School District Failing Teachers

* I have two daughters in the Orange Unified School District.

Four years ago my older daughter was in sixth grade at Sycamore Elementary School. She was fortunate to have one of the best teachers I have ever known.

This teacher is highly dedicated and prepared my daughter for middle school, as well as being a role model and mentor.

Of course, I was hoping that my younger daughter, who is in fifth grade, would also have this teacher. However, she will not, because this teacher, along with many others, is leaving the district to teach at another school.

Why? Better pay, more secure benefits and a more appreciative board are hard to resist. Soon Orange will have very few experienced teachers. Why would a teacher want to stay here?

I hold this board responsible for the fact that my daughter will not receive the best teacher possible next year. Education in Orange will soon be an embarrassment, and we will only have an unreasonable board to blame.

RANDY DOBSON

Orange

* As an educator and parent in the Orange Unified School District, I am appalled at what I see taking place in many of our classrooms.

A large number of our students are being taught by untrained, inexperienced teachers. We have blindly accepted them into our classrooms because, after all, “anyone can teach.”

In reality, what should have been a student teaching experience under the tutelage of a master teacher is, for many, their first experience teaching our children.

They are learning their profession “on the run,” and our children are their “test cases.”

What really concerns me is that most are placed in kindergarten through third-grade classes, where a lost year can condemn our children to years of failure. Anyone who doubts the importance of these formative years has never visited a primary classroom.

Parents should be concerned that large pay raises have been given to our new, inexperienced teachers, while veteran teachers are the lowest-paid in the county.

RONALD THRASH

Orange