Speak Out 8/22/16

School costs

It would help if the school didn’t require outlandish amounts of supplies. Example: third graders are required to have 58 pencils. They would have to use 3 pencils a day. Not acceptable. We don’t mind helping others out but this is ridiculous! Asking for the most expensive pencils ...which I understand better quality, but this amount is not acceptable. Be reasonable with the amount of supplies. Parents want to supply their children for them to use in their education.

Drug policy

You wrote in your recent editorial that we should take a wait and see approach before we judge what constitutes the success or failure of Jackson’s random drug testing policy. What would constitute a success? Catching a number of students in violation of the policy or catching none, the latter perhaps being evidence of a deterrent effect.

Yellow Pages

Have you looked at the YP (The Real Yellow Pages) phone directory now being passed out? Have you noticed that only businesses are listed in the WHITE pages? No residential landline phones are listed. So if you don’t have all your friends in your Contact list on your cell phone or use the internet to find friends’ numbers, you might want to hang on to your old phone book. Now if only AT&T would hide these residential numbers from the robo-callers, it might be worth it.

Transportation

I read in the Tuesday paper where the City Council of Cape had approved spending $6 million on two Transportation Projects. Those projects were Bloomfield Road, with a walk trail at a cost of $2.69 million and construction of a new bridge on South Sprigg Street over Cape LaCroix Creek at a cost of $3.37 million. Just how many residents live on or travel South Sprigg or Bloomfield Road? I hope that all residents of Cape remember their city council members when it comes time to vote. That money should have been spent repairing the streets of Cape that are most used and everyone travels.

Generous person

I would like to thank the lady who bought my shoes at Shoe Carnival. There are very, very nice people in this world. Thank you.

Hillcrest Manor

Lichtenegger and Wallingford might “feel concern” about the price increase for Hillcrest Manor residents, but their water bills are a problem of their own making. No rate increases for decades. No checking into actual costs. The “bad precedent” for the taxpayers of Cape County and the State of Missouri is to allow small subdivisions across the area to believe that someone should bail them out.

Bus incident

Why is the first reaction to the autistic child being left on the bus to call a lawyer? Work with the school first. Try to mediate it yourself. The tax dollars spent defending a lawsuit for an individual mistake just means less money to educate the children of the district. This knee jerk reaction to sue is not right.

Closely related

Interesting articles on two incidents that are closely related. A Cape businessman defrauds SNAP for over $500,000 and gets a little over 20 months and a suggestion that he repay up to $500 per month for restitution. A Parma farmer defrauds the government on crop insurance for a little over $200,000 and gets 24 months in prison. Somehow, it just doesn’t match up.

Sex education

This year Cape Girardeau Public schools started a new initiative, sex education beginning in kindergarten, for ALL elementary grades. Parents were given a “consent” form to sign, as if the children who opted out would not be exposed to their classmates’ discussions at lunch, on the playground, or on the bus. So why is sex education relevant to a 5, 6, or 7 year old? Has sex with them become legal? Seriously, can parents petition the school district to get rid of this ridiculous Common Core curriculum, with all of its insidious coursework and remedial math? Missouri law-makers have given school districts the ability to choose an alternative curriculum. It is time for parents to Speak Out. Allow teachers to teach real math again, without sex education for small children.