Speakout

Give it a little tweek

I read with great interest the new school absentee policy at New Madrid. I just have a couple of comments I'd like to make. I see some very good points about keeping the children in school, which in turn keeps the money going to the school, which we greatly need. However, I'm worried about some other points about the children being encouraged to be homebound if they can't make it to school whether they are sick or not because these children need to learn how to socialize and get along together and if they are home-schooled they are losing out on vocational skills, which if new businesses come to town they will look at our work force record and our students who do come from the vo-tech and how many. We don't need to encourage them to have untrained children who are unable to cope with the job because they weren't taught skills in school. I think it's a fantastic beginning but you need to tweek this a little bit cause you're gonna leave some children out. I think it's more important to build character in these children, encourage them to go to school. Reward them. Get them vocational skills so they can make a very good life for themselves and in turn bring trade to this area because we will have trained children who have skills. And also, I did not think the principal or vice principal should be singling children out and calling their mothers at work and commenting on their children. Naturally the mothers are gonna get on Facebook and say what this teacher said about her child, which impresses the other children. Don't single them out that way. Send the paper home. I don't think it needs to be publicized on Facebook. I also don't think pictures of teachers need to be put on Facebook in a certain way. That's a very good teacher, but he's young and I don't think that's a very good point he set. Let's think about the teaching, not so much about the dollar amount. That school program is fantastic, but don't throw them to the wolves if they are sick or if they maybe don't have a home life where they are encouraged to go to school. Let's teach these children. Teaching them to go to jobs and fill out applications to me is a large part of education. I am very proud of our school. I think we have one of the finest in the area. But I think we need to talk about this a little bit. Let the parents have some input. Form a committee to meet with the parents and the school board, and I think we have a game plan and I think it's a winner. There are some very good people out there working.