Stop the presses! I never thought I’d say this, but I actually found myself agreeing with the premise of Steve Nelson’s recent “Sensibilities” column (“Schools Simply Don’t Understand Boys,” Dec. 2). Maybe the holiday spirit is causing both of us to be especially magnanimous and charitable.
Monolithic, one-size-fits-all age cutoffs for enrollment in public schools tend to work against boys, portions of whose brains lag slightly in development compared with girls of the same age. For these young men to receive a false diagnosis of ADHD, be improperly medicated and otherwise penalized for “just being boys” borders on the criminal. Nelson and I will probably disagree as to the underlying problem, but I put the blame on a massive federal bureaucracy that fails to recognize individuality and gives cookie-cutter treatment to both girls and boys, who perform differently on standardized tests.
It was for this reason that my wife and I decided to home-school our son from kindergarten to third grade, and again in the seventh grade. To address the need for socialization, in 1985 we and 10 or so other home-schooling families created an informal co-op, Covenant Christian Home Schoolers, to provide art, music, physical education and field trips for the enhancement of our children’s well-rounded education. Education is first and foremost the responsibility of parents and must not be abdicated to government or even churches.
I can remember when there was one Cabinet-level department for Health, Education and Welfare. Bureaucracy has a nasty tendency, like the proverbial camel, to stick its nose in the tent and expand until there’s no room for anything else. While I don’t at this time advocate dismantling the Department of Education, it needs to be scaled back.
William A. Wittik
Hartford
The Governor’s Marijuana Advisory Commission is charged with taking comments, and its scheduled deadline is Dec. 15. I attended the last listening event on Dec. 6 (“Marijuana Advocates Warn Against Overregulation at Hartford Talk,” Dec. 7). A good number of people showed up in spite of the last-minute change in location. One of the attendees shared his frustrated attempts to find the meeting place, and called the commission unprofessional.
I kept my disappointment to myself until we were discussing roadway safety. I personally find the state’s policy abhorrent, since there’s yet to be established the means to reliably calibrate dose-related neurocognitive effects of marijuana. It may be that the governor wouldn’t allow the legislation to pass without a roadway test, but current science fails to provide a useful metric. I proposed to Tom Little and Jake Perkinson, the co-chairs of the commission, that they propagate that information up their chain of command, but my hunch is they wouldn’t find it in their best interests.
After the meeting dispersed, I drove a short distance on Route 5, saw blue lights behind a stopped motorist and imagined a cop, honing her or his tetrahydrocannabinol-detecting skills on a poor, defenseless victim. In the morning light, while reflecting on the evening’s activities, I remembered the disappointed attendee’s stance: I think he had the opinion the relocation was an attempt to reduce participation. And Little’s and Perkinson’s disinterest in sharing our opinion of “roadway safety”? That dovetails in, too.
Gov. Phil Scott should know that this is Vermont. We, as a state, are progressive. Drop the roadway testing aspect of the executive order, and let us take the high road.
Kevin McEvoy Leveret
White River Junction
On Nov. 30, I experienced an incident that I have thought and read about but never imagined could happen to me: My co-worker and I were involved in an armed robbery. When the robber left the pharmacy, I immediately called 911. I am not sure of the actual timing, but it seemed as though within one minute a Claremont police officer was at the store. Her first concern was for our health and our safety. After that was established, she asked questions about what the robber looked like. While she was interviewing us, several other police officers came into the pharmacy. They had their K-9 unit and started searching for the robber. They caught the person within a short period of time.
The reason for this letter isn’t to seek sympathy for myself or my co-worker. It is to praise and to express the utmost respect I have for our police department. The officers never left our side throughout the morning and their response was extremely fast, professional and compassionate.
Claremont is very fortunate to have a well-trained, professional police force. We take city services such as the police force for granted until we need them, and I just want to say thank you.
Carl Bannon
Claremont
The writer is the pharmacy manager at Sugar River Pharmacy in Claremont.