School board meeting the catalyst

I attended the Odessa school board meeting on March 22. I am an alum of Odessa schools and a teacher.

Professionally speaking, I cannot fathom allowing my students to be harmed. Educators’ responsibility to student safety and respect supersedes any other.

At times, classroom behaviors require sternness, but never screaming, putting your hands on a student, or demeaning them.

There have always been small-town problems in Odessa schools. Gossip. Bullying. Superiority.

But what is happening now goes deeper. It is allowing students with disabilities to be called “stupid,” to be physically jostled and screamed at, to be ridiculed by peers and adults, to be told there is no God! Some of the faculty audibly scoffed when one parent stated she is a Christian woman, tearfully explaining that her daughter no longer believes in God because her teacher told her God doesn’t exist.

Public educators have the profound responsibility of educating an underage captive audience. It is illegal to abuse that position to promote political or religious beliefs.

Most mind-blowing is that parents have nowhere to locally address these problems. After 10 guardians poured out their hearts about what their children have faced, the chairman accused most of them of never filing complaints.

Several rebutted, but the chairman shut them down.

Either these parents are lying, or they are telling the truth. If they are telling the truth, where did these complaint forms end up?

It’s time to start asking questions before the public light-shedding snowballs.

In a town this size, discord spreads like wildfire and takes barrels of forgiveness to quench. Consider who gets hurt the most in the wake.

Kaci Bleau

Odessa