By Jim Hall
In response to the comments from the Lucerne schoolteachers” letter: As to your issue No. 1 ? what your school is seeing as a positive style of teaching, customizing the learning experience to each student, or as you stated, tailoring to their needs, brings a weakness to their future lives in the real world. The more standardization of the educational experience allows for no shock feelings when they move on to their different schools of higher education, where other feeder schools send their students and are better prepared to hit a comfort zone, as to how they are treated and educated. The more level the teaching standards are, the more smoothly the education process is achieved for the students, who for many reasons, family or job needs, may have to move to a different area.
Issue No. 2 ? as to administration, every educational location needs leadership to ensure compliance with the overall standards of education for all units in the county. But it is not in the best interest of the taxpayers” dollars spent to be top-heavy in this area. It is far more important to have as much funding to offer the teaching staff the highest wages, to attract the best that the county can afford for the students. As to the administrative staff being asked to wear more than one hat, ask any working mom in today”s lifestyle if it can and has to be done.
Issue No. 3 ? county educational resources need to be allocated evenly, based on each school”s number of students. In the past, the more wealthy school districts offered unfair advantages to their students and this was both unfair and unjust. Each child, for the best interests of all the districts and communities that make up the county, should be ensured equal educations.
Issue No. 4 ? unification. The increasing cost of providing the best possible education for the students has to be addressed and unification will reduce duplicate positions, mostly in the administrative area, using the high tech of this computer age and all it offers, is a change that has to be made. School personnel are no different than all the other working environments who find a level of discomfort with any change in their workplace, but like so many others, it is something that needs to be addressed in this time of economical downturn, so many of us must face for many years to come. I believe the present federal leadership will do what it can to soften the impact of these times on our educational system, but it will take the local systems to do what they can, too. No one wants to see a respected co-worker and their families hurt in any way, but the realities of life are those that we all have to deal with.
