SPEAKOUT

Proud to support boycott

I AM proud to be a Southern Baptist, and I will definitely support the boycott against Disney and no longer watch ABC or anything to do with Disney products.

Ashamed by the denomination

I AM embarrassed and ashamed by the actions of my beloved Southern Baptist Convention, and it is truly sad that a federal judge from Texas by political maneuvering turned my faith from a Christ-centered missionary church to a social-political movement. A minority of religious zealots now control the hierarchy of the Southern Baptist Convention. The denomination has now apologized to African-Americans for something that most of us were not alive when the slavery question was involved. They have also made statements about the Jewish religion which are considered, in my opinion, anti-Semitic. And now we are gay bashing. If you are Baptist, wake up. If you're not a Baptist, please forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Different class sizes

A FRIEND who lives near Washington School was telling me that there will be three first grades at Washington so their first grade classes will be smaller in size. At my daughter's school, Franklin, there were over 30 kids in each first-grade class and have been for several years. What I want to know, are we getting a extra first grade class this fall? After all, Washington has 23 to 24 first graders for each class they have, and our children deserve smaller class sizes too.

Legal system seems unfair

ISN'T IT a little strange that a man who has arrest warrants out for him in Illinois, who has no job, no home, no valid driver's license, his van is improperly registered, can come to Missouri to avoid arrest in Illinois, live in his van, run down an innocent woman, killing her, be arrested twice and then be released by the wonderful legal system in Missouri? Seems a little unfair to me.

Negotiating teachers' pay

I DO not envy Dan Tallent. The Cape public schools superintendent is in a precarious position. By definition, it is his job to provide quality education at the most economical cost to taxpayers. Teacher salaries make up a good part of school expenditures, as they should. In general, Tallent probably decides early on what kind of raise and improved fringe benefits (if any) the school district can afford to give teachers. However, even though the teacher salary committee is powerless (collective bargaining by teachers is not allowed in Missouri), he must meet with them and try to give them the impression that they are working in a cooperative relationship as equal participants in a process to determine an essentially predetermined salary and fringe benefit recommendation for Board of Education approval. Teachers generally go along with this process, even though they know what the scoop is. However, if they don't (as with the recent rejection by Cape teachers of what was essentially Tallent's proposal), Superintendent Tallent has little option but to go before the Board of Education and make more or less the same proposal. And the Board of Education may not like the apparent fact that Tallent evidently lost control of the teachers, when they voted not to do what was, for all intents and purposes, his bidding. Why may the board not like it? Well, it can have the effect of making the Board of Education also appear to look like bad guys in the eyes of the teachers, if the board ignores the teacher rejection of the salary package. So, they may have to vary from the superintendent's recommendation and sweeten the pot a bit, thus making the superintendent look a little less on top of things. Oh, the tough life of a school superintendent. Now, where else but in Speak Out can you tell truths like this and get away with it? Huh?