From Brett W. Condon

Monroe

To the Editor: 

I was mystified by the flyer I received in the mail from the School District of Monroe describing the details of the MHS referendum being proposed. $9 million dollars spent in the last four years and now the district is asking for a whopping $88 million! This at a time when we are plunging into recession and so many families are still struggling. The proposal is excessive and wishful.

My wife and I are retired living on a fixed income. The cost of this project would raise our yearly property taxes by $471.63! I assure you, we cannot afford that. I am a retired farmer and truck driver, my wife a retired schoolteacher in the public schools for twenty plus years. We support public education but we also know through our own experience homeschooling six children K-12, five of whom graduated with high honors from college, that one does not need multi-million dollar facilities to teach children well and prepare them for life. Parents and teachers can meet individual student goals if they are willing to work at it in a cooperative and disciplined way, and schools and communities in creative ways. And frankly, leaving the administrators and their high-priced positions and latest fad methods out of it would help! Student behavior and attitudes, classroom disruption, and a serious lack of backup, not to mention respect, for teachers, is a crisis and should be a priority focus. New, bigger, “better” facilities isn’t going to change any of that!

Let’s get real, and practical. We all have to live within our means in times like these. This is not the time to spend $88 million dollars.