LETTERS: PAT IS IMPORTNAT TO SMALL DISTRICTS

To the editor:

I read the negative comment in Speak Out about the Chaffee Parents as Teachers program and felt compelled to respond.

Obviously, there are some areas where money is being wasted in the Chaffee School District. This is evident by the money woes our district is facing. But to classify the Parents as Teachers program as a "joke" is not only unfair, but inaccurate as well.

Financially speaking, the program is a bargain to the Chaffee School District. Half of the funding for the program comes from the state. Remaining costs are shared between the Chaffee, Scott City, Delta, and Kelso school districts. For each of the districts to hire a parent educator individually would be cost prohibitive for the smaller districts, and qualified personnel would be difficult to find for additional programs. However, with the cooperative program shared by these four districts, we have been able to retain two parent educators with over 40 years of experience working with children. In addition, we have one central Parents as Teachers office, not four separate offices in four districts, This is another huge savings for the school districts which do not have room on their campuses to house the program. We have one secretary for the program rather than four separate secretaries, another cost savings. If we are to retain our smaller hometown school districts, cooperative programs such as this will become more and more vital to meet the needs of our students, to meet the standards of the Missouri School Improvement Programs and to meet mandates from the state and federal governments. The caller suggested that parents pay for this program. We do pay for it through our local and state taxes.

In addition to being financially sound, the program provides a necessary service. Both of my children have been in the Parents as Teachers program since birth. Children do not come with instruction manuals, and there's only so much one can learn from parenting magazines and books. When you see your child every day, you lose perspective on whether your child has developmental or educational needs that are unfulfilled. Our parent educator, Joy Cutler, is well-informed about issues related to not only parenting, but normal physical and emotional child development as well. She is always available to us and always supportive. She was the first (and for two years, the only) person who saw that our daughter needed speech therapy. Based on her evaluation, Joy encouraged us to keep seeking help for our daughter until she received a year of speech therapy in kindergarten. If two college-educated parents need this kind of parenting help, this parenting help is even more vital for teen-age mothers and young parents to build good parenting skills.

And about those seven-hour 8 a.m. -to-3 p.m. days the caller thinks that all teachers have. Again, from personal experience, I've seen Joy leave our house at 4 p.m. or later on her way to one last home visit for the night. Summers off? Not really. When else are educators going to receive ongoing training to improve their teaching skills? We could have them do it during the school year, but substitute teachers are hard to find and cost the district even more money.

This is a trying time for our school district. While the economy nationwide is roaring along, local plant closings have hit many people in Chaffee, making them reluctant to vote for a tax levy increase. But at some point we must decide that our children are worth educating. Do we want them to have a bare-bones education, or do we want them to have the best we can offer from birth forward?

RON EIFERT

Chaffee