On the side of St Cloud Elementary School, carved in stone, it says: “THE PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE MUST BE SOLVED BY THE CHILDREN OF TODAY”

Those words have always struck me. They struck me before I had a child. They struck me when my daughter attended St. Cloud and they strike me now that my daughter is at Roosevelt. They will continue to strike me when my daughter has graduated from the district and I continue to pay my tax bill with a smile.

Because I am not paying for my kid, I am paying for our kids. Our kids, that the teachers and staff adopt as their own every school day. But for the children, your children, our children, my child, to solve our future problems we must support them today. We cannot leave our kids and our future without the ability to solve those problems. Our schools are, in their purest and most distilled form, an investment in our shared future. It is an investment now in our future teachers, staff, and board members, our future parents, our future taxpayers, our future well educated populace. If we short change our students, our kids, today, how do we make up for that later?

So I'd ask you to fight for every penny we can find elsewhere, and I and others tonight offer to help. But you also must vote to support raising as much of the remainder as you can from us residents. Our future holds big problems, we must do everything we can, and invest in every way we can, to prepare our kids to solve them.

Thank you.