As a member of the Riverside-Brookfield High School community, I wear three hats. I am a parent of three teenaged daughters, I am a community member since 1979 and I’ve taught in this district since 1976. If I could legally vote “yes” three times, I would.
The tax increase for the improvement of the physical plant is sorely needed. Many people feel that the RB referendum is asking far too much in this tax increase. Terrence Heuel’s Feb. 22 letter to the Landmark (“Reasons for RBHS renovation too vague”) reflects this attitude. In addition to some faulty math, his letter reflects a lack of historical perspective, even a recent historical perspective. This is the scaled-down version.
A survey went to all households in District 208. The respondents did not want a new school by a 2-to-1 margin. The community asked for renovations instead. This referendum is only presenting to the public what they want. …
Riverside and Brookfield have programs all over their respective villages in an ad-hoc, piecemeal fashion. Instead of three jurisdictions asking for three separate referendums, we are asking for one central place to handle the needs of all concerned. I can’t see how a 3-for-1 deal is anything but practical.
People have said that RBHS did just fine with the space it had in the 1970s with over 2,000 kids. Well, I was teaching here in the 1970s. We never reached 2,000 kids, we had no special education rooms, computers were something NASA used, kids took one year of science (maybe two, but never two lab sciences), we never rented out space for junior colleges at night, we started after Labor Day when the average classroom was not 110 degrees Fahrenheit, few kids drove to school because fewer families had two parents working and fewer families were headed by a single parent, etc. I could go on and on.
You don’t get to be sixth best high school in Illinois housing students, staff and teachers in a third-rate facility.
We need the additional classroom space, we need the technologically advanced space to compete in the 21st-century global economy, we need to offer something practical, like parking, to the zoo so that they will continue to lease us land, and we need a 3-for-1 recreation deal in order to keep those costs in line.
In short, we need a “yes” vote on March 21. This will result in giving the community what it wants.
Jan Goldberg
Riverside
