District 303 does need PR advice
My letter is in reply to Jonathan Fischer's "Dist. 303 should avoid paying for PR" in the Sept. 6 edition.
Fischer's comments clearly show the damage our school board has done to our community.
I don't blame Fischer for his comments personally, as an ex-school board member was first to coin the phrase of west side superiority. So I am not surprised I am still hearing the term and seeing the hurt.
I have attended almost every meeting regarding the recent boundary changes. My 8-year-old son was one of the children who was picked to be bused to Munhall School or Fox Ridge School.
My feelings were not those of superiority but those of concern for my child. I have nothing against Munhall or Fox Ridge. I honestly didn't even know where they were located until the whole boundary fiasco.
I learned very quickly that they would be more than an hour bus ride with stops from my home. My son and two other children would have been pulled out of Wasco School, only a couple of miles from our home and bused across the river.
I never felt that either school wasn't good enough for my child, I was concerned only about the alienation that was occurring and the fact that it was being done to make room for new development.
Every parent who attended those meetings felt the same way. If anyone from the East Side got the wrong impression, I am sorry.
Again, if you put the shoe on the other foot and it was your child who was being alienated and bused miles from home, well, I don't have to say more. And really, in our situation, would moving three children have made all that much difference?
Up until I read Fischer's letter, I was against the district spending more taxpayer money on a PR firm. But I have reconsidered. The damage clearly had been done and Dr. Schlomann can see it.
Whether it has been hurt feelings, mistrust or failed referendum requests, take your pick, but we absolutely need a better feeling about our school board and about our community.
Debra Seitz
Campton Township
Intent of surge is to keep troops in Iraq
For the past few weeks, Americans have been told that President Bush's Iraq surge has worked and have pointed to a decline in U.S. military casualties for July and August. This doesn't tell the whole story, and few reports bother to dig deeper.
For the last three years, military deaths have declined from June to July, only to rebound in August (so far, August 2007 seems even with July). This indicates a cyclical or even seasonal pattern to casualties that is unrelated to the 2007 surge.
In addition, U.S. military deaths for June-August 2007 are 61 percent higher than for 2006. Iraqi civilian deaths, as reported by Iraqi authorities and news organizations, have risen during the surge period, and are higher than 2006.
It is widely reported that the Iraqi government essentially doesn't exist, and no real progress has been made on the political benchmarks that President Bush himself laid out as the rationale for the surge. The U.S. military has done the job it has been asked to do. They have been failed by political leadership.
It is long past time that we stop asking the military to bear the brunt of political mistakes made in the White House. And it is clear that the point of the surge was the surge -- to increase American troops in Iraq, and to make sure the troops stay there until Jan. 20, 2009.
Toni Call
Aurora