How did our schools get to this point?

The school board’s discussion over the closing and combining of the elementary schools sounds more like Walmart considering its warehousing options than a discussion about children and their future. How can you think of bringing this much chaos to the educational experience? How did all this happen? Why were the school buildings left to fall into disrepair? Where did the maintenance and repair money go?

It is time to remember that the end-product of this system should be well-educated young women and men that can make their way in this world. The infrastructure has been left to degrade and the board’s choice is to just cut and run? Have they taken into consideration, for instance, the consequences of some very, very long bus rides? The shake-up of some 4,000 kids and their families? What effect all this disorder will cause the students? No.

Time for the board to start thinking about the kids, not themselves. Time for us to look a little harder at what goes on there. Something is just not right when we build a $9 million structure that doesn’t teach a thing and then have to close six elementary schools. This is what people and companies thinking of relocating see about Rowan. No amount of “re-branding” will erase this potential scar.

The past is the past. We cannot change it, but we must know what went wrong in order to not do it again. We must move forward in a smarter way with kids’ education at the forefront of our actions.

— Don Hesprich

Salisbury

Gone too soon

Going to a familiar spot on the second floor of the main Rowan County Public Library, I was dismayed to find that Ms. Rebecca Hyde had retired and quietly departed two weeks ago.

There is no one who was better at the reference desk than Ms. Hyde, who could find anything with just an inkling of what you were talking about. She reminded me of “Bunny Watson” in the Kathryn Hepburn/Spencer Tracey movie “Desk Set,” where she constantly outwitted the computer which she thought was scheduled to replace her.

When I have been lost for a word Ms. Hyde would come up with it. If I needed help with a column, poem or book, she gave me priceless assistance, or whenever there she always asked about my children.

The Rowan Public Library staff are like family to this community, for they are our connection to the world of imagination and reality. If you are lost, they can help you find your way. If you are struggling, like “Mighty Mouse” they come to save the day.

Thank you, Ms. Rebecca Hyde, for your years of invaluable service to this community and for being our point of reference.

— Dr. Ada M. Fisher

Salisbury

Observations

Here is some news that’s been in the Post recently.

Rename: Rowan County Animal Control. Maybe it should renamed Rowan County Animal Out of Control.

Refigure: Aaron Church. Are you kidding us? $12,000! You got to be serious. Go refigure.

Repair: The Salisbury Mall.. Millions and millions of dollars. But it ain’t real money. It grows on trees. Just ask any politician.

Rethink: Bathrooms. This is causing a really big stink.

Rebrand: Good joke, Steve. The silk stocking district got it, but I don’t think the white socks crowd did.

Re-elect: County commissioners. Craig and Mike. T.O.B.A.C.C.O. This duo Oughta Be A Concerned Crusade 2 Outlaw it.

Here is some very important news that has not been in the paper. Until now.

Tobacco is the only product that actually kills one third of the people that use it.

Remove: Tobacco products from the county parks. Now is the time to M.O.V.E. (Make our visits enjoyable.)

— Whitey Harwood

Rowan County

More on HB2

I believe that the actions of the Charlotte City Council caused more concerns over intimate privacy than to discrimination.

Specifically, the Charlotte City Code once contained protection of privacy in “…restrooms, shower rooms, bathhouses and similar facilities which are in their nature distinctly private; and to YMCA, YWCA and similar types of dormitory lodging facilities.” When the Charlotte City Council revised the Non-Discrimination Ordinance, that exclusion was removed.

In our memory, we remember the arguments in support of a woman’s right to abortion, a portion of which addressed individual expectations of privacy, where the Supreme Court “found” such protection in Amendments 4, 9, and 14 to the U.S. Constitution. House Bill 2 is consistent with those arguments used in support of privacy.

I believe that special interest groups have focused only on their interpretation of HB2, not the reality of HB2. The law should stand as enacted.

— M.H. Clements

Cleveland