Reasons To Vote
For SRHS Gym

In response to many conversations, questions and misconceptions going on around town about the new South Royalton High School (SRHS) gymnasium, some very important facts need to be explained.

First, find out the facts by attending just one of the many informational meetings that are happening and/or attend a building committee meeting on Monday nights at the SRHS at 7 p.m. Your tax increase will only go up based on your yearly income. Be an informed voter!

A new gymnasium is needed:

• To make SRHS more attractive to draw tuition students.

•To attract fresh young families into our area.

• Bringing more commerce for our local businesses.

• To use as a community center.

• Our gymnasium is used by our community for all kinds of activities year round.

• To free up the lunch room so that students don’t have to start eating lunch at 10:30 am.

• Because the lunch room is too confined and dangerous to have teenage sized students trying to perform P.E. drills, games and sports practices there.

• To give our students and community members pride for our school and town.

• When community members from other towns visit SRHS, it is usually for a sporting/drama event. These activities are held in the gym and this is often the only part of SRHS that they see. Our current gym is old and weathered and does not give an accurate impression as to what our school represents.

• To give our students a real place to practice.

• Comments have been made about how well our students have done over the years without a "fancy new gym." While this is true, our students have persevered in spite of the current cramped gym, many community folks don’t realize that our teams have traveled to VTC and use the Carpenter field to practice, as the current gym is too small for conditioning for the size of the gyms that the players must compete in. Traveling costs dollars and precious practice time.

• To offer more practice space for the K-12 grade teams year round.

• Right now some teams are forced to start practice/ games as late as 8 p.m. on a school night, as the high school must share the gym with the K-6 recreation teams.

Some community members feel that the gymnasium plans are glamorous and excessive. Some are wondering why we need the fancy entrance. The glass entrance will face the west and will contain energy efficient windows that will allow much sun and heat into the entrance area. The glassed in area would also add character and style to our school making it much more appealing.

South Royalton is a picturesque town, surrounded with restored colonial buildings, quaint churches with steeples, a charming new bandstand on the green, and a handsome new bridge. If we are going to build a new gymnasium, let’s build it to blend in with the town and its surroundings and make it equally attractive. No more brick boxes!

We do have classroom space available when the new addition attracts more students. The South Royalton School could hold over 600 students. Currently there are approximately 450 students enrolled. If other towns within our county close and those towns choose to send their students to SRHS, then those towns and the state would have to subsidize those students’ tuition.

If a union school is proposed, our school wouldn’t move, as SRHS would become the union school as our school is in the hub of the district. If the numbers at SRHS become so large that additions are required, then again the sending towns and state would have to subsidize those additions.

If South Royalton School continues to lose students, our taxes will go up. If we don’t attract students, we will still eventually have to replace the gym anyway, and it’s guaranteed our taxes will go up. The school has to be run as a business and in today’s changing world businesses must spend some money to stay competitive in order to make money. This is the third time a proposal to make our school better for our children and the community as a whole has gone for a vote before the town. The time is NOW that we make the commitment to improve our school and community center. Vote "yes" on Sept. 11.

Randy and Brenda Caron

South Royalton