Letters to the Editor

To the Editor:

A few comments about last week's special education article:

Our special education students have a lot of strengths and qualities as well as disabilities to overcome or work around. A key aspect of our work and support to our students and their parents, is that all of our students have unique strengths and weaknesses that we need to address.

Some things have changed since you and I were in school. One, we serve students with mild, moderate and severe needs in special education. It used to be only the most severe and multiply disabled students were placed in special education. Today, most students in our program have specific, moderate deficits, surrounded by many strengths. Most people would not even recognize a disability of this sort out of the school setting. Most students in special education are identified as learning disabled or speech and language impaired. Even the word "handicapped" has been replaced with "disabled."

Our parents of special education students and the budgeting around special education programs and student needs enrich our school. The state funding for special education not only covers the direct cost of education for special education students, but also allows some support to fund instructional assistants and keep our class size as small as we can.

Our newly established parents of special education group is facilitating a workshop on attention deficits. This workshop will be helpful to parents, students and our staff. We are also working on a parent handbook to help parents in the special education process.

I am very proud of our hard working staff, those who are in special needs within their complex and diverse classrooms on a day-to-day basis.

We are also not perfect and are constantly working on school and program improvement. We welcome your suggestions and constructive criticism.

Tim Comfort

Sisters Elementary School Principal

I love to take my two small children and window shop downtown when the holiday displays are out.

I took my family into town to shop for a tree and browse the stores. We had visited a few gift shops when I stepped into a greeting card store. Prominently displayed in front was a five-inch round campaign button with the picture of a grandmotherly-type woman making an obscene gesture to not only me, but my children and another small child who happened to enter the store.

I took the button to the sales clerk who informed me that she was the owner of the store. When I voiced my concern about having such a button so prominently displayed for children to see, she responded that she would not alter the display as her store wished to accommodate the varying tastes of their clientele. I informed her that I could not patronize a store with such blatant lack of taste. She again responded that she would not alter her store.

I am the director for a health care organization which serves the Medicaid population of Central Oregon. I see hundreds of abused, neglected and forgotten children by apathetic parents who feel it is society's place to raise their offspring. These children are forced to grow up prematurely in a world that has little love for them. Profanity, irresponsibility, drugs, and a multitude of other vices permeate their surroundings. These children bring fear to us on the streets and overfill our institutions.

I brought my children to Sisters to protect them from the influence of the big city. And now, in pursuit of the almighty dollar, these influences are showing up in our little community.

I am not asking for censorship, I am requesting a sense of propriety; to do what is morally right and not necessarily that which is constitutionally guaranteed. Should not morality be that attitude which benefits society as a whole and is not just a "betterment" of society?

Yes, my child will eventually use profanity. I regrettably accept this; and I will have to correct her and she will resent me for it. This will not strengthen my bond with my child. But I resent the thought of society's putting me into a position where I may have to do this when my child is five years old.

Sincerely,

Mark Francis

The Christmas Dream

(Dedicated to grandchildren everywhere, especially Anna, Nick, Aubrey, Natasha, and Michael)

I dreamed of Santa Claus last night, while sleeping in my bed. He wasn't at the North Pole and he wasn't wearing red.

He didn't have his long white beard, and he'd lost his ho, ho, ho. There was no sign of Rudolph, playing in the snow.

I didn't see one reindeer, they were nowhere to be found. I had this awful feeling that Santa sent them to the pound.

There were no jolly little elves loading up the sleigh, with gifts for all the little kids to open Christmas Day.

No planes, no trains, no pretty dolls, or boxes tied with bows. Oh where, oh where is Santa Claus? I guess nobody knows.

And then at last I saw him, he was lying in the sun. Somewhere on a sandy beach, he was really having fun.

It didn't seem to matter that Christmas time was near. I cried and cried, "Please Santa Claus," but I guess he couldn"t hear.

He was too busy playing on that island far away, to care about the little kids who were waiting for this day.

The dream got worse, I tossed and turned until I fell out of bed. I slowly opened up my eyes, my heart was filled with dread.

But there it was standing tall, that gorgeous Christmas tree. Underneath were lots of toys, that Santa brought for you and me.

Outside the kids were laughing and I knew one thing was clear. While I was having bad dreams, Santa Claus was here.

So have a Merry Christmas, may your New Year be so bright. And may all your dreams be good ones when you go to sleep tonight. Have a joyous holiday season everyone.

Diana Pepperling