Letters to the editor: Private schools have it right; column reflects left agenda
Schools should go back online
Re: your Jan. 12 story, “Some private schools go remote as cases rise”:
Kudos to these schools for doing so. By going online for just three weeks they are going to help flatten this COVID surge while keeping their students and staff safe, as well as others in our community. I only wish the public schools would have done so. Yes, kids need to be in school.
Pushing the start date for a couple more weeks after the holiday break and requiring testing of all students before returning to school would have helped alleviate the crisis we are in now. One in four COVID tests are positive in Ventura County. Yes, we have a 25% infection rate in the county. The reality is the rate is probably much higher because the rate is not taking into account rapid tests that people have done at home, on their own. Emergency rooms are full and short staffed because nurses and doctors are getting COVID as well. Our state is in short supply of blood which is needed in trauma cases and other health issues. Certainly not a good time to be in the hospital for any matter at this time.
What do schools and others do now? The private schools have it right with being temporarily online. Gov. Newsom should make that an option for public schools as well. Again, having an online option is protecting our most vulnerable and immunocompromised student who may not be able to go into the classroom. For those that attend in the classroom, schools should require weekly testing, not making it optional. Fortunately, the district has these tests now and there’s simply no reason not to require testing of all students once a week so that we are not bringing COVID into the schools.
The rest of us should follow public health guidelines, which include vaccination, wearing a quality mask and refraining from large indoor gatherings for the next month. Doing so will protect you and your neighbor.
Kristin Ippolito, Ventura
Column was dangerous satire
Re: Joe Mathews’ Jan. 16 column, “California should abolish parenthood”:
Although the article is thinly veiled in satire, its intentions reflect the current motives of the progressive left agenda. So much so in the governor’s race in Virginia, the leftist candidate actually put it on his lawn signs slogan: “Parents should not have a right to say what their kids are taught.”
This also coincides with details of the Build Back Better agenda. Or single-payer health care or universal income now being installed in California as a test runs for our takeover. All this leads to a dangerous and provenly failed economic socialist system driven by the evil motives of communism or Nazism.
In Nazi Germany, like other famous socialist governments, the first thing Hitler did was take ownership of the children. He knew by sculpting the minds of the next generation he could maintain his power and influence over the country.
Equal opportunity is the foundation of free people. And our rights are given to us by God, not man, and we as parents are solely responsible for instilling in our children the importance of freedom. I will be voting for a declaration of parental rights. I will be voting for the School Choice initiative, which will allow me to use my tax dollars how I see fit to raise my children in the school of my choice. I will be taking back the power given to me by the highest authority. And in the future, articles like this dangerous satire will line the wastepaper baskets, a reflection of like so many times before the failed ideals of socialism will be defeated.
Jennifer Amodei, Somis
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Letters: Private schools have it right; column reflects left agenda
