By Alex Koepsell
The vote is over. Washington School is closing, and the three-year-old preschool program is ending.
For some people, that may make this feel settled. But for a lot of families in this community, it does not feel settled at all.
There is still a lot of sadness around this decision, and I think that deserves to be said plainly.
For my own family, this is personal. When we were new to Crookston and raising a small child, Washington and ECFE had a profound impact on us. Families like mine do not just remember programs. We remember people. Gina Gunderson, Kiely Tate, and others involved in ECFE made a real difference early on for our family. They helped create a space that was welcoming, supportive, and steady at a time when we were still trying to find our footing in a new community. They did not just serve children. They helped connect families. They helped people feel like they belonged here.
That was not a small thing for us. Some of the families we met during those early days in ECFE are families we are still friends with and connected to today. That is part of what programs like this do. They do not just help children grow. They help build community in a real and lasting way.
That matters, and it is one of the reasons this loss feels so significant.
I know our family is not the only one that feels that way.
For many people, Washington was never just a building. It was part of their family’s story. It was where little kids first learned how to be away from home, how to sit in a classroom, how to make a friend, how to listen, how to share, and how to start believing they belonged in school. Those things may sound small, but they are not small when you are three, four, or five years old. They matter, and they stay with people.
That is why this decision feels heavier than just moving students from one place to another.
There is also the part that is harder to talk about but just as important. Schools are made up of people. They are made up of teachers, paraprofessionals, aides, office staff, and everyone else who shows up every day to help children feel safe, seen, and cared for. In a small town, those relationships mean a lot. Families remember the people who helped their kids through those early years. Kids remember them too.
So when a decision like this gets made, it is not only about where children will go next year. It is also about the people who gave so much to those children and now may be losing their jobs or facing an uncertain future. And in a community like ours, that hits differently. These are not anonymous employees in some far-off system. They are our friends, our neighbors, the people we see at church, at the grocery store, at youth events, and around town. They are people who have invested in our kids and in this community, and now they are the ones carrying the weight of that uncertainty.
That should matter to all of us.
Whatever side someone was on in this debate, I think most people can agree on that. There is a real human cost here, and in a small community, human costs do not stay abstract for very long. We feel them close to home.
At the same time, this is not the moment for our community to turn on each other. People have strong feelings, and that is understandable. But the vote has happened, and now the question becomes what kind of community we are going to be going forward.
Are we going to stay focused on the kids who are affected by this?
Are we going to support the families who are hurting?
Are we going to stand by the teachers and staff who poured themselves into this school and treat them with the respect they have earned?
Are we going to expect clear communication and follow-through as these changes move forward?
That is what matters now.
A community does not show its values only when things are easy. It shows them in moments like this, when people are disappointed, when emotions are high, and when something familiar is being taken away. This is one of those moments.
It is okay for people to feel sad about Washington. It is okay for families to grieve what their children are losing. It is okay for this to feel personal, because it is personal. Schools are personal. The people inside them shape lives.
The vote may be over, but the responsibility is not.
Our responsibility now is to make sure kids are cared for, families are respected, and the teachers and staff who made Washington matter are not forgotten in the process. If there is one thing this community should hold onto, it is that the people affected by this decision are more important than the politics around it.
Washington mattered to my family. Gina Gunderson, Kiely Tate, and others in ECFE helped make that true. I know many other families could say the same in their own way.
Buildings matter. Budgets matter. But children matter more.
And so do the people who helped raise them.
