A huge thank you to the Gilbert and East Mesa communities for their overwhelming support of the bond and 
override.
Unite would like to personally thank each of you for your amazing support during the campaign.
The community members making up Unite for Education will be taking up a well deserved break and we will be back soon with details on how you can help in the May school finance election and the November school board election.
Be Positive and Support Gilbert Schools
When we formed Unite for Education, we established a mission of supporting Gilbert Schools and being positive. Our resolve to be positive has been tested recently with negative signs, voter pamphlet fraud, campaign sign theft, and unprintable insults hurled on social media. However, we believe that the people of Gilbert and east Mesa want to support our Gilbert schools and maintain a positive and fact based campaign.
With that in mind, we would like to offer a few facts to help you decide how to vote on the upcoming bond and override. One, the GPS board and superintendence have established increased teacher wages as the number one priority. Given that more than 300 experienced teachers have left the district each of the past two years and the average teacher salary in GPS is the lowest of all of the surrounding districts, we support this priority. Two, Gilbert public schools are among the most effective and efficient in the state. GPS spends a higher percentage of funds in the classroom than every other suburban district in the state. GPS also spends $200 less per child on administrative expenses than the Arizona average. Three, delayed building and school bus maintenance are putting our children at risk. School buses are breaking down and not getting children to school on time. Air conditioning failure, faulty fire alarms, and roof leaks are impacting student learning. Four, GPS currently has a bond, a capital override, and an operations override that have already expired. In this election, approval of a new bond and operations override will result in a secondary tax rate decline of 28% compared to 2013 rates.
All of the data supporting these facts is provided on seethebudget.com along with the links to the non-partisan data sources. Please join us in directing OUR local tax dollars to support OUR Gilbert schools. Strong local schools are the cornerstone of a strong community. Please vote Yes for both the Bond and Override. #yesyes4gilbertstudents.
Blake Sacha
EJ Anderson
Collette Evans
Suzy Horvath
