MY TURN: Distortions and inaccuracies

I am a teacher. On Tuesday, I read a My Turn article urging people to vote “no” on the upcoming Coeur d’Alene school levy.

The article claimed that the district was wasting money on the following things:

Too many teachers: The claim is the district only needs 460 teachers for 11,000 students. This would reduce the number of teachers in the district. Currently, there are 563. Some students have special needs. Others are in high-level math classes. Early elementary students are learning to read. In all of these cases, more teachers are better for students, not fewer teachers. Fewer teachers might be good for lowering taxes, though.

Too many administrators: “For every teacher there are about two ‘not-teacher’ administrators.” In the school where I teach, there are more than 40 teachers. If the opinion article were correct, we would then have more than 80 administrators. We have two.

Too many translators: The claim is that the district’s budget is out of control because it provides “translators for dozens of foreign languages.” This is simply not true. The district does not employ a single translator. There is ONE full-time instructor assigned to help students learn English. The district doesn’t provide services in any language other than English. We should, however, educate all students. Tall students. Short students. Even students who speak a different language, not that there are many…

I hope the author of Tuesday’s opinion article realizes that we are not just dealing with numbers. We are dealing with people.

SCOTT TRAVERSE

Coeur d’Alene