SCHOOL DISTRICT

Don’t cut music education

I want Vashon School Board members to know that music is a very important part of education.

People learn things easily through song, and music is the main reason why everybody in the U.S. knows the alphabet. Most preschoolers know the ABC song and the whole alphabet along with it. Another benefit is that there is solid scientific evidence that learning music correlates to having improved problem-solving skills. Music strengthens the part of your brain that recognizes patterns, and that can build mathematical problem solving skills. Plus, music builds stronger memory for information stored verbally. Music helps build social skills for kids who don’t like sports as well. Overall, music has been proven to improve cognitive abilities, memory skills, and social skills. It is a reliable way of telling stories and connecting to other people. Music is a huge part of human cultures. Every country has its own unique style of music. Music is a thing that can bring people together.

Music is an important part of my daily life. Without it I would feel annoyed, frustrated, and depressed. I have been surrounded by music most of my life. It’s the best. What I get from playing music is a sense of achievement. When I start a concert, I’m nervous. In the middle, I enjoy it. At the end, I feel excitement, pride, and regret. Music for me is a way to connect to other people, since I don’t really like talking to people I don’t know. I love doing duets with other people and I love accompanying the McMurray choir, and it made me really happy when our senator, Joe Nguyen, said he was fighting for music education in schools. So please, fund more music.

– Marlowe Cardoza, 6th-grader

Furloughs and freezing wages for administrators

I am writing in response to the May 26 article “School district works to further define and defend staff cuts.”

In the article, the idea of administrative pay freezes and furloughs was dismissed by school board president Toby Holmes, because the money potentially saved is small in comparison to the $1.3 million dollar deficit.

However, since much of the deficit is being absorbed by attrition, we should instead compare pay freezes to the hours cut from counseling and paraeducators, who work closely with high-needs children.

The $23,000 from a furlough and $78,000 from freezing VISD administrators’ raises, plus a freeze on the superintendent’s recent raise of $9,000, could more than restore 1.2 FTE hours of staffing.

For example, the RIF plan shows a cut of $20,000 to reduce the hours of the district’s occupational therapist, $25,000 to reduce the hours of the ELL para-educator, and a $50,000 reduction of student services para-educator. These positions serve our community’s most vulnerable learners, and reducing them goes against the district’s goal of equity.

In the article, the superintendent alludes to possible legal issues if administrative pay is frozen, saying it opens the school district up to a lawsuit. Is he making a veiled threat to sue the district himself, or is he saying it is a hypothetical possibility?

I think the superintendent should be asked directly whether he would consider legal action against the school district if his raise became part of the RIF.

– Anna Shomsky

GUN VIOLENCE

Politicians put profits over people

Once again, profit has won over people. Elected officials whose job it is to represent the majority of humans in this country have sold their own humanity to gun manufacturers in order to protect those companies’ profits rather than to protect American lives. These are the legislators who claim to be pro-life.

Those elected officials blame mass shootings on mental health issues, but they refuse to create a health care system that would effectively support mental and physical health for everyone, not just for those who can buy it. Once again, those elected officials are protecting insurance company profits over the American lives they are supposedly elected to serve.

If our children are going crazy enough to kill masses of other children, people of color, people they disagree with or who live alternate lifestyles, it’s because they know this country doesn’t value them over profit. They are desperate. Those elected officials refuse to pay to educate them so they can partake in what used to be called the American Dream. They prefer to allow this American nightmare to unfold unregulated.

Gun control laws must be passed to at least keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of desperate people. That would be a start to protecting us all from the ravages of what has become a cold-hearted profit-driven society.

Then we vote in massive numbers for the politicians who cannot be bought by corporate profiteering. We vote for the politicians who truly value people over profit. And, let’s protect our families by making sure those politicians who are owned by corporations never hold office again.

– Susan McCabe

Massacre result of moral bankruptcy

A few years ago I wrote a song called “You Can’t Have Both.” “Both” refers to guns and safe children. A portion of the lyrics is, “Murdered children are worlds forever lost, Let the congressmen and the NRA lose their souls to pay the cost, Their tearless eyes see the blood of children run, And crocodile tears won’t save children from the gun. You’ll have guns or safe children but you won’t have both.”

To me, the only thing that is absolutely sacred, far more sacred than patriotism or religion, is the lives of children. We bring them helpless into the world and it is our responsibility to protect them.

Once again the massacre of school children in Uvalde, Texas, results from the moral bankruptcy of our Senate and those who choose guns over the lives of children. I often hear it said that in this divided country we should look for issues on which we can agree. Good idea, but I don’t know how to hide the massacre of school children under the rug, so that we adults can agree on other issues.

It’s important to remember that a gun is a machine designed to kill people. Many still believe legislation can be passed that will fix the problem without an outright ban on guns, something considered impossible. You never see it in print, but I want to state unequivocally that zero guns is the only path to gun sanity and safe children. Can the country that eliminated its 50 million bison eliminate its 300 million guns? Let’s try.

– Shelley Simon

The elephant in the room

I believe we are not discussing the elephant in the room. Right-wing activist governors, congressional and state legislators who pass open carry gun laws and irrationally promote the Second Amendment are attempting to arm an insurrection. Why allow assault rifles, which are weapons of war, unless you want to allow for a violent rebellion?

This is why they don’t care if thousands of innocent children, women, and men are routinely killed annually in the US. They have already violently stormed the U.S. Congress to overturn a legal democratic election. My father fought in WWII against fascism, but now anti-fascists are considered criminals. Why is The Beachcomber and other media not discussing the possibility that the right-wing Republican pro-gun lobbies may be promoting a civil war?

– Marlene Alvarado