Hello,
My name is Lou LaQuatra, and am currently a senior at Strongsville High School. I have gone to Strongsville schools since kindergarten and have attended Drake elementary, Center, and as stated previously, Strongsville High School. I know as a student of Strongsville schools, that something needs to be done about our outdated, run down, sub standard learning environment and technology that our schools supply. The first step to bringing Strongsville into the modern era in technology and building design, is to pass the bond in November.
Our middle schools have long outlived their standards. Our middle schools are crumbling, overcrowded and scarred by the workings of time. Their roofs leak, pipes fail and there is no consistent working heating and A.C. The power even, from time to time, goes out and causes all of the lights to flicker. The computers and server would work, most of the time, and the sound coming out of all of the school TVs are muffled. Is this what Strongsville schools has become? Is this the standard we are setting for our kids and the future of our district?
In my experience from going to Center Middle school, I knew back then something needed to be done. I used to dread going to that school some days. I would sit in class and freeze during the winter months and sweat during the summer months. My fingers would get so cold that I would not want to write at all and all I wanted to do was to go to sleep. The working conditions in the school made me less motivated to do the best I could do. Hot and cold classrooms, external noise, and insufficient lighting and heating, the building would suck the energy right out of me. We have an opportunity to fix these problems this year, with the passage of the bond allowing for the construction of a brand new sate of the art middle school and a complete upgrade of Strongsville High School technology.
As a current senior at Strongsville High School, much of the middle schools' problems are the High School's problems. The roofs leak, the air does not work and there is a constant musty smell that patrols the building. Half of the water fountains in the high school do not even work. Are we to sit and do nothing about our subpar, outmoded, school facilities while countless students suffer and are held back by their surroundings? MLK once said something about the fierce urgency of now. I believe we are not too late to make that change in the district, to move our city forward because our moment is now. Now we must act. Now we must work. Now we must come together as one city to help the kids of the future and now we must say yes to the school bond in November or our kids will be left behind and guarenteed not the best possible education, but guarenteed a harder fight for what comes after.
