Our first core value is that an excellent education is every child’s birthright. As the bill to create the St. George school system moves through the legislature, we reflect on this and our organizational values more broadly including the agency of families and elevating the needs of our most vulnerable students. We urge lawmakers on all sides to prioritize preserving access for students as the adults work to navigate these new boundaries. We believe that we must put the best interest of students at the forefront, and that limiting access and choices for families works counter to that goal.
Allowing funding to follow students across district boundaries in all directions for access to the high quality schools their families choose serves only to improve quality for all schools, and more importantly to ensure that students are better served. Doing so puts parents fully in the driver’s seat.
We are confident that leaders will come to a fair resolution of financial issues in the details of separation agreements, learning the lessons from past agreements with Baker, Zachary and Central school systems.
We cannot let these concerns, or the politics of the separation, to outweigh the benefit of allowing all families to choose the best school for their learners.