Private School System Doesn’t Need a Boost

I attended the City Council meeting April 11 in Rolling Hills Estates in regard to the expansion plans for Peninsula Heritage School (formerly advertised as Wingrock School).

The City Council with the patience of Job listened to the pros and cons, and with infinite wisdom and good sense decided to follow the General Plan set out in Rolling Hills Estates Resolution No. 685, adopted June 13, 1973, which states that “the primary objective of the City is to preserve and enhance the rural character and single family nature of the community.”

My greatest shock of the evening came when Jack Price, superintendent of the Palos Verdes Unified School District, was called up by the supporters of Peninsula Heritage School to extol the virtues of the private school system. It shocked, saddened and sickened me to hear this man speak in support of expansion plans of a private school system, at a time when we are fighting tooth and nail to keep our present public school system from closing down one school after the other on the hill.

I would like to remind Jack Price that it was and is the public school system that made this country great, and not the exclusivity of private school. It was the public school system that provided the new immigrants to this country with reading, writing and language skills that enabled them to become worthwhile and productive citizens of this great country, and not the private school system for the chosen few.

I had children in both private and public schools, so I speak from experience. When my youngest graduated from a private junior high school, the poor deprived child begged me to put her in the public school with her friends, and she just thrives at Rolling Hills High School.

I am disappointed in Jack Price’s support of a private school in this area, and with friends like this, the Palos Verdes school system needs no enemies; perhaps we need a new superintendent.

GLENDA URMACHA

Rolling Hills Estates