Letter: Keep calm and maintain perspective

Posted 2/15/17

To the editor:

Ok, so "keep calm and maintain perspective" may not be as rousing as "keep calm and carry on" was for wartime London, but perhaps it's a good fit for our town right now. …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Register to post events


If you'd like to post an event to our calendar, you can create a free account by clicking here.

Note that free accounts do not have access to our subscriber-only content.

Day pass subscribers

Are you a day pass subscriber who needs to log in? Click here to continue.


Letter: Keep calm and maintain perspective

Posted

To the editor:

Ok, so "keep calm and maintain perspective" may not be as rousing as "keep calm and carry on" was for wartime London, but perhaps it's a good fit for our town right now. Rhetorical broadsides decrying "blank checks" and alleging the school committee doesn't respect the taxpayer won't make for helpful conversations on Feb. 16 or at the Financial Town Meetings. Such charges also don't fit the evidence (think a low "cost per pupil" record stretching for years, maybe decades, or the sustained effort to work out the practical details of start time change since last year's deferment).

Disagreements we may still have, but let me reiterate that there is nothing ridiculous about asking for a world class district to strive to stay cutting-edge, or for us to come into alignment with the "bare minimum" of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommendations to start our middle and high school at 8:30 or later. But let's set the science aside for a bit and talk about progress — and a perspective that might help us all sharpen our thinking and continue our debate.

First I thank Mr. Rimoshytus for correcting my misunderstanding — good to know that the "$2,700 average cost to families for childcare" refers to a feared annual figure. Good also to know some of the thinking behind it. Let me return the favor and help dispel another odd misunderstanding around this figure — it refers to a potentially fantastic opportunity that the district is exploring with a company called Springboard.

Most families pay something closer to $10+ an hour right now, so Springboard's proposed $5.25 represents a massive savings — not to mention a reliable system integrated into our schools at no taxpayer expense using a "user-pay" approach. Working families could reliably and agilely plan — day-by-day — for a system built to partner with and complement our school system. That's the potential anyway, and visible to any who want to read the ad hoc committee report or the meeting minutes (and since I own no stock in said company, there's no conflict of interest or "Nordstrom's moment" for me here.) 

Taking it to an even broader perspective: every families' first-born, all single child families, all families with two children close in age, or many children who are not yet old enough to babysit may win with this system. Yes, some fortunate families now can use a middle or high school child to watch younger ones for free — but only if these older kids are not engaged in any after-school activities all year (almost all high school sports have daily practices, for example) and if the kids are perfectly positioned by age so the older doesn't graduate while the youngest is still in the elementary system.

We have more to discuss perhaps, but let's do so calmly and keep an open mind. Changing one's perspective might reveal "problems" as advantages. Change just might be for the better.

Scott Douglas

Barrington

2024 by East Bay Media Group

Barrington · Bristol · East Providence · Little Compton · Portsmouth · Tiverton · Warren · Westport
Meet our staff
Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.