Time to relinquish “no tax increase” philosophy

Cogent reasons for a tax increase in Goochland were given in Amy Condra’s editorial last week. 

The one tax that would most cleanly close the gap in our budget is our local property tax. 

Those monies would go directly to the needs of our county only.  Goochland has worked with good success over the last decade to improve schools.  All that work can be lost very quickly with one or two under-funded years. 

Property assessments are lower at this time; raising the tax a few cents would not increase the individual’s pay out.

The time is now to relinquish the philosophy of “no tax increase.”

Eileen Ford
Columbia

Money for schools well spent

With all the talk about the school budget and the lack of money all around, I just wanted to refocus on what is happening in our schools while all this is going on. 

I was asked to judge the 5th grade Science Fair projects at Randolph Elementary School.  The teacher in charge said it would take about an hour or so.  There were 56 entries… that had been whittled down to about 16 to judge. 

Well, you should all visit and SEE what those 5th graders did!  An hour?  I was there 2 1/2 hours and should have gone back to re-check!!! It was a hard task because each and every project was so detailed and done so well.

Each child had to have a purpose; delineate what their procedure was going to be; have a hypothesis; list the variables and the constants; show what they did and how they did it; show their results and come up with a conclusion. 

Some wanted to know what paper towel (or diaper) was most absorbent or what light bulb gave off the most heat or what battery lasted the longest under exact conditions… or what plant grew the most or what container kept a drink cold for the longest period of time (if you were on a picnic) or what helped snow melt the fastest or did a product live up to its advertising as being the best (it didn’t!). 

One wanted to know which brand of candy cane to put on a Christmas tree so it wouldn’t break if it fell! (I don’t think I knew that there were “brands” of candy canes!)

They had to make sure that their conclusion included their hypothesis.  And the judges had a checklist of eight or nine things to judge each project on.  I must say I was more than impressed over the preciseness of the work the children did!  Some conclusions proved their hypotheses and some did not!

Kudos to the students for a job well done and to their teachers for the quality of education that was evident in this project.  These fifth graders know the scientific method!  Apparently the money in the budget was well spent!

Ann O. Casey
Crozier