With the board set to take action on a bond, the Charger staff believes option 10 is the best choice for the future of our district.
The option, which calls for a new K-12 building, unifies the school district, which will make the district more financially efficient and benefit many aspects of the students’ experience.
Consolidating the buildings will mean fewer locations to manage, and it will centralize the management of the existing facilities, creating the potential for better security and easier maintenance. With fewer buildings, the district saves money by owning less square footage.
Having one building also gives the district the option of hiring a school nurse, security guard and other hires that wouldn’t have to travel to other buildings. Again this will save money for the district because it eliminates traveling staff and the cost of gas.
All students will be in the same building, giving elementary kids the chance to interact with the high schoolers and learn from them. Moving the junior high students to the high school gives them the chance to start vocational classes sooner, earning the district extra funding from more students in the classes. Vocational classes also benefit the students because they can start exploring career interests earlier in their education.
Most of the board members, especially President Justin Frank, want this bond to last much longer, so the community isn’t paying bond to bond. Option 10 gets rid of the “old” buildings and builds additions on to the “newer” buildings. By getting rid of the older buildings, the district will no longer have to deal with the problems that aging facilities present.
The community is going to change anyway, no matter what we do. The normal passage of time brings students and teachers in and out of the district. We can’t dig in our heels and refuse to adapt, because if we don’t take action now, the change will be forced to happen, and we may not like it.
What the community needs to focus on now is taking control of the changes while we still can, and benefiting from them. Option 10 will help ensure that in the future we’ll be able to take changes in stride.
The editorial is the opinion of the Charger staff. Send letters to the editor to whscharger@gmail.com.
The Charger 