On the day we got back from winter break, we all went to a class meeting.

We heard the pep talk about how we are working towards being the best school in the country.

Most kids either seemed excited or were busy chatting with friends.

I was sitting, smoldering in my chair.

Over winter break, I went to St. Louis to visit close family friends for the new year.

While at Steak  ‘n Shake, my friend and I got into a conversation about school.

Talk about a reality check.

He told me his textbooks were only in classroom sets.

Not many of their computers worked. Most were missing so many keys it was difficult to do anything.

On top of these academic challenges, my friend started a fight and ended up breaking his hand.

The fight was triggered by incessant teasing about a hand deformity he’s had since birth.

Things aren’t this way at BV.

If he went here, that bullying would have been put to a stop, if it existed at all.

The golden ghetto.

The JoCo bubble.

Call it what you will, it exists.

My question to BV is this: Why not spend time trying to help improve other schools instead of just localizing positive progress?

The education system could majorly benefit from successful principals getting together and sharing their tactics with leaders of struggling schools.

Granted, communities and funds play a huge part in how a school develops.

But in order to change the attitudes of communities, the future parents have to care.

Those future parents are the current students.

It is a constant cycle.

I hear my parents talk about their schools growing up, and they were nothing like BV.

Their desire for their children to have the best is what caused them to move here.

If students were put in a safe, fun environment then maybe they would care about education.

It’s sad there is a growing gap between schools.

Soon there will be no middle ground, just the best and the worst.

It is up to the best schools to help struggling schools improve education everywhere.

Someday we will all be thrown in with kids from other places — kids with varying backgrounds. It is only then we will realize how fortunate we were.

But by then, it’s too late to do anything about it.

What if a student got the opportunity to visit a better school for a day?

If you pick the right student, it could be the open door to start improvement for a school.

We are one of the wealthiest counties in the country.

With that also comes a well-off community in which to grow.

Why, then, are we keeping all of this to ourselves so we can be extravagantly ahead?

Those other schools’ kids deserve the same opportunities we enjoy here in the Blue Valley district.

We can excel as an individual and leave others behind, or we can spread what we have so we can meet the requirements as a whole.

Instead of being the best in the country, maybe we should strive to help our country be one of the best.