Orange Trustees Are Unfit to Serve

* Re “Orange Trustees Reject Federal Aid as Tainted,” May 25:

Once again the Orange Unified school board majority has chosen to cut off their nose to spite their face. To deny students the opportunity to connect with local businesses and other agencies in an effort to improve their career education is just another example of the short-sighted political agenda that those trustees are pushing down our throats.

This federal government paranoia wherein Trustee Bill Lewis compares the government to a drug dealer is ludicrous. At a time when educators are dealing with more and more responsibility in the classroom to teach the basics and prepare students for life after the classroom, they are now going to do it with less and less support. If a program such as the one being denied supports what is already in place in career education, I can only see benefits for students, not slavery to the federal government.

As a teacher in a neighboring district, I am thankful that my district has local control that gives teachers and administrators the power to decide what programs will benefit their students. As for my own children attending Orange Unified, they will be denied access to federal tax dollars, one of the few opportunities they have to benefit from any federal program. I will be encouraging friends and neighbors to go to the polls in November to rid our school board of these narrow-minded trustees who sacrifice worthwhile programs to promote their own political agendas.

KAREN DAVIDSON

Orange

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* We were appalled at Trustee Bill Lewis’ April 21 op-ed piece (“Use Public Schools for Learning, Not for Social Welfare Programs”). His articulated convictions seemed absurd and destructive.

Now, however, he has really gone too far! To liken the federal government to a “drug dealer” is seditious. We do not believe he or his followers are fit to govern this large and important school district. We do not want the children who must attend these schools to be trained and encouraged in a tradition of seditious dissent.

Orange County has many members of the armed forces within its borders, both active and retired, including one of the signatories below. How nice for them to hear the government they serve and defend likened to a “drug dealer.”

Lewis and his followers really must go. We suggest Montana, where they could join their fellow dissenters, the so-called “freedom fighters.”

ERNEST and BEVERLY TOY

Orange

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* Likening the federal government to a drug dealer--I doubt very much our respected leaders of the Chamber of Commerce feel the Vision 2020 grant was a “junkie” hook-up service through exposure to various occupations.

Please, people of Orange County, I implore you to vote; replace or recall [the trustees]!

MELINDA C. MOORE

Orange