I've slowly been getting more involved in the local schools. I went to two town council meetings in the past month to make sure that our schools were properly funded, despite the school budget going down. Unlike some other towns in the state, our town council demanded draconian cuts. I attended several school foundation meetings. I even ran the potato sack race at yesterday's Field Day.

At this week's foundation meeting, one the school nurses asked the foundation for help as she applied for grants to help the children receive free dental care. There are many self-employed and under-employed people in town who can't afford to buy private dental insurance. The number of families in town that qualify for the free lunch program is up 26 percent. While they can qualify for state-run health insurance for their children, there isn't a state subsidized dental program.

The nurse is an adorable woman. When Jonah was in Kindergarten, he was in her office every day getting patched up for some playground misstep. She was incredibly kind to him and I'll always be grateful to her.

Unfortunately, this woman has to deal with more than Jonah's skinned knees. She said that a large number of the kids enter school without ever visiting a dentist. She's seen them loose adult teeth and deal with the pain of untreated cavities. While there are free dental clinics in the urban areas, people forget that poverty exists in suburban areas. She was applying for grants to hire buses to take these poor families to the urban dental clinics. 

Despite this era of budgetary stress, we still have to find a way to make good policies.