School Bond Outcome Shows Lack of Voting Participation in PSD

 On April 24th everyone in the Peninsula School District held their breath waiting for the final numbers for the school bond vote, which came in on April 27th.

The bond would designate $220,000,000 to aid in the safety and quality of students lives in their school. The school district saw that sufficient funding was needed to ensure schools would have updated safety measures, modernized classrooms, and a larger capacity due to immense overcrowding.

The goal for Gig Harbor High School’s cut of the funding was to focus on the performing arts and science classrooms, as well as overall better learning environments and updates to the safety plans.

The plan to get this money was to borrow it, and then pay it back by increasing house taxes.

Unfortunately the bond didn’t pas. In total, the bond needed 60% of people to vote yes because the school was asking for so much money. Only a little over half voted yes. The bond needed around three hundred more “yes” votes in order to pass.

A total of 22,649 people voted. 22,000 citizens didn’t vote at all.

The school and all of the students are disappointed that the bond that would help schools did not pass, and they all hope that next time it will pass so students can rely on the updated safety and better learning environments that they could possibly receive some day.

This experience is also a good reminder that if you have the ability to vote, you should always take the opportunity, because every vote counts.