School dress code too costly for some families

Darlene Daugherty

Sharon

The new dress code for Sharon schools is ridiculous. The school board should have researched better and given more lead time before implementing the dress code.

Most of the stores have stated that they did not have enough time to order the right clothes, in the quantities and sizes that would be needed.

And the so-called vouchers. What a joke! My daughter applied and has still not received them.

School starts in two weeks. The selection is already picked over to say the least. She called the superintendent’s office today, and was told they would be mailed by the beginning of next week.

The vouchers will be $25 to $50 per household. Gee, that buys a lot today.

I have seven grandchildren in that household. Five of them have to dress by the dress code. The other two still need clothes and shoes.

There are two wonderful ladies that I work with that have always given me their daughters’ clothes when they outgrow them. Both of these girls were the only daughter. So the clothes were still very nice, very cute, and in great shape when my granddaughters got them.

Their drawers and closets were full of good clothes that were both cute and stylish. They cannot wear any of them any more. So to start from scratch to buy enough clothes for that many kids is not even possible.

Maybe we should not pay the car payment or the utilities to make sure the kids won’t be sent home from school because they are not dressed properly. Are they there for an education, or to be dressed like every one else?

Who really cares if they have on jeans, sweats, or a pair of sports shorts with a logo other than Tigers? They can learn just as well in other clothes than those in the dress code.

The big question is, “Why was the original dress code, which was normal, not properly enforced?” Why punish the entire school district by what they wear, because the administration could not enforce the dress code they had?



Government has earned mistrust of citizens

Mike Schleigh

Grove City

Your Aug. 6 editorial was a thoughtful reminder that raucous behavior by the ‘Left’ was used to disrupt public meetings in the 1960s and ’70s. Examples abound demonstrating that the Left still sees freedom of speech as reserved for only their anointed ones. Our current president has recently suggested that those opposed to his health care plans “shut up.” But this is a pointless distraction. Your editorial really said those who are objecting have no alternative plan, intend to be disruptive and are trying to make the opposition to health-care reform seem bigger than it really is. Have you looked at the polls lately?

The example you cite, Sen. Arlen Specter and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius confronted in Philadelphia, was a few days after Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., downplayed the very notion of reading the bill he had approved. It was 1,000 pages, there was no time to read it, plus he did not have two lawyers to help him.

Specter downplayed the need to read the bill because he would assign it to others. Sebelius wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that the details of reform should not distract us from the huge benefits that reform would bring. 

In other words, leave the details to us who know better than you and shut up. The woman in the audience pointed out that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are broken, Cash for Clunkers was a billion dollar failure.

“You now expect us to trust you running one-seventh of our economy,” she observed.

Questioning our government’s ability and motives is the right of all citizens. Shame on you for glossing over the strong, real and proper objections that are actually being voiced.

Your use of the terms “manufactured outrage” and “Astroturf,” with respect to the opposition, suggests that you got them from the White House Press Office’s Robert Gibbs. His use of them was the first I had heard of either. Do you do your research using DNC talking point bulletins?

Perhaps you need to get out a bit more and get unmanufactured facts.



Out-of-control spending should worry everyone

George Henry

Sandy Lake



The news article of Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper’s Aug. 7 visit to Greenville was correct and the reporter did an accurate job.

What he did not report was my anger and concern for what is taking place in this country. I have a real concern for the out-of-control spending that is taking place under the cover of “health care reform” and “saving the economy.”

Since President Obama took office in January, the national debt has increased about $9,000 per family. This is what fuels my anger.

I agree that reforms are necessary, but this administration doesn’t appear to know what it is doing. What is the rush for a plan that Rep. Dahlkemper says, “will take five years to fully implement?”

She claims a 30 percent savings (cut) in Medicare. When I questioned her on this, she said “that is the fraud they will be eliminating.”

Why do we need a new bill to eliminate fraud?

I attended the tea party in Sharon and demonstration in Hermitage prior to this demonstration in Greenville. Now I am labeled as part of a mob by this administration.

Since when did the right of free speech become the sole right of the president’s administration and his Chicago bullies? 

Our president is allowing members of his administration to make statements like “stop destroying the democratic process by opposing us,” and “if we are pushed we will push back twice as hard.” Now we concerned citizens are labeled as “un-American.”

What will happen if we citizens continue to demonstrate against his policies; how far is “twice as hard?” 

I believe that the Constitution is the rule book and must be followed. Health care is the option of the states, see the 10th Amendment and President Obama is a constitutional scholar?

Massachusetts and Tennessee have state-run health care that is failing. Let’s wait and see if they can fix it before destroying 20 percent of our economy by passing an unconstitutional national healthcare bill.