New Gym Will
Help Keep School

I am writing in support of the building plan for the South Royalton School.

The plan will address several areas of critical concern for the students of our school. Most important of these is keeping our school as the center of our community.

With declining enrollments in all the neighboring schools, area schools are finding that their budgets are increasing to the point where they have to start cutting educational services to their students. Our neighboring schools have found that doing nothing in the face of declining enrollment doesn't work.

Royalton must be proactive and needs a plan that will attract students. Every student that our school attracts brings in dollars that will allow us to continue the excellent programs that we have. Nothing we can do to our school will be more attractive than a safer school entrance and new gym.

South Royalton school is in the unique position of having much lower per pupil spending than other area schools. Bethel is spending $12,630, Rochester $12,947, Chelsea $11,250, while South Royalton currently spends only $9,900. The proposed building plan will mean a tax increase of $169 on a $100,000 house—less than fifty cents a day. Even with that increase, the per-pupil spending in Royalton will be $10,800, the lowest of any school around.

I'm proud of the school that we have in our community. We have an excellent staff that cares about our children and a building that is well maintained. If we want to ensure that we will always have a school in our community, a choice that other schools are currently facing, we must act now and build.

Please vote YES on Sept. 11 and invest in Royalton's future.

Geo Honigford

Royalton