In response to the Forum letter by Nancy Katz about the Wilder School (“Wilder School Programs Need Reform,” Jan. 18), I want to describe my own experience with the school and the staff.
As a guardian ad litem and educational surrogate parent for several students, I have had many interactions with the teachers and the director of the Wilder School. I am very impressed with the professionals, and the caring and the personal involvement of the staff.
I am also very impressed by the progress “my” students have made.
The teachers I have met over the years are dedicated to help the often extremely challenged students beyond the classroom requirements. They are personally invested, they know their students and families, they are in touch with other people important in the child’s life, often several agencies, therapists and doctors.
They have to juggle many, many more intense issues than in a regular school setting, and they do it according to the most advanced educational standards.
Of course, a renovated building would make things easier. But even under less than favorable circumstances, the students at the Wilder School receive the best education available.
We as a community owe so much to Hartford’s special education teachers.
Brita Eberitsch Hansen
Quechee
Congress has forgotten that compromise is the only way out of any crisis.
Democrats should offer to drop opposition to fund the border wall in exchange for a guarantee that qualifying alien minors in the United States can get conditional residency and, upon meeting further qualifications, permanent residency, and the earmarking of funds to hire enough judges to swiftly deal with backlogged immigration cases and to hear the asylum claims of all detained families.
Let’s reopen the damn government already.
Barry Wenig
Lebanon
As important as who should be allowed to vote is who they can vote for. Voting by college students and others who are in the state for just few years would be OK if they were voting just for president and vice president. Those who don’t intend to remain may bias state and county elections and hurt permanent residents if they blindly vote the whole ballot.
In the 2008 election, candidates for president campaigned in Hanover. Many students apparently voted a straight ticket, and it appears the student vote helped elect a college student who was running for county treasurer. That student tried to force the commissioners to do business by email, which met with resistance. In addition, the county money in lost interest because deposits were not on time, all of which was reported in the Valley News. Where is that student now?
In town elections here we have two ballots. One for town offices and one for the Mascoma Valley Regional School District. Why not two ballots for general elections?
One ballot would be for permanent residents and include national, state and local contests and one would be for “temporary residents” and include only the national election. How hard would that be? Town election officials could print as many of the second ballots as needed, and they would only be official when marked with the town’s seal. Too much work for the election officials? Then let some “temporary residents” volunteer to print and seal the ballots, under the supervision of town officials.
Another option would be to use one ballot with all offices, but ballots given to the “temporary residents” would have the offices they were not allowed to vote for crossed out so they could vote only for president and vice president.
The state might want to encourage colleges and schools to offer incoming students voting information in their acceptance letters, including a reminder that they can apply for an absentee ballot from their hometown.
Howard Shaffer
Enfield
I’m sorry that Willem Post seems surprised that some Democrats are not in favor of illegal immigration and therefore are all for a wall (“Look at the Democrats Who Wanted a Wall,” Jan. 17). However, as I read the evidence, all Democrats, Republicans, Progressives, Socialists, etc., recognize “illegal” as being, well, illegal. The means of combating what is illegal is the issue.
A wall has been demonstrated to have minimal effect by engineers, tunnel diggers, ladder builders and athletic wall climbers, and has been declared such by Texas Republican Will Hurd, who represents more of the border than anyone in Congress. He clearly stated that a wall is “the most expensive and least effective” means for border security.
He, along with many other sensible people, sees the need for a variety of “barriers,” including high-tech monitoring, which would help the Border Patrol and provide a high-speed connection to local communities.
Beats an ugly wall any day.
Terrie Curran
South Woodstock