The writer is a former WSESD board member and current member of the Dummerston Selectboard.
DUMMERSTON-Regarding the recent opinion piece by Kurt Daims and his take on the Dummerston School flag debacle, numerous errors need to be addressed. These are errors of logic and basic fact.
First, Mr. Daims confuses (with an implied shrug of "so what?") the display of political candidate advertisements on a public school with a civics lesson. The decision by the Dummerston School to hang political advertisements visible from the exterior has been defended as a lesson in civics.
Political advertisements are not civics. They are not even politics. They are politicking, and that is a crass and lazy excuse for education.
When two board members saw the situation, they were horrified (as was I) by the lack of judgment and common sense that it showed. The fact that both candidates were advertised only added to a sad indictment of the school's decision-making process.
We don't advertise political candidates on public schools. Or, at least, we didn't use to. Schools are places to educate children. They are places to allow children to learn how to think for themselves. Schools must be apolitical. They must not advertise for either candidate. This shouldn't be a difficult concept to grasp.
Schools must also be sanctuaries for children from the idiotic din that is American-pop-culture political discourse. Their minds are under assault from that enough. The Dummerston School didn't need to amplify it.
In supporting this dumbing down of our educational system, Daims adds himself to the many other cackling voices who have beclowned themselves in the process of trying to bully and shame these two sensible board members.
The two board members who raised the alarm about the school administration's poor judgment deserve our thanks. Those who allowed it deserve our scrutiny.
Later, Daims focuses the discussion on himself: "Three years ago, a school director illegally ejected a BCS member from the WSESD Climate Crisis Task Force because of references to scientific research."
This is fantasy. I sat on the WSESD school board at the time, chairing the task force in question. Kurt Daims was never "ejected" from the task force. Instead, he was told that he wouldn't be called on for public comment any longer at future board meetings after a series of ad hominem attacks on board members. He also invents a name for our proposal. At the time, he misrepresented its aims in the press.
His remark about whether the NAACP will next attempt to have the name of the White Mountains changed is cynical to the point of stupidity.
Please let our schools be schools and our children be children.
Thomas Nolan
Dummerston
The writer is a former WSESD board member and current member of the Dummerston Selectboard.
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