Community will benefit from better schools

I am responding to the letter (Feb. 15, Daily Bee) from the gentleman who objects to the school levy. Mr. DeHaan obviously has never been a teacher. I also seriously doubt that he has ever spent time in a classroom. I would guess that his only classroom experience was that spent as a student many years ago. I have spent more than 12 years volunteering in elementary school classrooms and substitute teaching. Mr. DeHaan's perspective comes from deep ignorance about modern classrooms.

Today, every state has strict and specific educational standards which dictate what teachers must teach. There is very little time left in a school day for teachers to teach anything but the standards, including reading, writing and arithmetic. As far as teachers being able to "handle" classrooms of 35-plus students in the "good old days:" It has always been very difficult to teach more than 20 students in a classroom and give each child the attention he or she needs and deserves. It is just more difficult today.

Discipline issues are more challenging for teachers now than in the past for many reasons, many of them socio-economic.

There are more children at school with attention disorders; more children with emotional/behavioral issues; more children who have to work full-time in order to afford housing and food and so cannot spent as much time with their children. These are all issues that teachers are expected to deal with on top of teaching to the standards.

Our community, state and nation will benefit from better schools. Children will be our future leaders. We need to have well-educated people running our government. We all need to rally behind this levy and pass it.

KATHLEEN MULROY

Sagle