Reaffirm Our Support

For Schools

To the Editor:

Don’t you love to hear those stories about what your grandparents used to pay for this or that way back when? Heck, I remember when I was in grade school, my teacher made $5,400 a year — and had a house, a car, two kids, and a TV. I remember 15 cents for a head of lettuce and 10 cents for fries at McDonald’s. Nowadays, that same head of lettuce is $2.28 and small fries are $1.06 — not to mention $9.50 for one movie ticket ($8.50 for seniors). So, imagine my surprise when I came to learn that the additional appropriation for our high school expansion was going to cost just that —about 10 to 15 cents per day per household. (This figure varies depending on your house assessment, but the current estimated cost is $39.99 per year for a $400,000 house assessment.)

Remember the GI Bill? What did it get us? Education on a grand scale — for thousands. It unleashed a nation of innovators, business leaders, and business entrepreneurs. Our educational institutions became the envy of the world, and we became the greatest economic power in the world. Now, our future is threatened big time. (Consider, for example, China, Russia, Iran, our earth, our solvency, etc, etc). Our only way out lies in the absolute readiness of our future leaders. To say it another way, our kids.

So, now it’s our turn, we, the voters!! So, let’s vote. Let’s reaffirm loudly what we have already said. We support our schools. We support our kids and their teachers. We support our town. We support our nation. We insist on the best education we can possibly have — by constructing a high school for the future — without nickel and diming it to death and second guessing every decision our paid experts have agonized over to give us a school that addresses the educational compromises our kids have been making and continue to make every single day and is designed to facilitate the inspired education they so earnestly deserve every single day. We must act now to safeguard the progress we have so assiduously fought for every step of the way to get this high school expansion going. We must prepare our kids for a world we have never seen before — right now — even if it costs every last one of us 15 cents every single day!

Vote Yes on October 7!

Carole D. Brown

48 Marlin Road, Sandy Hook                               September 30, 2008