Vote YES for TDHS
Please join me in voting YES for a new high school in The Dalles. Young people are our greatest resource; providing them with a safe, secure, modern facility is fundamental to the quality education they deserve.
Like many of you, I graduated from The Dalles High and have fond memories of the old building. But I also worked there, which provides different perspectives than attending as a student might.
Learning does not come easily for many students. When classrooms are too hot, too cold, too small, or lack basic necessities, learning is even more challenging. My classroom at TDHS had a wall of beautiful old windows, often a joy for the light and view. However, on sunny days, those windows helped my students understand only one science concept – the greenhouse effect. Some mornings, the classroom temperature was 90 degrees when school started. On cold days, those single-paned windows had the opposite effect. Managing the ancient radiator system was a constant balancing act: Turn the unmarked knob to what I guessed was the right spot, then turn it down when the room got too hot, then off, then on again, and off again, throughout the day, and still it was rarely “just right.” With concrete walls and floors, TDHS cannot be retrofitted with a modern HVAC system. There are many other creature “discomforts” in this old building. If we value learning, we need to meet the basic comfort requirements of our learners.
More important than comfort, however, is safety. The most disturbing duty I had as a teacher was participating in “active shooter” drills with my students. Thinking about why we needed such drills was bad enough, but realizing that I could not fit all my students into a place in the classroom where they would all be safe made it so much worse. Modern schools are built for safety with instant lock-down options, limited monitored entrances, plus engineering for earthquakes and accessibility for all. Nothing should be more important to us than the safety and security of our community’s most valuable resource – our youth.
Please visit VoteYesTDHS.org for more information.
-Debi Ferrer
