Speak-Out: Short-sighted school committee, ugly sailboats

Posted 3/27/17

I don’t understand why the Bristol Warren School Committee voted to END BOTH FEBRUARY AND APRIL VACATIONS. Clearly, they are not communicating with the affected parties — the parents, …

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Speak-Out: Short-sighted school committee, ugly sailboats

Posted

I don’t understand why the Bristol Warren School Committee voted to END BOTH FEBRUARY AND APRIL VACATIONS. Clearly, they are not communicating with the affected parties — the parents, teachers or students. They are not looking out for their best interests. According to the School Committee, this change was to promote a continuity of instruction? This will not happen because the schools will be overwhelmed by an outbreak of the flu because the schools will not be cleaned during winter months. Parents will still take their children out the week of February, thus missing the remaining three days. And parents will also take their children out on the April vacation. Teachers who have children in other districts will not be able to take their kids on vacation. Divorced and and blended families will not be able to share their children’s vacations. All of these reasons and the fact that the students will be getting out in early June will cause a variety of childcare issues. For all these reasons, the school calendar has been the same for all these years and everybody survived. This change was a typical bureaucratic decision with no consideration to those affected. Very poor planning on the School Committee’s part not listening to parents, teachers and students. More consideration was given to reversing the parade route after changing it. This calendar change should be reversed as well. There are so many other bigger problems the school committee should be address, not the school calendar. When election time comes, those on the school committee who voted for this change should be voted out.

I’m calling about the spelling bee they had at the college. Whoever put it on should be ashamed of themselves. THE FOOD THEY HAD WAS DISGUSTING. You’d think they would have had local vendors with pizza, sandwiches, etc. Poor judgment on whoever did that spelling bee. Shame on you!

I’ve been a resident of this town for many many year, most of my life. Property taxes are going up… they’ve already given us a warning through the Phoenix. It’s not fair. They want to build a marina. Now it’s a shame the way the Bristol Harbor is with all those boats in the summer. IT LOOKS LIKE A JUNK YARD.

I would love to know why St. Mary’s Church has DIFFERENT RULES FOR DIFFERENT PEOPLE in regards to St. MarY’s Cemetery. This is quite evident by the fact that the so-called rules were removed from the church’s website quite some time ago. You must call the church so that they know exactly who you are. This is also evident by the fact that some families can have year-round fences or other types of borders around their flowers, while other families’ borders are removed and discarded without notice. Some families can have many sentimental items at the graves whole other get them thrown away. Some are told they can not have items in back of the stone and are very space restricted, while others can have giant mounds surrounding their stones with items all over. I can only hope and pray that the hypocrisy of St. Mary’s Church is brought to a swift and final end.

I was just wondering why we have to PAY FOR THE BRISTOL PHOENIX when the Portsmouth and East Providence people get their local paper for free. The inserts are all the same for the East Bay and they have their local information as well as we do. So I don’t understand why we have to pay and the others don’t.

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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.