Weathersfield voters deserve answers to busing questions

Weathersfield voters deserveanswers to busing questions
EDITOR:
The school board and the administration of the Mineral Ridge schools (Weathersfield Local School District) continue to fracture the community, not only by their recent decision to virtually eliminate busing, but also by their adamant refusal to reinstate any variation of busing, under any circumstances.
The board and administration continue to blame the community for ignoring their presentations and pleas, and voting down, twice, increases in taxes to ostensibly bail out the school system from its financial predicament.
The board and administration continue to assert that the community deliberately and consciously chose to eliminate busing, by voting down increased taxes. The board and administration criticize the community for complaining about that choice, only because they now are "inconvenienced" by the lack of busing. The board and administration also attempt to portray those pleading for a return of busing as being in favor of slashing educational quality and ravaging the curriculum.
The board and the administration are wrong. They are wrong to blame the voters, wrong to portray the community as sore losers unwilling to accept the consequences of their & quot;No & quot; votes, and wrong to claim that demands for busing must come at the expense of educational quality. And they are wrong to refuse to reinstitute a modified busing plan.
It can be said that the & quot;No & quot; votes were cast, not because the community wanted a second rate school system, but because the community was not convinced that the financial predicament was as severe as was presented by the board and the administration.
No one disputes that the reconfiguration of RMI's taxes cost the district $621,000 per year, nor disputes that the district faced rising costs from a variety of providers.
But the fact pattern presented by the board has changed during two previous levy votes and now again. The school system is projected to end FY 2004 with a positive balance of $492,000 and a budget surplus of $186,000 at the end of FY 2005. But the community is still not told the true cost of busing. It is not told that the state reimburses the school system for roughly half the transportation costs.
The money for busing is there. The community is willing to participate in discussions regarding the school's budget situation, and to participate in discussions on not only maintaining the educational quality of the school system, but on how to improve the quality of the system. And importantly, to support a reasonable increase in taxes
The public is asking that a portion of the projected surplus (less than 10 percent of the projected surplus) be spent on reinstituting busing for children in kindergarten through eighth grade and for students attending the vocational school. The public is clamoring for guns and butter. The community deserves a quality education for its children and a safe means for getting children to school.
JOHN A. SAULITIS
Mineral Ridge
Apathy is a dirty word
EDITOR:
In response to Ellen Goodman's Jan. 22 column, "Let's smash religious stereotypes," one thing I'm sure of is that the religion of Martin Luther King Jr. never had the word apathy in it.
Democratic voters don't give a hoot. You won't get an argument about abortion, gay marriage or the Ten Commandments coming from Democratic voters. Liberals feed off this general apathy.
That was the whole point of the Goodman column, to bring silence to moral debates. It gives more freedom to liberals and more headaches to parents.
If Americans aren't up to the challenge of finding freedom's fulfillment in basic moral truths, it's beyond me how parents can expect teenagers to be up to the challenge.
SYLVIA KOCZWARA
Boardman