We moved to Vashon as young parents for its beauty and excellent schools. We made a great decision. One of our children is a graduate of University of Oregon’s Lundquist College of Business; the other is a freshman at the University of Washington. Both have commented about how well prepared they were for college after attending elementary, middle and high school on the island.

Of course, academics and wonderful teachers played a big part in the success of their education, but so did athletics and dedicated coaches. Great school districts offer quality academic as well as athletic programs, and this combination fosters a healthy, successful student body and student experience. In many cases, athletics are keeping students engaged in school. For those who don’t excel in the classroom, athletics can be critical to building self-esteem. The future of maintaining the well-rounded, high standards of our Vashon school district is dependent on this last phase of capital improvements to the athletic facilities.

The current state of our high school gym and track and field is antiquated, so much so that visiting schools that come to play at our facilities scratch their heads and say, “What the heck is wrong with Vashon?” The track team is spared this embarrassment — they can’t even host meets because our track is dangerous and does not meet competitive requirements.

We live in a wet climate, so our fields take a beating. As a result, the high school stadium field use is limited to games — forcing teams and PE classes to scramble in order to find places for practice, including an undersized swath of land called the “wedge.” Field space that should be used every single day of the year can only be used once or twice a week. Artificial turf (and not the kind made from crumb rubber being linked to cancer) would be the Holy Grail to solve so many problems in our athletic community. It makes one wonder how we could consider any other option.

We are woefully short on gym space to accommodate all of the student and community groups on the island. When our son played on the Vashon High School junior varsity basketball team, the lack of gym space resulted in 5:45 a.m. practices five days a week for weeks on end. As a parent, witnessing a growing teenager cut their much-needed hours of sleep short with 5:15 a.m. wake-up calls was painful. It should not be this difficult to be a successful student-athlete.

The stadium and gym bleachers are both unsafe and not code-compliant. The toilet facilities are undersized and very hard to navigate for the elderly and disabled, especially for stadium users. The gym locker rooms are obsolete and not to current code. As proud islanders who have invested hours and hours coaching youth, we are embarrassed and saddened by how priorities have allowed our athletic facilities to diminish over the years. Pictures speak a thousand words — we are appalled at the message we are sending our island youth.

The investment proposed by Proposition 1 serves all islanders; we all use school facilities, not just our students. If you don’t personally use the facilities, consider this as a way to protect the value of your property investment. It is proven that home values within good school districts far out-pace those with poor or no school districts nearby. School districts are a litmus test for the overall economic strength of a community: Crumbling school facilities will lead to a crumbling Vashon. Our athletic facilities are crumbling.

These improvements need to be made; it’s not a matter of if, but when. Why defer them to a future time when it will cost more? Let’s not make the same mistake Seattle made decades ago by being shortsighted in investing in transportation infrastructure.

Let’s manage this the Vashon way — by being intelligent, thoughtful and forward thinking.

— Mary Kay and David Rauma are island parents who raised two children on Vashon Island.