Schools Measure a Worthy Investment

* I am writing as a retired teacher of many years in the Pleasant Valley School District. I truly enjoyed each and every year. I had some remarkably bright students who went on to universities such as Yale, Princeton, Cal, UCLA, USC, Michigan and UC Santa Barbara, just to name a few.

The other night I was at a local function and talked to seven former students of mine who have returned to raise and educate their children in Camarillo.

Through the years I have personally seen the wear and tear on many classrooms and schools. Think of putting 33 sixth-graders in one room of approximately 900 square feet for a year--then multiply that times 30 or more years. I can remember putting out pans to catch the drips of a leaky roof, stained ceiling tiles and moving desks so that students wouldn’t get wet!

Yes, my wife, fellow students, parents and I gave my room the first coat of paint many years after the builders built the school. We refinished cabinets several times, took my own fans to school on hot October east-wind days with temperatures in the 90s to give my students some respite from the heat.

With Measure T on the ballot I thought back to my own childhood in the late ‘30s and the war years and I now thank those people, one of them was my grandfather, who helped build the old one-room school that my family and I attended. I hope that future generations will thank us.

What better investment can we make than to vote Yes on Measure T on Nov. 4?

WILLIS NAYSMITH

Camarillo