Dear Editor,
Shepherd and Pioneer School district community members, as many of you have heard, we will be running an election on May 7th to vote on some much-needed repairs and upgrades to our Shepherd School facilities. Our facilities have many issues that present problems educating our kids. Recently, we have had to board up our Kindergarten building because of air quality issues displacing four class rooms and relocating them into an already full elementary building. Currently we have elementary students eating lunch in their class rooms and learning in hallways, broom closets, and every nook and cranny we could find. We have science rooms in the high school that are inadequate for today’s curriculum and the list goes on and on.
After multiple meetings with the community, staff, administration and school board, we have come up with a design for a facility to solve the problems that we face and address the growth for our future. This is not the perfect design, as some wanted far more, and some wanted far less. I feel that this plan is the best compromise and is 100% education based. Some may lead you to believe this is a sports-based design. I guess because the design incorporates space (200 square feet more than we currently have) for the cardio and weight lifting equipment we have acquired through a grant that the late John Barta applied for at 0 cost to the school district. The current space for this equipment will be renovated to relocate our administration offices to have a clear view of the entrances to the high school and improve our safety and control who comes in and out of our buildings.
Our school board has had many discussions on our education, test scores and curriculum, and takes this matter very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that we have created a position and hired a curriculum director to specifically oversee and plan the education of all our kids from K-12. This director came to the board asking for money to invest in our curriculum to improve our program, which after much discussion the board unanimously approved. Next, our goal is to provide our kids the facilities needed to uphold the curriculum we have all approved.
Throughout this bond campaign there has been plenty of “fake news” propaganda with misleading information, false accusations and frankly boldface lies about the information on this bond. I would encourage anyone that has questions or concerns to reach out to Scott Carter, Superintendent of schools, any school board member, or attend the community meetings that are being held on this matter. If you cannot attend these meetings they are made available for viewing on the Shepherd Community Facebook page.
As a husband, father, business owner, volunteer fire fighter, school board member, and as a member of this great community, please join me in supporting this bond May 7th by voting YES for our School.
Carl Openshaw
Chairman of the Board
of Trustees,
Shepherd School
