A bond for improvements in school buildings around the district is currently in its planning stages, as the Gresham-Barlow School Board will officially decide on whether or not it should be put on the upcoming ballot. The school board, community members and students should support and advocate this bond to further provide a better learning environment–and therefore educational success of its students.

According to John Koch, principal and Bond Measure Planning Committee member, a lot of buildings need upgrades, and to be able to make these improvements, the district must obtain the resources and money needed to make those changes. For this to happen, local residents have to agree to raise their property taxes. While this may discourage people to support and vote for the bond, their decision to advocate for the bond will truly provide students with what they deserve and need to thrive.

The district realizes that the schools here have crucial needs that must be given attention. That is why the Bond Measure Planning Committee has been spending years to recognize the district’s most serious needs, gather relevant information, hold community forums and phone polls, and propose a school bond measure so that they could present the bond to the school board, who will make the final decision on March 7.

The bond includes school construction projects. Of the $210 million school bond, $82 million is prospected to go towards completely rebuilding Gresham High. There are also many more projects being considered according to each school’s need in the district.

According to Jessica Gonzalez, senior and Bond Measure Planning Committee member, rebuilding the entire school is needed because Gresham High is over 100 years old, so if an earthquake were to occur, there would be no way for the school walls to withstand that.

The purpose of the bond is to update facilities, primary and secondary structures, update functional standards and renew safety standards in order to create a better learning environment for all students. This change is necessary for the school to catch up with the speed at which other high schools are thriving at. Students here deserve a well-rounded, stable education in a safer, larger and more modern learning atmosphere, in order increase graduation rates and succeed in achieving higher education.

Also, the rebuilding of Gresham High and updating of all the other schools is necessary right now as the old buildings pose a safety concern to students and staff members, as the building itself is old, weak, and unlikely to go on for much longer in good condition. It would be more cost effective to reconstruct the whole building now, rather than having to fix damages in the future. Therefore, the passing of the school bond is crucial to provide a safe place to learn.

Drexel Grimes, senior and Gresham-Barlow superintendent’s advisory board member, is a student advocate for this bond to be passed, as he knows firsthand the condition of the high school. He suggests that the twists and turns of the hallways, the infrastructure overall, such as heating and cooling, and general maintenance are all very expensive due to the old age of the school building and system.

According to Grimes, it is difficult to educate students if the environment is not optimal for the proper learning conditions and that the bond would significantly help the situation.

Grimes and Gonzalez have both been involved in attending the bond planning meetings and are both good representations of students here who feel strongly about the supporting the bond.

As a band student, Grimes also notices the need for a new choir and band room, which is included in the proposal. According to Grimes, a new choir and band room are currently needed because there simply is not enough room. Concert choir, one of the choir classes, had about 95 students enrolled last year, and there just was not and currently is not enough room, as the students could barely fit. Due to the high number of students in band, there was a lack of room for all the instruments. The design of the rooms make it so that the acoustics are skewed or not fully optimal. In addition to that, the condition of certain structures is not the best. Most of all, the size of the rooms is of biggest concern because as the class sizes are growing, the rooms are incapable of keeping up with the population or equipment needed.

The bond measure would also allow the increase of the numbers of classrooms to expand the number of future enrollments, as soon as the reconstruction is completed, which would take about three years.

Students, such as Grimes and Gonzalez, feel and understand the need of pushing this proposed bond through, and the school board is highly encouraged to make the decision to put this school bond measure on the ballot, as the presented improvements are needed in the schools.

Furthermore, the voters should advocate and support this school bond measure, as it will surely provide an atmosphere more capable of a valuable, modernized education that will help students succeed than as is now.

The only obstacle is how the community members in Gresham feel about the raising of property taxes. Currently the bond tax rate is $1.08 per thousand, however that would be raised to $2.50 per thousand. For instance, a house valued at $100,000 would experience an increase of $142.00 per year.

This may serve as a huge drawback to the school bond; however, all community members should and need to recognize the huge need of the schools in the district. As the students and staff have worked hard to utilize schools as much as possible, it still falls short in comparison to how much better the learning environment could be.

Students here should do their part in showing their interest and support in this proposed school bond. Since this bond would be the ones benefiting the students, the students should support and promote this bond, and make the needs known to the community, to further gain more support. Being that the last bond occurred in November of 2000, it has been awhile since the Gresham area has had one. This makes it a good time to support another bond.

According to Koch, the Gresham community has a good tradition of supporting its schools by passing its bonds, so he believes that for community members to protect their investments already, they would support the bond. Koch adds that the need to provide a modern facility is clear and now is the right time because interest rates and construction costs are low to be able to make those improvements. This bond will help teachers and staff be able to provide the students a 21st century education.

If the bond were to be fully supported by students, the school board, and all the community members in Gresham, the schools in the district would be able to maximize their education and more competitively match up against all the other schools in the state and furthermore, in the county.