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The Mid-county Memo is your newspaper. We want to hear from you. Discuss an important issue or address a concern you want to call to the attention of our community. We prefer e-mailed letters to the editor sent to Darlene Vinson at editor@midcountymemo.com. Please put “Letter to the editor” in the subject line. You may also mail your letter to 3510 N.E. 134th Ave., Portland, OR 97230 or fax it to 503-249-7672. Deadline for the July issue is Wednesday, June 15.
School district employee calls for a better plan
To the Editor:
With less funding from the state, Parkrose School District has been forced to make drastic cuts in the education of our students. Our students deserve better than what was allocated to school districts in the current state budget.
In the Parkrose School District-my school district-the budget committee passed a cut-filled budget after only two meetings. The most extreme cuts were reducing the school year by 20 school days and cutting all educational assistants' time to five hours a day. How can up to 20 days cut from the school year benefit our students? How can reducing the number of hours and number of educational assistants benefit our students? Having less help in the classroom will hurt students needing a little extra help in reading or math. Several educational assistants will be looking for other employment as they will be paying more for health insurance and their hours have been drastically reduced. This will mean losing a wealth of experienced, dedicated and valuable employees.
There must be other ways. At the Parkrose budget meeting on May 4, several suggestions were offered. Perhaps fewer cuts could have been made if all employees of the district were to be equally cut instead of the select few that got the reduction of hours. The educational assistants feel singled out. Cuts need to be fair and across the board.
Every day, Parkrose staff goes the extra mile for our students. I do not want to see that get lost in the current budget cuts. The state simply needs to increase funding to school districts. I urge every one of you to let the state legislature and our school district know how unhappy you are with the current situation.
Our state legislators and their contact information are as follows:
Senator Jackie Dingfelder (Senate District 23), 503-986-1723 in Salem, 503-493-2804 in Portland, sen.jackiedingfelder@state.or.us.
Senator Rod Monroe (Senate District 24), 503-986-1724 in Salem, 503-760-4310 in Portland, sen.rodmonroe@state.or.us.
Representative Michael Dembrow (House District 45), 503-986-1445 in Salem, 503-281-0608 in Portland, rep.michaeldembrow@state.or.us.
Representative. Jefferson Smith (House District 47), 503-986-1447 in Salem, rep.jeffersonsmith@state.or.us.
Thank you,
Barbara Luce
Resident and employee of the Parkrose School District
Choice of quote questioned
To the Editor:
I have been receiving the Mid-county Memo for about a year. I enjoy your publication and being kept up to date with the events that are relevant to my neighborhood. I was a little confused in the May 2011 edition where you have quoted Adolf Hitler from “Mein Kampf.” I have re-read the whole paper trying to see if it tied into one of your articles in some way and failed to see any connections. If there was no reason for the quote, I would find that to be very disturbing and unnecessary. I realize that you are a small publication but I would expect the Memo to be classier than to randomly quote a man who perpetuated atrocious war crimes across Europe of such magnitude that the effects are still being felt today. If you could offer some insight that would be much appreciated. I understand that you are busy and may not have the time, however please consider such lines of thought before sending out your paper to the more than 14,000 homes that it goes to.
Thank you for taking the time
Bob Bowden
Glendoveer
Editor's Note: Chalk this up to irrational exuberance. This quote was selected in response to the raid that led to the demise of Osama bin Laden-and you are correct, unrelated to anything in the paper. We do believe we can (and should) learn from history. Even the bad guys.
Thank you for taking the time, to express your feelings...and, please, keep reading the Memo.
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