Our Snoqualmie Valley School District depends heavily upon local funding for hiring teachers, improving their effectiveness, school supplies, and other school operational expenses.  About one quarter of the  district operations budget comes from our local taxpayers, and approval for that must be reapproved every six years by voters.

Thankfully, our resident voters have reapproved replacement school operations levies in the past, but just think for a moment what would happen if that didn’t happen: massive teacher lay-offs, dramatic jump in class sizes, shortages in books and supplies, cessation in educational programs, severe cut-backs in the technology used to inform the public and prepare our youth for the digital age, are among the likely outcomes.  It would be a tremendous shock to our kids, parents, staff, and community.

Please don’t assume that these replacement operations levies will be automatically reapproved by our voting community.  Your ballot will arrive any day with these items on it: replacement school operations levy and replacement school technology levy.

I implore you to approve these replacement levies that will continue what their predecessors, which are expiring, have made possible: improvement in the education of our kids that helps prepare them for a challenging future.  Vote that ballot and mail it back no later than Tuesday 11 February.

Stephen Kangas

North Bend