Safety Concerns at Belmont Site

* Re “Toxic Cleanup at Belmont May Cost Millions,” Feb. 4:

Recently, I sold candy in my office for my son’s school. A few months ago, I sold wrapping paper. I cannot really complain, since the sale of these items allows my son’s school to replace unsafe playground equipment, purchase textbooks and fund a librarian position. I was told that PTA and booster club fund-raisers were necessary evils, as the Los Angeles Unified School District could not fund all of these programs.

Imagine my surprise to learn that LAUSD could lose $200 million due to foreseeable mistakes from the Belmont Learning Complex fiasco, and no one will be held accountable. I suggest a recall of the entire school board, because the bucks stop there.

ERIC J. LEW

Los Angeles

*

While we wrestle with the various issues related to its construction, let us please reflect on the fact that the Belmont Learning Complex is halfway completed and will open in 15 months. This school will be a flagship in educational reform. Countless teachers are currently preparing curriculum for the learning academies that will allow each and every student to learn a particular job skill and to prepare for college. Our community in the Pico-Union/Westlake/Downtown area will find its students enrolled in the largest, most progressive high school in the nation’s history.

When Belmont opens, our country will be in the midst of a heated presidential election campaign, and education will certainly be at the forefront of each party’s campaign. Belmont will unquestionably find itself thrown into the spotlight of education reform. At that time, it will not matter so much what it cost or who misinformed whom, but rather what will be happening in the classrooms. Let us begin to turn our attention to those 5000-plus students who will walk in the front door of Belmont Learning Complex on July 1, 2000, and be the first students to embark on 21st century educational history.

RALPH ANTHONY DOBSON

West Hollywood