The Complications of Expansion by Dale

The Complications of Expansion by Dale - June 2026 Scholarship Essay

As you drive away from your house to go to a family function, you find that the trees that were once played in by kids and walked past by adults as a little family hike or to be pretend ninjas because of kids and their imaginations, are now cut down and the land is flattened with dirt covering every square inch of the place. You remember seeing a letter in the mail telling you to boycott a new housing development and remembering feeling that the expansion of your small town is no big deal and that you thought it was great to have new members in the community to grow relationships. In the town that I have grown up in since I was five years old, has now been expanding for quite some time and new housing developments and streets have come up and for sale with new people continuing to move in. Of course, being around new people is exciting, but the problem comes with my school. Brookville Local Schools has two buildings, one for the elementary students and another big building for the middle and high school students. The buildings wouldn't be a big deal as much if the schools' grades went by everyone else's, but they don't. Brookville elementary students are from kindergarten to third grade; middle school students are fourth to eighth and high school is the normal ninth to twelfth. The problem is that the main building that holds the middle and high school students is now becoming cramped and the classrooms are not able to hold enough students. When I was in elementary school, the classrooms were typically twenty-two to twenty-five students. When I hit middle school, the classrooms became twenty-nine to thirty-two students. There weren't even enough chairs for everyone. Luckily, with high school, more students can be split up but there were still issues with fitting people. One student had to sit in a desk very different from everyone else's when I was aiding my AP Government teacher. However, there is a solution to the problem. Around the year 2000, the school was set in an entirely different place than where it is now. The building was torn down, and a new building was set up that was bigger and better. But now the school is overcrowded because Brookville is becoming too big. The solution now is to get the funding to build either a new middle or high school that was set where the old school was. Of course there's expenses for the building, but the long run will make the cost worth the trouble. There is even a pipeline so everything should be in order for the new building. The solution I have to help with the overcrowding is to simply build a new school where the old one was so there is enough room for students to learn in a comfortable lifestyle.