Yacolt resident Ryan Cowl offers his support for the Battle Ground Public Schools levy
Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are those of the author alone and do not reflect the editorial position of ClarkCountyToday.com
I am writing this letter in support of the upcoming levy in the Battle Ground Public Schools. I have been a student, parent, educator and community member in this district for many years. I always appreciated the time, attention and support my teachers, administrators and school personnel gave me throughout my education years as a student.
I went into the education field because of a strong desire to help students succeed in school and life. It is awesome to be able to develop strong connections with students and help them achieve their goals.
I am thankful that students are back to school in-person. Students along with their parents appreciate having a routine, a teacher they can see every day to support and guide their learning and friends they can socialize with and make connections. This is an essential part of the educational process.
As we approach the upcoming levy election there are some important points I want to emphasize as you cast your vote:
• This is a replacement levy and not a new tax. The current levy is set to expire Dec. 31, 2021.
• The projected tax rate is $1.99 per 1,000 assessed property value over the next four years (2022-2025). This is a decrease of the current tax value of $2.32.
• The current bond that the district passed in 2005 will expire in December of 2023 lowering the tax rate even more.
• Battle Ground Public Schools has the lowest property tax rate of all K-12 districts in Clark County.
• The levy will allow the district to maintain critical student programs and activities not fully funded by the state and to maintain facilities.
• The levy supports many important positions such as nurses, counselors, psychologists, security staff, assistant principals and teaching assistants.
If you have additional questions I encourage district citizens to check out the Battle Ground Public School website: https://www.battlegroundps.org/levy
Ballots will be coming out on Fri., Oct. 15 and must be postmarked and mailed no later than Tue., Nov. 2, 2021. I urge you to continue to support our students and programs in the Battle Ground Public Schools by voting yes by Nov. 2. Thank you.
Ryan Cowl
Yacolt
No. Here’s the thing.
It wasn’t that long ago that the teachers extorted massive pay raises that caused property taxes to explode.
In return for… Nothing.
The fact is the McCleary budget scam was supposed to end reliance on levies. And while anyone breathing knew that was an outright lie, I am now forever voting no on levies for any reason
Period.
False. The McCleary stuff was a poor attempt by the legislature to end the funding inequity between districts, but it was never intended to replace local levies. They represent local control over the things districts choose to provide beyond the state’s antiquated basic education funding model (1.8 nurses for a district with 12,000 students and 18 schools?). It’s frustrating that so much of local levies end up going to things the state should be funding, or that any district should be reliant on them just to provide things like special ed, social-emotional supports, or even updated curriculum, but here we are. A no vote fixes literally none of the issues you’re upset about, and creates a laundry list of new ones. Vote yes.
Sorry, your response is false. We were repeatedly told this. As I pointed out, there was a reason they did this, we were told, and that was to end their reliance on levies. Well, clearly, that was not the case. We were also told there would be a property tax increase cap of 1.5% which lasted all of about 10 minutes.
Feel free to sign over every dime you make. But I knew, as many others knew, that caving to teacher extortion would merely serve to enrich them at our expense while making precisely zero difference in the ONLY thing that mattered: academic outcomes.
Those outcomes were miserable when the morons in the Legislature passed this garbage and they’re no less miserable now.
In fact, I’d be happy to provide a link to two of these idiots, Rivers and Wilson, GUARANTEEING that our property taxes would go DOWN when this insanity was implemented. I knew that was a lie when Wilson uttered it.
And I was absolutely right.
The county assessor warned us repeatedly that our taxes would explode and they have and continue to do so. In fact, Rivers had the gall to blame HIM for our massive property tax jack when that information was available from the legislature itself long before this crap was implemented.
I stand by my initial position. We’ve wasted billions… and for what? Inculcation and SJW training. But where it matters?
Nothing.
Vote no on this and every other levy. I know *I* will.
And if money made any difference, we’d be punching out geniuses.
Thank you for this concise and clear message. It will help many understand what this is about.
I will vote YES. I do not have a student in the BG district, but have always felt that investing in our children is and should be a top priority; even if we don’t have children in the system, we still benefit from a better educated youth.
I have heard arguments about staff pay and others, and none seem to have merit. BG staff salaries are publicly available online and I find them to be fair, if not sometimes modest.
To be fair, a great influencer in my life was my Great Aunt, Louise Frasier, who taught in Amboy from the 1920’s until the 1970’s. We never spoke about anything related to funding, but she spoke much about the importance of education.