To the editor:

Last week, Scott Fuller referred to the school bond as a “shiny object,” presenting opinion as fact to sway people away from this overdue investment in our schools.

Unlike what Fuller claimed, the shortcomings in our schools are unacceptable.

The issues at Primrose Hill are not because of the expansion of state-mandated pre-K for children with identified needs, nor can they be served in private daycare settings.

Our elementary buildings have stages used for storage or OT/PT. We have closets being used for special education. We have specialists serving students out of repurposed bathrooms. We’re short of necessary classroom space. Staff rooms, a part of every workplace, have been turned toward providing essential educational and social services. In Barrington High School, students are expected to excel in science using labs that haven’t been updated since the Cold War.

This bond addresses these needs for the first time in decades: moving necessary school services out of closets and bathrooms and into appropriate rooms, providing staff with the space they need to perform their jobs well, making the buildings temperature controlled so we no longer cancel school because it’s too hot, and providing the precise number of classrooms to plan for the best enrollment projections we have available.

Yes, the price tag is steep, but fixing what we currently have is insufficient. The cost of inaction is too high. Performing this work in the future is a bigger burden. Barrington has waited too long. The piper needs to be paid.

Robert Swarts

Barrington