This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Who do you trust?

Who do you trust when seeking information about the High School District #113 Referendum Proposal, and the Long Term Facility Master Plan for Deerfield and Highland Park High Schools?

Who do you trust? 

Ultimately, when trying to sort out “real” information from dis and mis-information, one goes to trusted sources. So who do you trust?  And the first question is:  Does this source, or person, have an interest, an axe to grind, so to speak?  

Do you trust seven elected community members, The Board of
Education of High School District #113, who volunteer considerable time and
effort in the service of the public interest? They clearly have an interest in furthering public education in our District.  We elected them for that very
reason, in part because no matter how many of us have reservations about the
cost, the politics, or the value of certain things, we pretty much all agree that a superior secondary public education system is necessary and desirable in our community.  So have they lost credibility simply because they see the need for significant improvements in the facilities for which they are responsible?  

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Alright, who else do you trust?  Do you trust over 100 community members, also volunteers, who spent countless hours evaluating the existing facilities while extensively consulting with leading industry professionals, and for nothing more than the satisfaction of knowing that they helped represent their community in making an important decision?  

Who else might you trust? 
Might you trust a steering committee, made up of six highly credentialed
professionals from our community, some of whom were very skeptical at the start, also volunteers, who unanimously agreed that these needs at our two high
schools demanded a solution, and then crafted one, again by collaborating with
recognized experts in school construction and facility management? 

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What about people, who now that a plan has been presented,
have stepped up voluntarily and taken an active role to ensure that our high
school facilities continue to support the exceptional educational outcomes that
our community has come to expect?  Would it help to know that the majority of those I have described have few or no children remaining to be educated at the high school level, and they therefore have , “no axe to grind” except to do what they truly feel is best for the future of our community? 

Who do I trust?  I trust the people who have chosen to reside in this place, my neighbors, to seek out trusted sources and make sure the information upon which they base their decisions is accurate.  And if you can’t trust all of these people, then who can you trust? 

I’m voting YES?  What about you?

Disclosure:  The author has sent one sharp axe off to be dulled by the rigors of real life.  He has three hatchets in various stages of honing, and 3 little axelets unground.  

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