I am a National Board Certified teacher in the Kent School District. Senate Bill 6442 is bad for everyone: taxpayers, employees and school districts.

Under SB 6442, a state bureaucracy would take over the health care system for K-12 school employees. According to the state’s own fiscal note, it would cost taxpayers $45 million or more in the coming years. SB 6442 eliminates private-sector competition among insurance companies and limits options. This bill would add another costly function to the state bureaucracy at a time when vital funding for K-12 education and other services is being cut.

SB 6442 eliminates …

Read more »

I am a National Board Certified teacher living in Tacoma and teaching in Gig Harbor, and I oppose Senate Bill 6442. This bill takes our current private health insurance and places it in the hands of the state, creating more needless bureaucracy and eliminating individual choice.

According to the state’s own fiscal note, this would cost the state $45 million in coming years. Worse, it would reduce our options, reduce the number of school employees receiving health care and reduce our benefits.

It is disappointing to me and my colleagues in the public school system (bus drivers, special education paraprofessionals, …

Read more »

Re: Don’t reverse reform’s progress (Letters, 3-3).

I want to thank the writer for a very passionate, well-written letter.

Allow me to offer another point of view. School is primarily about education. Exposing children to all kinds of people teaches them how to live in a society, but does it facilitate their learning of history and calculus?

We need to let all students reach their academic potential while they also learn to respect and value everyone’s uniqueness. To expand on the writer’s opening statement, I believe all students, including capable, willing students, have the right “to exercise and enjoy, …

Read more »

Re: “Many more kids turn up homeless in Florida county” (TNT, 3-1).

I have always been concerned about the accessibility to education for children and adults alike, regardless of their financial situation. I believe that as a compassionate society we cannot overlook the necessity of education as a foundation, and we must find ways to keep our future generations actively involved.

Health care and housing are a large part of ensuring that our children can make it to school. However, I also believe that we must find personal ways to connect. So, I find myself asking, “How can I …

Read more »

I write this with a heavy heart. The shooting incident at the Bremerton elementary school in itself may be “a rare, isolated incident,” (TNT, 2-23), but the number of seriously troubled, damaged children in our schools is not.

This incident is a red flag for what is really plaguing our schools and society at large. The classroom teacher in this incident is quoted saying this boy is a “troubled child” who altered the dynamics of an otherwise peaceful classroom.

Classrooms all over our country are plagued with difficult children who make learning and teaching a struggle for everyone else. …

Read more »

In 2008, the Tacoma School District implemented a boundary invasion policy, which prohibits interaction that is deemed a personal or one-on-one form that includes face-to-face, phone call, email, social networking or written letter forms.

Restrictions like these only permit interactions between school staff and students/parents of what is deemed educational or within the approved curriculum and school-related business. If students bring up personal issues, staff are required to refer students to the counselor/guidance staff.

However since the policy’s implementation, staff members still violate conduct laws as Donte Lipscomb and other staff allegedly have done. The policy does little to prevent …

Read more »

Since the early 1970s, we have worked hard to include students with disabilities in the mainstream classroom, to exercise and enjoy, as they are able, their right to a free public education. Their presence teaches us all a bit about our humanity, how we can help others and share the bounties of this democracy.

If teachers are to be evaluated on standardized test scores, and that test data is not adjusted for the particular students in a teacher’s room, then that teacher will be punished and discriminated against, even though the students may have accomplished academic miracles relative to their …

Read more »

Re: “Tweaks won’t cure flawed system” (letter, 2-20).

The letter writer made two serious errors. He reported that a group of white Marines didn’t learn history, and from that example he concluded schools are failing.

While the Marines defended their shenanigans (posing in front of a Nazi SS banner) with ignorance, I contend that they not only knew it was a Nazi flag, but took pride in the symbolism as a designation of their swift and lethal response. Of all the flags in the world, why would this one be chosen?

As far as history in the schools, it …

Read more »