[From the Keene Sentinel Letters Page]
To the residents and voters of the Monadnock Regional School District:
I would prefer to write this as your average citizen, but some of my information comes from being an elected Swanzey member of the district budget committee for the last two years.
I don’t claim to know everything, but I can make an intelligent assessment of where we stand as a district.
Once again it is time to make decisions about education. On March 11, your vote counts as a step forward for the future of the children of this district or another as a step backward toward the abyss of failed education.
Forward steps are: “yes” votes for the operating budget, teachers and support staff contracts and maintenance articles.
These are all positive steps toward a better future in this district.
Backward steps are: “no” votes for the above, not bothering to vote or believing the blather of the Monadnock School Taxpayers Association .
What does that group think?
With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy:
If you think that 200-year-old, one-room historic schoolhouses on the corner in the woods of Richmond would work just fine, you just might be a future member of the taxpayers association.
If readin’, writin’ and ’rithmetic is all you need to get by-, you just might be a future member of the taxpayers association.
If you are living in the past, blaming former administrators and board members long gone for all our woes, you just might be a future member of the taxpayers association.
If you are arrogant, rude, conceited and domineering and your moral compass has gone awry, you just might be a future member of the taxpayers association.
If you don’t believe that anyone but you is right, even when issues have been settled democratically, you just might be a future member of the taxpayers association.
If you want to see the district lose accreditation, teachers, support staff, administrators, new residents and any hope of a decent educational opportunity for your children and grandchildren, you just might be a future member of the taxpayers association.
You get the picture. Don’t let the taxpayers association scare you into believing that the administration, school board members, budget committee members, teachers and others are lying, deceitful, malicious, money-grubbing lunatics.
On March 11, vote for a positive change in our district.
Vote “yes” on articles 1, 3, 4, 13 and others that you feel help provide the education to which our kids are entitled.
Vote for the candidates in your town who best exemplify the type of adult you wish your child will become.
Read the articles. Understand the articles. Realize that negotiations are an intrinsic part of the democratic process.
Most importantly — vote March 11.
JIM ELLS
Member
Monadnock Budget Committee
P.O. Box 459
West Swanzey
It’s interesting that you use the words ‘the way forward’. That jargon comes straight from the UN’s UDHR. For shame.
I’d say some of us who pay upwards of $6,000 towards the education system do very well have a stake in the education of children — we just happen to be bloody sick of what we are getting for our money, never having had kids myself.