the drips that ran over fingers and found their way to the upholstery, an event never missed by the observing eyes of parents.


In high school, the favorite ice cream place was Baskin Robbins on Main Street and their 31-deful flavors. I used to collect the colorful monthly menu, always thinking that I would make a sort of calendar collage of them, but always seeming to have a missing month in each year. My friends and I would sit inside on the few hard chairs they provided, or sit outside on the short curb between the parked cars where we would endure the harsh stares of adults trying to navigate past us.

By the time I reached Wright State, the only ice cream option was Young's and the only time to visit was after dark. I wish I had a dollar for every time I drove out Dayton-Yellow Springs road, past Park Hills, through the rolling hills before Kroger and houses appeared in the fields, through Byron, past Greene Country Club, and through the sleepy village of Yellow Springs to find ice cream nirvana.

Even today, it only takes a scoop of ice cream to take me back to the wonders of childhood summers, although today's choices are more likely to be from Cold Stone Creamery or a pint of Häagen-Dazs from my freezer.

Posted to eFairborn.com