Opinion

Best possible plan

Monday, March 17, 2003

Dear Editor,

As one of the members of the Twin Valley citizens' committee that proposed this merger plan, our goals were to keep a smaller sized school in our area, keep our kids as close to home as possible, and still have local control of our school. I believe that this plan is our best option to accomplish these goals.

Opponents of the merger have said, "Let's wait and see what happens with the economy, the drought, and the war."

I agree that these are very troubling times, but is our future ever certain? If the patrons of the Danbury district back in 1929 (when the Danbury school building was built) would have known that they were on the brink of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl years, I wonder if they would have built that building. There was an uncertain future ahead at that time, too.

Yet, 74 years later, the building is still being used, and has been used to educate several generations of young people in the years since.

People have asked whether there will be enough students in 15-20 years to keep the school open. Nobody knows the answer to that question, but I feel certain that there will be more young families in the district if we have a school here than if the students from this area have to travel longer distances to go to school.

A new school would help keep families in the area and encourage new families to move to the area. The communities in these two districts are not emptying out. On the contrary, there are very few empty houses, and people are moving in, and even fixing up old houses to live in.

Opponents have also said that we should merge the two districts and use existing facilities. What existing facilities would we use? Do we want to pour millions of dollars into our existing buildings to bring them up to code and still have old buildings that are inefficient and will continue to take a lot of maintenance?

The time has come when we must make a decision. If this bond issue is defeated, there are going to be some tough years ahead for our schools and some very tough decisions for our school boards and administrators to make. It's time to make an investment in our future.

Carol Kelley

Danbury

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