[Vision2020] What Bond Will Do

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (April 24, 2005) Lewiston Morning Tribune with a special thanks
to Bill Marineau

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What bond will do

Why does the district need the space proposed by the current School
Facilities Committee? I will use West Park Elementary School to illustrate
just a few of the needs that exist at every district school. West Park
Elementary was built in 1955 and the building met the educational needs of
those times. 

In 1955 it was not common for Idaho schools to have kindergartens,
after-school programs or specialists delivering music, library and physical
education programs. The addition of these beneficial programs placed a
burden on all our schools. Additional individualized programs have been
mandated to serve children. These include reading support, special services,
speech pathology, nursing, English as a second language, gifted and
talented, and programs to serve the blind, hearing impaired and physical
challenged. Schools and programs continue to change to serve our public but
our buildings have not. 

Because of a lack of classrooms, additional programming needs and inadequate
infrastructure, West Park Elementary now houses and teaches four classes of
kindergarteners six blocks away in the University of Idaho's College of
Education building. Within West Park, overcrowding exists as well; there are
three instructional programs working together on a converted stage, seven
support programs working together in a single room and three programs
working in a small office. In 1994 two trailer classrooms installed to house
extra programs. These two classrooms now have four individual programs
sharing the same space. Even the library is closed regularly to provide
teaching space. ... 

Please join me in voting yes on April 26. 

Bill Marineau 
Moscow

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Take care, Moscow.

Tom Hansen

Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will
stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving
path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so
far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.

-Sir Winston Churchill