Letter to the editor: Voting for Sarah Welton

When Sarah Welton came to my door asking for my vote for School Board some years ago, I asked her why she was running. She told me it was because her pastor had challenged everyone in the congregation to think about how they could give back to the community, and that our children and schools had always been important to her.

She got my vote then, and she’ll get it again.

For years, Sarah has immersed herself in all things kids and schools. Not once have I asked her about new education or child-development research that she wasn’t already very familiar with.

She has been to all the schools in Wasilla so many times that it’s impossible to count them. As someone recently said to her at a WHS football game, “I see you everywhere”. She knows the principals, teachers and admins. Ask her about a program and she not only knows its history, but was a part of making it come to fruition or has helped it improve.

Since Sarah has been on the School Board, graduation rates have increased significantly, voc ed programs have been expanded, support for home-schooled students has been improved, and there’s a whole new opportunity for students to get an AA degree while in high school called Alaska Middle College. And, all of this has been done with a smaller slice of our property tax dollar.

Sarah is not a headline-grabber. Even when she was the President of the School Board we weren’t seeing her on the tv news all the time. Some people are talkers; Sarah is a doer. She works collaboratively behind the scenes to get things done. She’s looking forward to continuing to serve on the School Board because, among other things, she hopes to help bring back our old community schools and would like to be a part of helping our correspondence school program continue to evolve.

Sarah is so committed to our kids and schools and to making an excellent education and extra-curricular activities available and affordable for all, that she even has gone to Juneau at her own expense, and she’ll do it again if we re-elect her. Who else would?!

I appreciate the issues-oriented, low-budget, non-partisan campaign that she as been running. I hope you will join me in voting for Sarah Welton for School Board on Tuesday, October 2nd.

Anne Kilkenny,

Wasilla