School board strikes gold in search for land? Not quite

To the Editor: The title of this article was bizarre to say the least! I was led to believe that perhaps the Sparta school board had finally found a piece of property. I thought I was going to read an article about how we had a site for the new high school that the board has been trying to get for at least the 21 years that I’ve lived here. In fact, the title should have been, “Kathleen Monks strikes gold.” Let’s be realistic. She had only been in our education system for two or three months when the rise in the test scores, for which Dr. Morton is crediting her, occurred. I raised a daughter in this town. She received an excellent education from the teachers, not from the administration. In spite of all of the bonehead changes in curriculum I’ve seen put in place, my child had some excellent teachers who didn’t mind bucking the system and teaching the old-fashioned basics. Because of this, my daughter is a senior in college and to date, I haven’t paid a dime. I remember many times our teachers were without contracts because they wanted minor raises to keep up with inflation, but they continued to teach. Now, someone gets a huge raise because of the test scores that she could not possibly have had anything to do with. Can’t we be realistic? It is time the board of education opened their eyes and assumed the supervisory role over Ron Wolfe and Dr. Morton. Why are they giving in to Dr. Morton’s whims and his short-notice agendas? This is just another waste of money at the expense of the Sparta taxpayer. I find it appalling that whenever anything goes wrong, the teachers are blamed, and when things go right someone in administration claims the glory. New buildings don’t educate, and administrators have come and gone. The one constant has always been the excellent teachers in Sparta. The teachers should be given the recognition they deserve, and the board should stop wasting our money. Greg Kelsey Sparta