Students are most important

To the editor,
In my last letter to the paper, I came down hard on the (Falls) school board for the way they handled the matter of the Indian Education issue. At the school board meeting, the people who spoke did a wonderful job.
We were told we would have five minutes to state our case, and they would have five minutes for rebuttal. Well, our case got a little more than five minutes. Many people were very upset and after talking, ran out of the meeting.
When it came time for the board to rebut, the superintendent was soft voiced and was very hard to hear. I don’t think half the people could hear what he said. What I caught of it was a lot of legal mumble jumble that did not explain much. There are several things that made me wonder why they are trying to change the Indian Ed program. 1. We have the largest American Indian language/culture program in Minnesota not on a reservation. 2. We also have the highest graduation rate for American Indian students (85 percent). Sounds like a pretty good program already. So why do we need a different direction? If I understood some of what the board said, the Indian Parent Committee can make all the recommends that they want, but we were told that they have nothing to say in hiring or firing, or how the program is run. Well then, why are they putting in their time?
Another question I have that was covered under the personnel hiring is: What is an education support professional? There were six of them hired. One of them our mayor.
A am very glad that Tom Vollum is the Indian Ed teacher, but the loss of Diane Briggs is going to leave a big hole in the lives of lots of students. I think the board got a very clear message about how people feel about the loss of Diane. When they tried to go on with the rest of the meeting, three-quarters of the people walked out. I was glad to see Duluth TV there to film this, and interviewing people. One lady told them she had already moved one of her children out of the district and she was ready to move the last one.
Let’s hope for all of our sakes that this can be settled. I think it is time for the adults to show our young people that they are the most important thing in all this.
Pat Nash
International Falls, MN

P.S. What’s with moving the graduation to a Sunday afternoon? At 3 p.m., people coming into town for graduation will have to leave right after graduation to get home for work the next day. What was wrong with just moving it up one day to a Friday?