I am a parent in Maple Valley, and I am going to vote yes for the school bond coming up in November. The bond is vitally important to our community. If you live in Maple Valley, I am urging you to vote yes.

Our city has grown exponentially because it’s a great place to live. New neighborhoods continue to pop up in and around our city. If you look at real estate listings for Maple Valley, most will use Tahoma School District as a major selling point in their descriptions. Families don’t move to Maple Valley because we have a lot of job growth — they move here because they want to raise their children in a safe, family-friendly environment that has an award winning school district. Our city has been chosen twice as one of the best places to raise a family, once in 2011 by Family Circle magazine and again in 2013 by Bloomsberg Businessweek. This is how Bloomsberg Businessweek made their decisions: “For those interested in small-town living, Bloomberg Businessweek and Bloomberg Rankings evaluated more than 3,200 places nationwide with populations from 5,000 to 50,000. We looked at such metrics as public school performance, safety, housing costs, commute t ime, poverty, adults’ educational attainment, share of households with children, and diversity.” Our schools are a huge part of what makes our community great.

If it’s not clear from the above paragraph, supporting our schools helps our home values. If our school district has to go to rotating schedules and year-round school, I can only imagine our home values will plummet. People will choose to go to communities that support their schools. I know many will use the argument that the state should be paying for these things, but, the fact is, the state doesn’t have the money. We have to pass levies in Tahoma to just have enough money to keep the schools running how they do now.

These are the facts. For the owner of a home valued at $300,000 by King County, the bond measure would cost an additional $36.75 per month. That is less than the cost of buying a coffee at Starbucks five days a week for a month. So, for the price of a cup of coffee per day, we can make our schools better and safer. I think that is a worthwhile investment.

Let’s show Tahoma that Maple Valley citizens appreciate the work they do with our kids and for our community. Let’s show the state that our city will stand up and support our kids and schools. Let’s stand up and vote yes in November.

Sincerely,

Kelly Harned

Maple Valley Resident