Letters to the editor for April 1
Horowitz book comes at terrible time
The price of free speech is expensive. We as Americans understand that this is hard. But if citizens don’t think for themselves on all levels about all subjects then free speech will be lost to One voice. We won’t all agree. We never have. Discussion and intelligent debating moves us forward. Fear-mongering makes us circle the wagons to keep “the others” out — just like a pandemic!
The full-page ad in the March 17 Olympian for the book “Dark Agenda” is contemptuous. What a great selling time, just as the coronavirus outbreak is ramping up, to get your purposefully shocking book out about more fear and hatred.
What comes next, school officials?
Here is an email I sent (paraphrased) to the Olympia School District school board:
As a parent of a fourth-grade student at Garfield Elementary, I am becoming more frustrated every hour at the school district’s complete silence on their plan moving forward. While school has in many ways become daycare for working families and a place to get lunch for those less fortunate, the primary purpose is still to educate our children. Yet the only news we get from the district is how to get a free lunch!
What is your plan for the remainder of the school year? Are you going to extend the school year into summer? Are you going to graduate students with a six-week gap in their education? Should we be homeschooling and recording work completed to be put towards graduation standards? Are you going to have an online presence for schoolwork?
So many questions parents are grappling with right now and not a single word from the school district.
I’m shocked that OSD doesn’t already have a plan outlined in a disaster preparedness scheme. If you do, now would be a great time to share it with the parents. If you don’t, at least admit that and give a timeline when you expect to have some answers to the many questions we have. You’ve closed school for 6 weeks — that is a fact. The question of what comes after should already have an answer and should be shared with the parents immediately.