We Won!

Thank you Southwest Licking parents, teachers, students, campaign volunteers and community supporters. Thank you to everyone who wore Stand Up shirts and buttons and came to the Stand Up events. You all helped to pass this levy for our kids, our community and our future.

Our work is not finished. As we said throughout the campaign, this is a mutual commitment to continue to build a better relationship between our schools and our community. Keep checking this Web site for information about how you can be a part of that.

Thank you, and please continue to Stand Up for our kids and our community.

A New Beginning

It isn’t always easy to get to know your neighbors in our community. Some of the great things about living here are the big yards and open spaces, but those features aren’t amenable to chats in the front yard or bumping into each other during a stroll along the block.

In fact, it isn’t always clear what we mean when we say “our community.” Is that Pataskala? Kirkersville? Etna? Each of those places is unique in its own right. So what makes all of us part of one community?

Just this: Our schools.

Our schools bring us together. They are the tie that binds us—in good times and bad. Maybe most importantly in the bad times. We all know the economy is difficult. Making ends meet is a challenge. It’s nice to be able to spend a night out close to home at a baseball or soccer game, band concert or talent show. It’s comforting to know through it all, the hum of a school hallway never changes. Those experiences are something we all have in common—whether we’re young or old, farmer or banker … or from Pataskala or Kirkersville.

Our schools should be the lynchpin of our community, and in many ways they already are. But in times like this we all have to do a little more—and that starts in the schools. That’s why this levy campaign is about more than the outcome of a vote. It’s about rediscovering that connection between school and community and providing a reminder of how important our schools are not just to our kids, but to all of us.

That connection carries with it responsibility, and our teachers, students and administrators are embracing it. They are standing together not only to support this campaign, but to make a pledge to be active, committed, lasting community partners. Regardless of the outcome of the levy vote, that pledge will not change.

Elsewhere on this site you will find examples of how that partnership will work—from community service projects involving students, teachers and parents to fundraising events designed not just to support the levy campaign, but to bring our community together in and around our schools. You will see examples of these activities in the days and weeks leading up to Election Day, and you will continue to see them long after the final vote is counted.

We’re standing up because we believe our community is only as strong as our schools—and because we all can do better. Imagine what we can accomplish if we stand together.