Bella Vista Needs Schools

Golf is a good thing. I love to play golf. My son is a high school golf coach. It's great to get out doors and enjoy an activity with family and friends. Golf helps to forget the troubles of the world and clear the cobwebs from our mind. But, for an entire city, golf should not become the driving force for so many of the decisions we make.

For Bella Vista to place golf as a priority over our children's education is wrong.

Bella Vista has over 3,000 students who have to travel to Bentonville or Gravette every school day to attend classes. Some of the very young children have to get on the buses about 6:15 a.m. and don't arrive back home until after 4:00 p.m. That can't be a good educational plan.

The Bella Vista Patriots has an ad hoc committee called, "Bella Vista Kids Come First." We have gone before both school boards in Bentonville and Gravette and asked them to allow us to detach from their district and create one of our own. Arkansas law provides a plan for that. Both boards voted to reject our offer. Of course they would, eighty per cent of our tax dollars goes to education. Bentonville and Gravette get more than $6,500 for each one of our children, do the math. Our education money is going to Bentonville and Gravette.

We are probably the only city in Arkansas that has a population of over 26,000 people and do not have our own school district. Arkansas law states that when we reach 4,000 students we can petition to form our own school district. By the time we can organize to make application to the State we will have over 4,000 students. Jacksonville just recently did it and we can, too. The longer we delay, the more difficult this task will become.

The recent Bentonville School District rezoning debacle is one more example of why we need to form our own school district. As long as our children officially belong to another city, they will have to dance to that city's tune.

Jim Parsons

Bella Vista

Commentary on 12/18/2014

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