Dear Editor,
As many of you know, I taught school in the Del Norte School District for 25 years. This was a place where everyone worked together to make this school district the best.
Right now we have an opportunity to help students in our communities. Our school district was awarded a BEST grant that would provide 60 percent ($27 million) of the dollars needed to build a new school. Through the years the school board and administration worked hard to improve our school campus.  Our custodial staff made our school buildings the best they could. (I don’t know how many layers of paint are on some of the walls!) Maintaining so many buildings is costly, difficult and inefficient. Many of our buildings need too many improvements in order to make them safe for our students.
The district has a plan to build a new k-12 school that would improve educational services for students in a safer environment, reduce utility costs, increase efficiency of maintenance and food services and provide better access for students and parents with disabilities. It also allows other community groups to take over some of the school buildings for new uses.  
Right now the Del Norte School District has the lowest mill levy of most of the other local communities. We all hate paying taxes but someone paid taxes for us to go to school. Having a better school adds to our community. It shows people thinking about moving to and investing in our community that educating our children is a priority; our children are important, and we care about our community.
I hope you will learn more about this exciting project. There is information available at the web site: BetterDelNorteSchools.org.
We have great things happening in our communities. Let’s continue to make our school district the best it can be!
I hope you will vote YES on 3A!
Thank you,
Peg Varoz,
Center