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A community is greatly influenced by, perhaps even defined by, the quality of education available to its children. In addition to providing a skilled workforce, quality public education will attract businesses which will generate jobs with living wages; it’s optimally a win-win situation. Support for the levy will ensure that our community continues to be vibrant.

I am now a college graduate, was born and raised in Sandpoint, and am a product of public schools in Bonner County. I can verify that the skills of the highly dedicated teachers and staff in the Lake Pend Oreille School District enabled me to compete academically at the university I attended in Boston.

And equally important, the electives available to me, particularly in high school, enabled me to expand my horizons. Classes at SHS, such as Cedar Post and Model United Nations, launched me into successful programs at my university, including participation in a program at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, and an investigative journalism program in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Depriving students of exposure to not only these subjects, but other subjects that will help students identify and launch their careers, strikes me as not just unwise, but even tragic.

Please vote yes in the upcoming levy election to make certain that Bonner County school children continue to have the best education possible and to ensure that our community thrives.

MACKENZIE JONES

Sandpoint