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Supporting the Bond

Even though our last child has now graduated from the Garden City public schools, my husband and I will support the bond resolution. Through many years of involvement with the public schools I have become well aware of the many repairs and renovations that our buildings need. Throughout Long Island many school buildings that were built in the 1950s and '60s, and certainly those built before are due, for major repairs and need to be brought up to date. This work has become so extensive that it cannot be handled in a normal school budget and other districts like our own are looking at bond resolutions. Just as an example, it took three school budgets to repair our high school roof.

These problems are now being compounded by the increasing enrollment in our primary and elementary schools. We are urgently in need of space in these schools. Eventually the increases will impact our secondary schools as well.

Our buildings also have to be renovated to handle the projected needs for 21st Century learning, such as computer hookups, media centers and up-to-date science labs. Our youngest child attends a major university that is striving to become a "paperless" campus by the year 2000. Our graduates have to be prepared for such a learning environment.

What choices do we have? We must maintain our schools just like we must maintain our homes in order to ensure their structural integrity and their value. We must provide present and future students with a healthy and safe environment in which to learn. Our schools have to be geared for the 21st Century learning if our graduates can compete in an ever-increasing technological world. Do we want to educate our youngsters in inadequate schools?

If we do not add on to our schools, what are the alternatives? We could see larger classes and loss of important programs such as extended day kindergarten. Have you heard of "art on cart" and "library on wheels?" Such occurrences have taken place in other schools in order to gain valuable classroom space. Probable classrooms could proliferate making neighbors unhappy. School attendance areas could change with greater busing of children.

As a community that has always been proud of its excellent schools, we really have but one choice and that is to support the bond resolution on Nov. 18.

Maxine Cunningham