Vote YES: For Our Kids, Our Schools, and Our Future

We are the Committee for All In for Collingswood, a group of Collingswood residents that support the upcoming school bond referendum. On Tuesday, September 17th, we encourage Collingswood voters to vote YES to make the first major investment in all of our schools in decades.

A YES vote will fund urgently-needed upgrades to our schools, including:

• Creating a new Upper Elementary School for all 4th- and 5th-graders by purchasing and renovating the former Good Shepherd School. The facility will have a library, gym, cafeteria, kitchen, elevator, and be 100% ADA-compliant.

• Renovating the sports and recreation facilities at the middle and high schools with new fields, a new track, new grandstand bleachers, concessions, bathrooms, and more.

• Building additional lower elementary classroom space that is fully ADA-compliant and new age-appropriate and ADA-compliant playgrounds at all three lower elementary schools.

Why should Collingswood make this investment? We believe that this plan addresses our two most urgent challenges: aging infrastructure and limited resources; and we believe that the time to address these challenges is now.

The aging infrastructure of Collingswood’s schools no longer meets the needs of our growing and diverse student body. Most notably, schools and classrooms are overcrowded, many are not ADA-compliant, and our athletic complex is outdated. This plan will provide the new and renovated classroom space needed to comfortably accommodate our expanding population, significantly increase our ADA accessibility, and provide state-of-the-art sports facilities for our athletes. We believe that there is room for everyone, that our students deserve modernized facilities, and that facilities should be accessible.

Due to funding shortfalls from the state, the school district has limited resources which must be spread across five small elementary schools. This plan will consolidate and restructure our schools to improve our ability to provide all students with equal access to the same resources. We believe that all students deserve high quality public education that meets their needs academically and socially, regardless of ability, language, race, or income.

The former Good Shepherd School building won’t be available for long. Other church-owned buildings in town have recently been approved for development as condos. We believe that time is a luxury we cannot afford, and that we must purchase this large, modern, centrally-located school building before it is lost to another buyer.

On our website, allinforcollingswood.com, The Committee for All In for Collingswood has shared endorsements from a range of community members who represent our borough: students, parents, and experts in education and equity who we are lucky to have as neighbors. Excerpts from these endorsements:

• A Sharp parent who believes that an investment in our schools will “enhance property values, attract families to our area, and contribute to the overall vitality of our community.”

• Recent CHS graduates who felt that their identity wasn’t celebrated or valued, and that our segregated elementary schools “led to animosity and division in our middle and high schools.”

• A West Collingswood parent, former board of education member, and nonprofit CEO who states that the referendum “represents a crucial investment in our children’s education and the future of our community.”

• A racial justice scholar who knows that “the Black youth in this community deserve more.”

The heart of the issue is this: How a town chooses to invest reflects its values. We encourage our neighbors to vote YES on Tuesday, September 17th, because Collingswood values our kids, our schools, and our future.

Megan DeSmedt and Steve Silvasy

Chair and Treasurer of The Committee for All In For Collingswood