In the fall of 1963 my mother began her senior year at the spanking new DeKalb County High School. It must have seemed like Nirvana, walking into the fresh, state-of-the-art MILLION DOLLAR high school complex after attending the aged and outdated College Street facility.
It must also have been overwhelming for the students of Dekalb County to be blessed with such an impressive campus after being raised in one-and-two room country schools with little more in the way of supplies than a few books and a chalk board.
When I entered the  Science and Chemistry department of the same building last week for the first time in many years, the effect significantly different.
I was surprised to see most of the same equipment that was present when I was a student (um) some years ago. It turns out that the equipment was the very top-of-the-line stuff that the class of 1964 wondered over on their first tour of DCHS.
Yes, you heard me. Much of the gear in the Chemistry lab is the same hardware that was installed almost 50 years ago.
Much has been made lately of whether to buy a certain piece of land for a new high school, the fact that money is tight, and how to proceed with the expansion of the existing structure of the school system.
No matter what you think about buying land, building a new high school complex, or what direction the county should take with the school system in general, no amount of frugality or sentimentality should prevent us from giving our children the proper tools to acquire an education. It is an embarrassment to the community and an injustice to our students to allow our educational facilities to remain this ridiculously outdated.