From the Editors: Orientation Season

bmarya83

Back to school is an adjustment for just about everyone.

For students, it's reacclimating to a set schedule and learning the rules, expectations, and temperaments of new teachers. For parents, it's the juggling act of before- and after-school logistics, appointments, and obligations. For teachers, it's adapting to the learning needs of dozens of new faces, with pressures from parents and administrators looming large. On the administrative side, it's the duty of keeping up with shifting standards and protocols within the constraints of time and facilities and budget. And for the rest of us, it's pumping the brakes for all those freshly reactivated school zones.

We've grown especially averse to slowing down in this day and age, our go-go-go worlds rarely affording the opportunity. Changes to any routine will take some getting used to, and yet we expect these transitions to be seamless. Citywide, Erie is anxiously winding through the hallways on the way to its next period, hoping to find the right classroom, the one with all the tools and amenities to succeed. But who will be standing in front of it? 

Shake-ups in leadership tend to leave the lot of us with frogs in our throats and/or butterflies in our stomachs. We're vulnerable in our formative years, and Erie is going through an unprecedented growth spurt. At the center of this has been the Erie Downtown Development Corporation (EDDC), with former lawyer-turned-mayoral candidate John Persinger leading the charge. With Persinger stepping down at the end of the year, its next CEO will have to step up to the podium without tripping in front of the class. 

At a municipal, state, and federal level, there are poised to be yet more new leaders instructing and guiding the trajectory of our future come November. As a community, we must be sure to do our collective homework on these candidates, to articulate our needs and concerns and hopes and dreams with confidence, lest our voices crack. When it's our turn to tell the class a little about ourselves, we'd better know what to say.

In the meantime, there's plenty of options to enjoy recess, with an events calendar that could fill several chalkboards — Arts and Drafts, ComiCon Erie, Gallery Night, the Wine Country Harvest Festival, and the Eerie Horror Fest represent just a sampling of what's in the agenda book (see more online at eriereader.com). So while we should definitely tend to our assignments, let's not forget how to play. 

We all too often grow up too fast.