I strongly support the School Building Committee’s (SBC) chosen plan to build a new LHS on the fields. The current LHS is extremely overcrowded, with inadequate educational spaces, and buildings that are beginning to fail in multiple ways. The SBC selected the Bloom design after 100+ public meetings and extensive community input. This exhaustive process started with 19 potential designs, working towards the optimal solution for our students, our educators, and our community as a whole. The Bloom design is the most cost effective, shortest construction time, and least disruptive choice that meets our educational plan. Lexington was fortunate to be selected to receive state funding for the LHS project through the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA), which is expected to cover ~$100 million of the project cost. In partnering with the MSBA, our design and building processes are required to go through an extensive value engineering process to reduce costs wherever possible while maintaining quality. The current LHS buildings have served our community well, but a new LHS is long overdue. I will support the new LHS project by voting yes when the debt exclusion is presented to voters later this year, and strongly urge my fellow residents to do the same.