No community can be great and have subpar schools. It is a mathematical impossibility. Public services (police, fire, roads) and the school system are the backbone of a great community. If you show me a “not so great” community, you can usually point to something in the public services or school system as a direct cause. It is usually something in the culture of one of those agencies that leads to a mistrust and then a misfire in the relationship. The schools have had both.

Don’t vote yes or no for school funding based on your opinion of the board or Superintendent, good or bad. Regardless of how you feel about them, they are working diligently to make Garland ISD an exemplary school system. The board members are elected officials, voted on by you and me. Please consider all of the factors before you vote. Don’t let your mistrust of a person or persons be a deciding factor in voting for or against this bond.

Yes. People feel taxed out. The state and federal government have left school funding (and funding for police, fire and roads) to the public. So, when you can’t change what the feds and state take from you in the form of taxes…it makes people come to the polls with anger towards local issues…and then we suffer, locally.
When that happens, a great community witnesses students leaving the district for greener pastures. Those pastures have art, music, physical education, advanced placement academics and other attractive programs. When the schools fail, property values drop, people lose equity in their homes and others stop seeing this as a place to move and raise a family.

The bottom line is our district has aging facilities that need updating. That will not change without putting money back into them. It is also a fact that the district population is stagnant – too many area school districts have chosen to invest in their facilities and state of the art programs. We are forced to ‘keep up with the Jones’s’ if we want GISD and our the communities of Garland, Rowlett and Sachse to continue to flourish.

Elections have consequences…both good and bad. I, for one, prefer to invest in the future of our communities and children.