To the Editor:

Once again the Vail School District is asking the voters to approve a bond issue. This proposal is estimated to cost a homeowner $6.20 per month per $100,000 in home value, which totals about $75 a year per $100,000. The question is – why should we approve it? The answers are simple:

If you have children or grandchildren who attend school in the Vail district, this really is a no-brainer. This is your child’s education. Failure of the bond issue will delay the addition of needed classroom space. Overcrowded classes mean your child gets less teacher time. That translates into lower educational performance. I taught in the public schools in China for three years. My average class size was 65 students. With a 45 minute class period each student got less than a minute of teacher time per class. Is that what you want for your child? A vote of “NO” on this bond issue is a vote for Chinese-sized classes.

If you do not have children or grandchildren in the Vail schools, but you own real estate inside the Vail School District’s boundaries, this is also a no-brainer. Schooldigger ranks the Vail School District as the #2 Public School District in the State (behind Catalina Foothills). The rest of the top 40 ranked schools are all Charter Schools, most of which are in the Phoenix area. The Arizona Department of Education, using different criteria than Schooldigger, ranks Vail as the #1 Public School District in Southern Arizona, with Catalina Foothills as the #2 Public School District in Southern Arizona and Vail as the #3 Public School District in the State, with the two above Vail being located near Phoenix and Flagstaff. I am removing charter schools from the above numbers. What does this mean to you? It means that if two homes, identical in every way, on opposite sides of the street from each other, but one is in the Vail School District and the other in a different school district were to sell, the home in the Vail district will sell for more money. Real estate agents that I have asked that question of indicate that the home in Vail will usually sell for a 10% to 15% premium. The $75 per $100,000 you pay in this Bond issue is “wealth insurance” – insuring that your home will be worth more now and in the future.

Why do we need our schools at the top of the rankings? Because we have nothing else in the Vail area that would support the premium value of our homes. Within the Vail School District’s boundaries we have very little that recommends us as a place to live other than our schools. Even the closest county library is not in the Vail School District.

A vote of “YES” on this bond issue is a vote of confidence in the future – confidence that the Vail schools will continue to excel, that our children and grandchildren will get an education that is tops in the state and that our real estate holdings will continue to command a premium in the market. Three really good reasons to vote “YES.”

Steven Katz

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