Editor,

What a joy to see dozens of happy citizens on the corner of Beeksma and Pioneer on Saturday, smiling and waving signs to support our upcoming school bond.

The Oak Harbor school board didn’t give up after last year’s bond failed. Instead, they listened to voters and put a new version — scaled back to absolute essentials — up for a vote next month.

Taxpayer costs will actually go down, as the new bond is less expensive than the one that just expired.

The Department of Defense will provide 80% of the funds for rebuilding Crescent Harbor Elementary and Hand-in-Hand / Home Connection. That’s an opportunity we’d be foolish to pass up.

For all those leveraged dollars, along with those two rebuilt schools, our community gets a new school at Ft. Nugent Park, and modernized safety/access upgrades to keep facilities more secure and let teachers and students focus on teaching and learning.

We can argue all day about curriculum and quality of education. We can still do that and, at the same time, provide our children with safe, functional buildings to learn in.

On February 14 we get to determine our future as a community. Will we support our kids and give them a leading-edge learning environment? Or will we leave them and our devoted teachers scrambling to keep up?

Choose wisely, Oak Harbor. Vote yes on the Feb 14 school bond.

William Walker

Oak Harbor