Eastbayri.com

BARRINGTON — To the editor:

I’m responding to Mr. McCaughey’s letter in last week’s paper. I’m not a health professional, and have never questioned the over-decade-old studies. I’m a concerned parent that has volunteered for over 12 years, with a child in the school system, and a child who has graduated.

I honor your opinion and simply ask that you honor mine which was clearly not done in your editorial. You labeled my opinion as “empty” which was belittling, degrading and unprofessional.

Educators in other districts have raised these same questions that I have by exploring the issues of younger children having to travel in the dark; team athletics, especially when other schools are on a different schedule; community and youth programs which depend upon use of school facilities; and after school activities, when considering changing start times.

Do they have “empty logic”?

You inferred that you do not think that extra-curricular activities are important, only that academics are. I have two words for you: college applications.

In order for students to be accepted in this highly competitive college application process, they need to have these activities to show that they are well-rounded. Students with these activities will be accepted before students without.

Do we want to eliminate these activities? In the US, these activities are offered in our private and public schools and, for the most part, not in the private sector. He, also, raises the issue the government required health and PE program. He does not seem to care for the welfare of our children here.

Another issue he raises is that it’s better to have our children up at all hours of the night, but it’s not right to have them up at 5:30 a.m. It does not take over 2 hours get ready and drive to the high school.

Another inaccuracy in his letter was that it was just not one resident that raised the issue. An e-mail from a school committee member indicates otherwise.

It does “boggle” my mind that you do not consider elementary children standing out at a bus in the dark a safety issue. It does “boggle” my mind that you do not consider extra-curricular activities a part of our children’s education when for college purposes they are.

Consider this, Mr. McCaughey: we do not live in Europe. We live in the US. Europe does have a better educational system which is not exclusively attributed to later dismissal times. There are other aspects of their educational system including shorter breaks, the curriculum, and cultural differences that attribute to their higher performance.

Perhaps, if you’re so concerned over our children’s health and education, you should bring these issues to the State Department of Education where it belongs and have them mandate changing the start times of schools statewide so that our students will not fall out of the loop and have every educational advantage afforded to them.

Anne Merlino

Barrington