Our children’s future is too important to squander. We can no longer wait for our elected representatives to get around to reforming education. We must act now at the grass roots level.

One very successful model of education reform is the charter school movement that’s sweeping our state and our country.

Charter schools empower those who know children best, parents and teachers, to make the decisions regarding programs, staffing, curriculum, school lunches, philosophy, spending priorities, facilities use, etc.

Currently these decisions are being made by impersonal district administrators and remote politicians. Under the current system, our children have been reduced to numbers representing average daily attendance (ADA) money entering the district and test scores generated by the district.

The parents and educators involved in Bridges Charter School understand that each child is an individual with intellectual, social and emotional needs. They recognize the importance of nutritious lunches, an academic program that supports family life, cooperative child care, reaching out to home schooling families, parent participation in school activities and ADA money spent directly on the children.

The petitioners for Bridges Charter School aren’t alone in their beliefs. More than 390 percent of the required number of parents signed the Bridges charter petition, which outlines a solid K-8 educational program with more than 100 pages of appendices supporting it.

More information can be found at www.Bridgescharter.org.

Conejo Valley Unified School District has the opportunity to be on the cutting edge of reform by supporting the charter for Bridges Charter School.

The charter school movement is here to stay and continues to grow and succeed. CVUSD can either jump on board and support 21st century education or be left behind. Victoria Dal Pozzo Camarillo