Dear parents and students of Hays public schools and the Hays community:
What an exciting time for Hays, America! Mary and I have watched from a distance, with hopeful optimism, the various proposals to improve USD 489 facilities for kids, families and the community. We are so very thankful and excited that Hays is putting forward a bond proposal that is visionary, meaningful, appropriate, long-lasting, reasonable, affordable and necessary! Vote yes!
We will always love Hays and USD489! It was an honor to serve as educators at Roosevelt Elementary and Hays High School for 27 years, as we raised our three daughters who attended O’Loughlin, Roosevelt, Felten (HMS) and Hays High. We owe much to USD 489 and would not change a thing! Thanks to USD489, our daughters have grown into successful, strong and independent young women. Thank you, USD 489. Thanks for our daughters developmentally appropriate experiences, academic rigor and their individual personal-social growth while students of USD 489! Voteyes!
Our dear Hays students, parents and friends, it is time to reinvest, step up to the plate and hit a home run for the kids of Hays. Vote yes!
For 40 years, Hays students, staff and families have done their very best to make things work with what we have. At the same time, like-sized districts have passed bond issues that support the needs of their students. Many districts have passed as many as three bonds while Hays kids have been left behind. Any student, parent or staff member who travels the state for academic/athletic/fine arts events can validate this truth, this reality. In my new position as the Kapaun Mt Carmel athletic director, I am witnessing first-hand how districts like Salina, Maize, Andover, Wichita, Goddard, Derby, Mulvane and literally every other district I’ve attended student events at this year have invested and re-invested in their kids, families and communities. For the sake of current Hays kids and many future generations of Hays students, vote yes!
You can do this, Hays! Don’t let this opportunity to do what is needed, pass you by. For the sake of the current students and future generations of families, vote yes!
With sincere appreciation, love and care for USD 489,
Martin and Mary Straub, Wichita