274 - TCHS Opens

In 273 Mayor Fae Norine and the Tri-City Board of Directors passed the largest spending bill in the history of Tri-City. The 'Future Generations Act' would pay for a High School to be built that would rival any other industrialized city, as well as a large increase in the yearly budget to pay staff to teach children all the way up to 10th grade / 16 years old.

The law also made it mandatory for children under the age of 12 to attend elementary school. This created an impact on the pool of cheap labor available to the factories and mines. This also meant the elementary schools would have almost twice as many students. This law did not, however, provide and funding for the elementary schools. Each district has its own elementary school that is funded and operated by that district.
Overnight Tri-City went from employing only 16 elementary school teachers to 32 elementary school teachers and 14 high school teachers.

There was an overwhelming positive feedback from the population about the new school. When it came time to start working out the specifics of how things were going to move forward and who would be paying the tax burden, many controversies popped up.

• The location of the school was chosen to be between Little Keplar and the East Tower. The citizens across the river and up town felt the location was inconvenient.
  


• Construction companies argued over the fair allotment of building contracts
  


• The newspapers lost count on the number of fist fights that broke out over which people's taxes would be raised *spoiler alert, it wasn't the rich people... it is never the rich people*
  


• There were many arguments over a shared curriculum that the Delts, Likeminds, and Keplanscould all agree on.



• Delt handwriting and printed books are traditionally only done in script. Keplans will often only use capital letters. Both groups worried they would be forced to conform with Likemind writing practices.



• There were many other cultural differences from furniture to windows to school holidays to rules about student relationships that all had to be worked out with many compromises.



• The mayor commissioned her granddaughter, Laura-Beth Bennett to design all the uniform variations for Tri-City High School. This brought up talk of nepotism.



• When the uniforms were released to the public in 273 they were loved by a large amount of the community, but many others claimed the designs were way too Fossan and not representative of other groups in the city.



• Even among the Fossans there were many who claimed that Laura-Beth was dressing their daughters in too 'manly' of a style.



• On the exact opposite end of the spectrum, other groups wanted legendary designer and co-founder of Tri-City Richard Oscar Shae to design the uniforms, and that Laura-Beth's style was just a cheap imitation of his. (Shae only designs and tailors mens clothing)

Tri-City High School is about the future generations that will hopefully build a better world. I am an old retired designer, a relic of the past, I didn't feel like it would be appropriate for me to design the uniforms. I have worked with Laura-Beth and I have full confidence she is the right choice for this job. I have seen her initial designs and I found them nothing short of amazing.

-Richard Oscar Shae-

But despite Shae's very clear support of Laura-Beth the critics still complained. Regardless, by 274 the uniforms were finished and the school was opened and the children were happy. The taxes weren't paid yet...