I have been privileged to live in Davis for nearly 40 years, to raise my children here and to work for the Davis school district as a teacher and administrator until retiring in 2007. Throughout all of these years, countless newcomers have told me that they moved to Davis for the schools. This continuing demand for housing has maintained high property values and has raised the quality of life in our town.

Davis schools are special because the community supports high-quality instruction, lower class size and programs beyond the basic educational program provided by most districts in California. Increasing costs, declining enrollment and reductions in state funding have combined to threaten some of these exceptional programs. Despite belt-tightening by the board, our schools will lose elementary music and science specialist teachers, school librarians and important secondary courses with limited enrollment next year unless we can raise additional funds.

For many years, Davis citizens have supported an ongoing parcel tax measure that has given our children elementary class-size reduction, a seventh-period option in secondary school, special reading programs, additional counselor time and technology support.

Measure W on the November ballot will provide the necessary funding for the other programs that are directly threatened by the current budget crisis. The total cost of both measures to each household is less than $1 per day - such a small price to pay for the fundamental reason families continue to choose Davis.

Please join me in voting for Measure W to maintain the quality of schools we want for our children and for our community.