LETTER: Harwood student writes to the voters
May 23, 2024From a student to my hometown:
Our community, our families, our friends, and our children. We reach out to each other for help, every day. We’re good neighbors – we’ll help you move that new couch or come over to help with your weeds, but how will you, as a community, help its youth?
What about your children or grandchildren? They are living in this town just like the rest of us, who are going to grow up in this world that you raised them in, and I know that the world you want them to be in is one where you support them.
You must pay attention to the children in this community who will suffer without arts and language, support staff, and everything that makes them interested in learning.
It may seem as though it doesn't matter if you don't have children in our Harwood school system, but I will tell you that it does matter, now more than ever, to be united wherever we can.
If we don't support our children, who will? I am a freshman at Harwood Union High School, and these choices you make now will affect me and my peers for the rest of the time I am in high school, and my brother, who is in middle school.
The majority of students have no say in how our education in the Harwood Unified Union School District will proceed. But you, my neighbors, adults in my community, you have a choice.
I know you are taxpayers and I know your taxes are already rising. I will tell you that no magic force is going to swoop down and save our schools, but also, your property taxes are already rising, more than the school budget will affect you. Are you going to continue to ignore how my generation and younger ones are losing learning opportunities? Students who need support throughout the day may not get what they need, so please, when you go in to vote next week, think about this: our nurses, counselors, language and art teachers, support staff, librarians, and coaches- the very people who keep the students safe, healthy, and engaged in learning are in danger of being removed from our schools, and during this upcoming vote, it is up to you all to decide their futures and the futures of us students.
Will you stand up for the young, bright students of the HUUSD community? I will remember that my town voted for my education, that you voted for the mental and physical health of the next generation of our school district for generations to come, the generations who are the future of our country and this world, and this little town that you are living in. As members of this community, it's our job to support each other and those who come after us, and you have the power to do that now.
So, next time you go to vote, remember that our future is in your hands. Vote for what you know is right, not what will affect you only, positively in the short term.
Vote for education. This is our future.
Your neighbor,
Eireann McDonough