Stories about school activities cover the pages of the Valley Record each week. Let’s face it, many Valley resident’s lives tend to revolve around our schools in some way or another.

Next week brings a critical question to the forefront. Do you, as residents and taxpayers of the Valley, support our education system to the point of increasing your taxes to pay for new schools and infrastructure?

There are several key points to the discussion.

Yes, Mount Si is crowded. I have a daughter, a senior, who will be graduating in June. The school is in dire need of more space. The portables, to be used as an interim solution until a new high school is built, are included in this bond.

Will the high school be built on the Ridge? I am 90 percent sure that this is not the case. No parcel of property up there is big enough for a high school and, frankly, the rest of the Valley would vote every subsequent levy down if a new high school was built on the Ridge.

The Ridge will never likely have the majority of votes for any future school election, so we all need to share in the direction and location of schools. I also do not think a location in Fall City is likely due to a lack of sewers. The logical choice is just east of North Bend in an area served, or soon to be served, by sewers and water.

I have also watched and read discussions on the Yahoo! group and in newspaper stories about boundary changes and for those who would vote a levy down because their kids can’t walk to school, there is a decent community to the west of us called Issaquah.

Students have long been transported by bus to various schools in the district. The school board is adjusting boundaries to maximize the utilization of existing facilities. If they didn’t do this, the voters would speak loud and vote down any future levies. It makes sense to utilize schools to their maximum potential before building new ones.

Voters have six days to get the facts and make up their minds. But the key is to get out and vote. The future of our children is at stake.