New schools will prepare our youth for the future | LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Published 9:05 am Monday, January 25, 2016

To the editor:

Vote for the bond.

In 2002, an independent architectural firm completed a study and survey of our school facilities and found six of our buildings to be in poor condition based on state standards.

In the ensuing years, our community stepped up and funded the replacement of two buildings. In 2014, another study and survey found, not surprisingly, that the four remaining buildings were still in poor condition based on state standards.

In 2015, the Facilities Master Plan Committee, made up of staff and community members, recommended replacing two of the buildings: Blakely Elementary School and the BHS 100 building. It’s time to replace those buildings.

We have award-winning programs in failing facilities. Replacing these obsolete and inefficient buildings with sustainable and energy-efficient ones will reduce operating costs and allow more money to go back into our classrooms in the form of curriculum materials and teacher and para-educator salaries. It will increase safety and security for our children, and will help better prepare our kids for future careers by training them with equipment geared toward the modern world, not the 1970s.

Without a capital bond, we will have to use general fund dollars to pay for essential repairs and ongoing maintenance, when we should be using that money in the classrooms.

Please join me in voting “yes” for the school bond.

Thank you.

MEV HOBERG

President, Bainbridge Island School District Board of Directors