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Schools

Parent Group Leading the Way in Parcel Tax Campaign

Measure K will be on the June ballot and will call for a $48 tax per parcel.

The campaign for the educational parcel tax that will be placed on the June ballot is underway, and members of Save Our Schools, who are leading the campaign charge, are optimistic that the freshly assigned Measure K will pass. 

The organization, made up of concerned Scotts Valley parents and community members, is now working to inform residents of all the aspects of the measure and its importance to the school district.

"No one filed an opposition on this so we're definitely feeling very positive about it," said Derek Timm of the Measure K ballot argument.

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Timm, a Scotts Valley parent with one child in kindergarten and one in the third-grade, created the Save Our Schools organization two years ago after coming to find out that his daughter's first-grade teacher had received a "pink slip" and was likely to lose her job.

"She is one of the great teachers that the district has, and she had a fantastic influence on my first daughter's education," said Timm of Vine Hill Elementary School first-grade teacher Crystal Hintze.

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"All of the parents have a different reason for getting involved, but really it comes down to our kids getting an excellent education and it being put in jeopardy by something out of our control," Timm said.

Timm said the organization was also formed because it became apparent that Scotts Valley Unified School District’s private fundraising of around $1,000,000 per year was no match for the state cuts.

The ballot measure is an effort to counteract state budget cuts that have amount to nearly $3,000,000 since 2007. Those cuts have caused the SVUSD to shed over 25 percent of its elementary teachers and 20 percent of its high school teachers, as well as slash library funding and eliminate counselors and classroom aides.

Measure K calls for a $48 parcel tax for three years, 100 percent of which would go directly to the Scotts Valley Unified School District to maintain current programs. If passed, Measure K would raise approximately $300,000 a year, or approximately $1,000,000 during its three-year duration.

“If this parcel tax passes, it’s going to be a Band-Aid. Not like restoring all of the losses that the teachers have had—and that the students have had. But it means so much to us to have that kind of support and have people put so much support into it when they really don’t have to," Scotts Valley High School teacher Mike Hanson said after Friday evening's campaign gathering.

Hanson teaches advanced biology and says that in the past six years that he has been teaching, he's witnessed major cut backs five of those years. Hanson teaches 177 students and his biology classes average 38 students—an extremely high number of students for a lab-heavy subject like advanced biology.

The Friday night event held at Bruno's BBQ drew around 150 parents, teachers, and community members out to support Save our Schools as it kicked off the campaign.

Hanson was touched at the participation of such a broad range of people, which included at least 15 local teachers.

"Sometimes teachers feel that they put so much in and they don’t always feel like the people around us are doing the same thing," said Hanson, who was thrilled that this is not the case in Scotts Valley.

All five city council members also showed up to support the ballot measure.

"The crowd tonight was fantastic, but even more impressive was the enthusiasm of the people,” Councilman Jim Reed said. “We got checks from more than half of the people who came, the other half, virtually all of them signed up to volunteer. This was to let our volunteer base know how we needed them and they responded in droves." 

Among Friday night's donations to the campaign effort was a $10,000 check to Save our Schools from the local Ow family. 

“I really believe that this is going to pass. I think we’re halfway there with $48 for three years. It’s the least we can do,“ said campaign Chairwoman Farah Galvez Theissen, who helped to pass a similar parcel tax a few years ago in San Jose. 

"I had been through this before, and so I felt like we didn’t need to hire consultants, we can grassroots this. We can do this ourselves. Our community is awesome like that. So Derek had the vision and then I brought to the table my experience over the hill," Galvez Theissen said.

To read the specifics of Measure K, click HERE.

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