Work is, hopefully, not done at Miller

As teachers at Joaquin Miller Elementary School, we were interested

in Henry Hunt’s Jan. 8 letter to the editor. We agree with Hunt that

Miller Elementary is a distinguished school, filled with children,

teachers, staff, volunteers and parents working together to further

the growth of our students in all ways.

Yes, we love Miller Elementary, but we also think the community

should know about the school’s construction problems. Much of the

building constructed in 1999 has already had many repairs, including

multiple leaks in the roofing and entire hallways of floor tile that

have come unglued and been replaced. Most recently, large sections of

tiling on the roof have blown off.

Hunt stated the remodeling and construction are complete, and that

the bond money was “well spent, and the project has come in under

budget.” We can only hope construction is not done, because our

school library is not in service. Moreover, it might be easier for a

builder to come in under budget when items such as thousands of

dollars in carpeting for the school’s library are paid for by the

school-site fund and not out of the bond money, as promised. These

and other issues are affecting students negatively and cause us to

wonder if the district could have spent the money so the

construction could be done within budget and done well.

We are pleased that progress has been made in the remodeling of

our school. We can only hope that in the future, the district will be

as eager to improve the funding of instruction and support services

provided within the school as they have been in beautifying the

outside of the site.

JASON RAGLE

Fourth-grade teacher,

Miller Elementary

DANA RAGLE

Fourth- and fifth-grade

teacher, Miller Elementary