I am honored to be a school board director in the Lakewood School District. I have the utmost respect for all our staff. We also have the most extraordinary group of parent volunteers in every building in the district.
I am very concerned with the small number of voters who dictated on March 9 that our community will not be “refreshing” the maintenance and operations levy that has been in place for the last two years. Many people think we are asking for a new tax. We are not. This is the same fair school levy that you have been paying. The board did decide to ask the voters to leave it in place for four years instead of two this time. The reasoning here is that we would save the cost of an election in two years and that a four-year plan leads to better long-range planning. Now we are in an all-out attempt to get our message to the voters so that we can have a better result on April 27.
A double levy failure would be devastating to our community as well as our district. We have not, for many years, received adequate funding from the state to provide basic education. Much like companies in our area, our people constitute 85 percent of our expenses. The cuts that would have to be made if we are unable to collect our local taxes would affect programs, services and people. An obvious and critical result would be larger classes because of fewer staff. The board and administration has focused over the last few years on lowering class size and enhancing curriculum.
So please don’t harm all of the children in the district by voting no when we ask again in April for your support of our existing levy for the sound operation of a great school district.
Marysville
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