On my first trip to India, I visited a remote village outside of Allahabad. There I met a school principal who showed me his “school.” I use the term “school,” because in reality it was nothing more than an abandoned rectangular horse barn with four stalls. Most of the roof was gone and portions of the walls were crumbling down. Despite sitting on dirt floors and sharing books, the students were excited to learn. While that imagery is sad enough, the reality of most of those Dalit children attending this school is that on average most have to drop out of school by eighth grade to help their families in various labor capacities.

Upon returning to the U.S., I led a fundraising campaign that within three months funded a new school building, and 1 year later I returned to attend the grand opening. The excitement of both students, parents and family members was a feeling hard to replicate. Their children, their future generation finally had the opportunity to learn in a clean, secured building with proper furniture.

For many of us, our education experience was the polar opposite. We are blessed to live in a country where we have proper facilities and where education is made possible for all. Our students are molded from a young age by educators who hope like we as parents do that our children will have greater success in life, and that all starts with a proper education. We owe a lot of that foundation to our education, but we as community members must understand our role in education as well.

In the words of the great cartoonist Stan Lee, “with great power comes great responsibility.” As community members our “power” is deciding who represents us and how our tax dollars are used. The “responsibility” portion is the area we sometimes lose our focus on. When it comes to education, funding our schools and raising our future generation of leaders, we must ask ourselves a few questions. How do we best prepare our future generation to be better educated, better citizens and better leaders than we are?

If we are honest with our answer, is it to first ensure that at a developing age they have all opportunities to learn that we can make possible. That too is part of the power we hold, the power to ensure that every student has all the opportunities they could wish for, and we wish we could have had.

We love our Royal ISD community. We are diverse, we are passionate, we are loyal. We have the opportunity to show our students that we believe in them as the future generation that will one day be leading all of us. Our students deserve to have the best facilities, the best educators and the best community support behind them.

Royal ISD has placed two bond propositions on the May 2023 ballot that give you the opportunity to “Invest in our Tomorrow.” Proposition A includes projects related to safety, security, new construction, renovations, remodels, updates to existing facilities and technology infrastructure. Proposition B includes Falcon Stadium improvements.

In my positions as alderman for the City of Brookshire and president of Brookshire Economic Development Corporation, I have meetings near daily with various developers and businesses seeking to locate within Royal ISD boundaries. The growth is coming at a very rapid pace and we need to prepare now for it. We have 16 new neighborhoods planned with a proposed 22,214 home lots. And those are just the developments that have been publicly disclosed.

There are several more discussions going on right now that will be announced publicly later. Royal ISD’s enrollment was 2,321 students in August 2022, we recently passed 2700 students. This puts us a few years ahead of demographers' projections with all of our current buildings being at functional capacity.

Growth is here, and we must use our power and responsibility to manage that growth as well as ensure opportunities for our community.

As parents we certainly understand the desire to ensure our students are educated in the best environment with the best resources. I am appealing to all as community members: let’s show some Falcon Pride. Let’s ensure that every student at Royal ISD has the opportunity to become whatever their dream may be.

This bond allows for the growth of our district, maintaining and updating existing facilities as well as adding new ones. I am proud of our superintendent and school board who have shown for the last several years that they have been good stewards of our funds, and made improvements to facilities as possible. The improvements we need now can only happen through the passage of a bond.

Please join me and the rest of our great Falcon Community in voting FOR Royal ISD bond propositions A & B.

Jeremiah Hill is position 5 alderman for the City of Brookshire and president of the Brookshire Economic Development Corporation.