As a community member and parent of three Vashon schools’ graduates, I am a proponent of the bond measure to be put before us for several reasons:

All aspects of our schools should be of a useful, practical, quality caliber. As a community, we have seen it fit to bring the facilities that enable academic learning to a high quality level; we need to do similarly with those facilities that allow physical learning to occur. When we have greatly disparate facilities for learning physical education vs. academic education, we are telling those kids that need to express their development in physical terms that they don’t matter as much as the academic student, and that maybe physical education isn’t even that important. Some of those kids that are physical learners, the only thing that keeps them engaged in the school system is their sport(s).

We, as a society, are experiencing an epidemic of obesity which is starting at younger and younger ages. Physical education facilities can be a tool by which all kids, as they are growing and developing, can become more enthused about maintaining physical health throughout their lives, and by so doing, can be part of the solution to this alarming trend. Providing quality physical education facilities will be an investment to that end.

— Donald Wolczko