Letters, letters, letters

The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer's name, address and phone number. Letters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor. The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday.

To the Editor:

Sisters Elementary School is an exceptional school based on present and past consistently high and improving student achievement.

However, due to a heavily weighted (school report card) improvement score, we are compromised because a strong school has a much more difficult time showing large gains in comparison to poor performing schools.

Which would you prefer? A school that has 30 percent of their third graders able to meet the state standard in reading and improves to 50 percent of students meeting the benchmark and gets an "Exceptional" rating from the state?

Or a school that has 85 percent of their third grade students meeting the standard in reading and improves to 86 percent of their third grade students meeting the standard in reading and gets a "Strong" rating?

Some schools leave a lot of low performing students out of the testing so that they can get the best results.

In Sisters Elementary School, 99 percent of our third and fifth grade students took the test two years ago and last year 100 percent of our third and fifth grade students took the test.

Last, did you know that the third poor indicator in this seriously flawed state report card is school attendance that is supposed to reflect student behavior?

Finally, did you look in our current Sisters Elementary Report Card to see that the three areas rated were: Strong, Strong and Exceptional, but on the cover we got the wonderful rating of: Satisfactory?

If you have not been in our school to see the climate and quality of our student learning and behavior and you think that our school is mediocre or "Satisfactory," then I am sorry to say, but you do not have a clue as to what is happening in your own school in your own town.

Whoever does not think that we have a great elementary school, drop on by and let's visit, then we will take a tour!

Tim Comfort

Sisters Elementary School Principal and proud of it!

Ann Gates and Rad Jimenez

Sisters Elementary School Site Council, Parent Reps.

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To the Editor:

Regarding Suttle Lake development:

I believe the needs of the people would be better served by discreetly positioning a level RV lot for self contained units. In today's world RVers need a level space to park and a waste dump site.

A restroom is always appreciated, however, most modern day campers in RV's don't need the fire pit, unlevel table and trampled campsites of current campgrounds.

Also a level RV lot, discreetly placed, does far less damage to the environment. (Incidentally, I do not own an RV.)

Two issues the EA (environmental assessment) didn't address very well were noise and fuel in the water. High powered boats are the main contributing factor. Suttle Lake would be better served by a 10 mile speed limit for the entire lake.

Aesthetic settings and speed boats are a contradiction. The rusty scum on the bottom of the south end of the lake is caused by fuel residue. The campground and boat ramp at the south end should be removed. The fragile area around Link Creek and the south end parking lot should be returned to a native wetland marsh and the trail and bridge here moved away from the lake.

The north end does need to have the trail better defined through the resort. Elsewhere, trail siting could be made more harmonious with the environment.

Doug Wood