QUESTIONS REMAIN ABOUT CHAPEL HILL SCHOOL BONDS

The Chapel Hill School District (CHISD) has resurrected their failed bond from last November after losing by 65 percent to 35 percent.

CHISD has again failed to provide the public with a needs-based assessment review and has again insisted on a “take it or leave it” proposal. I challenge CHISD to open their decision making process to full review, disclosure, and comment during the planning stages, not after. We are discussing a $21 million obligation lasting 30 years, not a routine staffing or curriculum issue. A decision of this magnitude requires ongoing public input and review; an open process inviting the public to participate.

Here are examples where public disclosure and review might assist:

CHISD repeatedly referenced security issues requiring attention. However, it is troubling that a professional School Threat Assessment, performed by reputable security experts, was not available.

CHISD referenced Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) improvements and insists the ADA requires strict compliance.

Again a professionally prepared ADA Compliance Review was not provided. CHISD plans to install an elevator on the high school football bleachers. The ADA does not require elevated seating for the handicapped, only adequate and safer ground level access and assistance.

Full ADA compliance is very expensive, however the ADA allows for many school exemptions that reduce costs and provide cheaper alternatives.

CHISD should restart the entire bond issue, ensure full due-diligence is completed, and fully engage the voters on a continuous basis before attempting to spend $21 or $31 million taxpayer dollars.

Vote “no” on the CHISD school bond on May 10.

Richard Prouty

Tyler

STATE BOARD

I wrote recently to Barbara Cargill, our state board of education chair. I’m very concerned that she may not see what is happening with our educational system. Segregation is getting worse and worse with more and more students going to private schools, religious schools and home schools. Public schools have shown that they are failing and wasteful, which is why informed students and parents choose other options.

Adopting a mandatory Mexican-American studies course will only exacerbate the problem. The simple phrases Mexican-American or African-American are divisive and encourage groups to segregate themselves from our “melting pot” that once was America.

President Obama has been very successful in dividing our country into small groups of special interests. If the state board votes to segregate our students further with any “hyphen-American” course, it will be exacerbating the divisiveness and demise of our state and nation.

The material that would be in your course is already part of current curricula. Additionally, any school district that chooses to do so can establish this course or any other they choose.

Our public officials should quit dividing us. It’s time to make America America again.

Bob Brewer

Tyler

IMMIGRATION

The goal of the Republican Party leadership’s push to extend amnesty to illegal aliens is to secure the votes of these illegal immigrants.

If party leaders would check the past history they would discover the mistake of this political strategy.

If the leadership would take the time to check their own history, they would find out they are once again trying to create a second Democrat Party.

After the Goldwater defeat, it was grassroots Republicans who fought back.

Today, the Tea Party folks form the backbone of a party that is nevertheless becoming more liberal. It didn’t work in 1968 and it will do no good in 2014.

Those who fail to read history are destined to make the same mistakes. God bless the Tea Party members who are putting the people in a position to save the Constitution and the Republic.

John Cole

Tyler