Letter to the Editor from Clarence Resident and Mom, Jess (Miles) Bode

Dear Editor,

The redistricting issue has been heavy on my heart since we first heard about it. I want to start out by saying that, from what I've experienced, Macon is a great school. But it's not the school our family chose. And this isn't just about schools. This is about families. Families that thought long and hard about where they wanted to put down roots. Families that placed being in Shelby County R-lV school district a top priority. Families that bought houses and turned them into homes or built from the ground up.

We are one of those families. We looked at houses in Macon and ultimately decided that we wanted our kids to be Cardinals. We bought my husband's childhood home in Clarence. We made it ours. We brought our second son home from the hospital to this house. We buried our third son at the cemetery down the road.

We love Clarence and our home, but we absolutely want to be in Shelby County R-lV School District. We moved here thinking that would be the case. We don't want one of our biggest life decisions to be for nothing. We don't want to start over. So for our family, and families like ours, please Vote NO on Proposition 1.

Submitted,

Jess (Miles) Bode, 2011 South Shelby Graduate