As Election Day approaches, voters in Fayette County will be given an opportunity to renew the school levy. School levies are extremely important and are directly tied to the quality of education that our Fayette County students will receive. In an everchanging, technologically advanced world where schools are tasked with providing social, emotional, and academic needs for each student, the levy is essential to helping our public schools achieve their goals.
Our organizations consist of members who dedicate their lives to serving our communities and helping those who need it most. It is because of this underlying commonality that we collectively understand the need for well-funded public schools. If our school levy fails, our public education system will be forced to drastically reduce services and only provide the bare basics. These reductions will be immediate and tangible. This could look like less technology, less academic opportunities, larger class sizes, less extracurricular support, and less athletic funding. Our schools need more resources – not less.
Our school levy provides for many things that give our Fayette County students an advantage and “leg up,” so to speak. Voting this levy down will negatively impact our children and will put them at a severe disadvantage to their peers and the generations that came before them.
Some of the things our levy provide for are safe schools, prevention resource officers, free textbooks, universal feeding, instructional support, funding for national and state competitions, and support for reading, science, math, the arts, and technology. Additionally, athletic and extracurricular funding are in the levy. If the levy does not pass, our students and public school employees will feel a direct impact.
Our levy provides for enhanced services such as the ones listed above without increasing our taxes from current rates. It is important for the voters of Fayette County understand that supporting our levy will not increase your taxes.
Our organizations have a vested interest in seeing the students of Fayette County succeed. Successful students and families make our communities thrive while also making it attractive for our families to stay here and pour into our local communities. For example, there are six students at Oak Hill High School and two students at Midland Trail High School who serve on the volunteer fire departments in their communities. Additionally, fire instructors work with the public school system for resources, trainings, and personnel assistance. How many times have you witnessed elementary school students taking field trips to their local fire stations for tours, firefighters making presentations to local schools, and the fire department helping with area competitions, such as pumpkin drops? These things happen quite frequently and are just a few examples of how the school system and a public service department work together in this county.
Our levy gives us an opportunity to make a very positive impact on our school system and showcase our students’ successes. Fayette County has historically recognized the importance of levies in this county. For close to 50 years, voters have chosen to invest in our public schools and our kids by supporting the school levy.
We support the school levy in Fayette County and will be voting “yes” on November 8th.
Stephanie Lewis, vice president of AFT-Fayette #4865
Jason Crouch, vice president of Fayette County Education Association
Stephen Cruikshank, president of Fayette Firefighters Association
Tim Richardson, Fire Chief at Oak Hill Fire Department