Dear Editor,
It is great to see all the hard work and community support going towards the Shepherd School bond! Our school board, our school administration, our community, and Collaborative Design have been working diligently to bring this plan to Vote for our community. If this bond passes, that same great team will keep us moving forward. Our school is in dire need of our help. This is very evident in our elementary school and only around the corner for the rest of our school. If we do not invest now in this bond with a YES vote we will only pay more down the road.
Have you ever ignored a known problem in life or maybe put a known problem off? It usually causes more problems in the long run. I can tell you if you vote No, your taxes will still go up and the school will get far less for the same amount of money over the long run. Just like when you ignored that little problem that becomes a much bigger problem over time. If it just went away it wasn’t really a problem. The problems facing our school won’t just go away. They will only get worse if we don’t pass this bond.
I hate paying more and more taxes! But we must invest in our school and community. If we say No, our problems will only get worse as a community. Costing us more in the long run… Impacting us all in different ways…
We have heard a lot about what gets done if we vote YES. Here are a just a few things that could happen if we vote No. Our school will only fall further and further behind. Home values will decline. People will over-look our community for a community that has a better school. If we were a young family in the market for a home, we would not purchase a home in Shepherd. It will only take more Pride out of our school and tell our youth that they don’t matter to us. A kid that has no pride and a community that is not behind that kid is much more likely to go the wrong direction in life. We will not get the quality teachers we want teaching our kids. Where would you rather work? In a good working environment or a bad working environment? Walk into a store, go to a restaurant, how do the employees act, how do the surroundings make you feel? This is what our kids feel when they are trying to be educated. This will affect all of us in a negative way, these are your neighbors, these are the kids that may stay in our community to raise their families or move away. Our school in its current condition is a poor reflection of our community. Let’s make it better for all of us and vote YES.
Matt Beddes
Shepherd
