Youth is not disability

To the editor: In last week’s (Viewpoints, Sept. 14) Courier, Karl Flail mentioned I recently graduated high school. To clarify, I am a complete K-12 product of the Delaware Valley School District. I saw things happen at DV from a point of view that the majority of voters do not have. Furthermore, I attended almost a year’s worth of school board general and committee meetings, and I have followed the local press for years. As a result, I don’t see why Mr. Flail asserted I am “hardly in a position to make a recommendation on [the school board election] which can be taken all that seriously.” Though I do not yet pay school taxes (my parents do), I believe my “unusual” viewpoint of an enlightened recent graduate is not only authoritative and credible but also beneficial to fellow voters. Considering nothing is certain but death and taxes, I will one day pay school taxes. Within the next few decades I will raise my own children, possibly here in the DV School District. Unlike Mr. Flail, who transitively suggests a DV education is a “burden,” I will be proud to do my civic duty for the children in my school district and for the future of our country, especially when I know that intelligent and qualified individuals are making decisions with my money. Mr. Flail claims “spenders on the school board have pushed…their costly agenda with no regard for the people who…pay the bills.” DV has the 10th lowest per-pupil spending of 37 school districts in northeast PA while producing students who continually exceed state testing goals to meet No Child Left Behind standards. This high performance shows the board’s high regard for the people who pay the bills. As a graduate, among about 90% of the DV High School class of 2007 attending higher education, I have the highest regard for every part of the DV community. I can extend this thanks to Mr. Flail. I realize he is part of the reason DV could offer my school a variety of academic opportunities, which I could only hope he and other school tax payers think is worth their money. Mr. Flail wants a school board that will “respect the concerns of property taxpayers.” Ironically, his candidates only demonstrate disrespect. Kupillas and Wladar attended their first school board meeting ever in August. They were not present at the Sept. 6 safety committee meeting/work session. I fail to see how that is a display of respect of the taxpayers—or the voters who let them past the primaries. In the Pike County Dispatch’s “Meet the Candidates,” Wladar showed ignorance about DV’s academics and No Child Left Behind testing performance. He falsely wrote that DV teaches “Mandarin Chinese when the students are barely passing state-mandated PSSA tests.” In reality, there has been no Mandarin Chinese course in at least a decade, and 77.7% of DV students scored proficient in the PSSA tests in 2006. Ignorant and neglectful candidates who are out of touch with DV’s academics and critical No Child Left Behind data do not respect the taxpayers, much less the students in our school district. The taxpayers and the nearly 6,000 children in DV schools deserve representatives who are caring, committed, dependable, educated, and honest. As a result, with my right to vote that I gained last Thursday, I will be supporting Sue Casey, Frank Colletta, Sue Schor, and John Wroblewski in November. We need to stand as a community behind our school district, not dismantle it. Ryan Balton Syracuse, N.Y.