Posted: January 31, 2021

Hello everyone, I hope you’ve had a nice weekend. For this week’s HOPE & JOY in addition to sharing a Getting to Know You video featuring Afton Dixon from Odyssey, I wanted to share my appreciation for the local support we have historically received from our community.

For over forty years, our schools have benefited from levies that provided additional staffing, extracurricular programs, technology, safety, and offset gaps between the services we provide and the funding we receive from our state and federal governments. Every three to four years, we ask our community to renew that commitment by approving replacement levies. Our current levies expire at the end of 2021. If approved, these levies will run through 2024.

Local support has helped build the district we have come to know and love. It provides additional staff, technology, and critical services that support our students. It also provides the funding needed to run our award-winning extracurricular programs. Activities such as music, theatre, athletics, clubs, and academic teams aren’t just important to students, they help our community come together. Whether it’s a Friday night game at Doc Harris, an incredible theatre production, or Team Mean Machine competing at the robotics world championships, these activities help build the story of who we are in Camas. They weave our families together in a tapestry of love, care, support, and pride for our children. They bring out the best in all of us.

Having an election during a pandemic has been pretty challenging. People are frustrated and aren’t able to have their needs met. I understand and appreciate criticism about our timelines and protocols for returning students to campus learning.  Depending on each family’s unique circumstances, we may have moved either too slow or too fast. As we look back on our global and local response to this pandemic, I am certain we will learn a lot about our decisions and their impact. I am also certain that we will return to the kinds of in-person experiences that we love, that benefit our students greatly and require local funding support.

If you would like more information about levy funding and its impact this is a great resource. As people complete and mail their ballots we want them to be informed. If you live in the district, please do not forget to vote. Thank you!

Jeff