March 18, 2024

Let’s invest in 21st Century learning

Do you remember the last time in your life that you were surprised by the need for a significant repair to your vehicle, your home or even your body? And, if you think on it a bit, you know in your heart that the repair itself was really not as much the surprise, as the fact the change in circumstances for your vehicle, your home or your body could no longer wait. Thus, decision time was upon you.

School districts are susceptible to the same moments of surprise.

Such is the story of the Berg complex. In the fall of 2014, the school board learned the infrastructure of the buildings is in desperate need of significant repair. As we met with the district architect, we further learned that the amount of repair exceeds half the cost of building new. Gulp! We serve between 800-900 students in this building complex, and we do not have enough space in other buildings to pick up that number of students. So doing nothing and closing Berg is not an option. The board participated in thoughtful discussion about how to proceed with the understanding that bonding to repair only infrastructure or to build a new building is necessary. Ultimately, bonding for a new building makes the best fiscal sense and assures a property to carry us 60 or more years.

Today, I am asking you to look beyond the dollars and cents of this decision. I am asking you to look at the opportunity for us to invest in our future by creating a state of the art 21st Century learning environment for our fifth through eighth graders. Wow! This is an opportunity I did not ever see coming when I first joined this board in 2006, but I am surprised, humbled and excited to present this opportunity to you in 2016.

Did you know that public education is one of the best investments that a community makes in its future? Public schools are filled with little bodies that grow to big bodies and change our communities, states and ultimately the world! We never know when the next Thomas Jefferson, Madam Curie or F.L. Maytag will sit in our chairs, wiggle on our floors or pass through our lunch lines.

I am voting “yes” on Sept. 13. Join me!

Sheri Benson

Newton