As a taxpayer, mother, and school counselor, I urge you to vote yes on the Coeur d’Alene School District’s Supplemental Levy and Safety and Maintenance Levy. I have worked in five different schools within the district, and while I could write about HVAC systems that make certain rooms roast while others freeze, unsafe parking lots and threadbare carpets, I want to spend the majority of this letter addressing the very real need in our schools for nurses, counselors and school resource officers, all of whom may lose their jobs if the supplemental levy fails.

Those who believe schools should only teach reading, writing and ‘rithmetic do not understand the complexities of modern public education. By law, public schools must provide a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) to ALL students. Even students whose parents threaten teachers. Even students who come to school hungry, sick and exhausted. Even students whose past trauma causes them to throw chairs at their fellow classmates. Even students who vape in the bathrooms and leave their classrooms in the middle of class because their anxiety is overwhelming.

How do we provide FAPE to all students without nurses to care for them when physical needs prevent them from learning and growing? How do we provide FAPE to students with mental health concerns when there is no school counselor to help them regulate their emotions? How do we keep all of our children safe without school resource officers to protect them from adults and their peers who make poor and dangerous choices?

I don’t know. I hope I never have to find out. Please vote YES for Coeur d’Alene Schools.

MEGAN FRANKLIN

Coeur d’Alene