Education letters 12/14

However, selecting a namable hero is much more daunting. My personal modern-day hero is Brian Lamb, founder of C-SPAN. He brought the legislature and workings of government right into our living room and within reach of everyone’s understanding.

At the risk of being glib, I cannot decide whether I love him or hate him, but there is no doubt that the elephantine task of bringing the government to us has had enormous impact on our daily lives.

Mike Woodliff, Smyrna

Lassie star continued good deeds as adult

I got to meet Timmy, aka Jon Provost, when he and his wife Laurie were guests on a Mississippi cruise a few years back. Timmy and Lassie were my son’s heroes years back. He would sit and watch Lassie on TV and we all knew better than to disturb him.

On occasions when the event was about to come to an end, there would be a note on the TV screen that said, “to be continued.” He would then explode and cry.

I told Jon about this and he really enjoyed the story and signed a picture of him and Lassie that read, “To Jimmy from Jon Provost (Timmy) ‘to be continued.’ ”

My son now has this picture hanging in his den for his boys to enjoy.

I have corresponded with Jon on a couple of occasions and he said he uses that story in many of his talks. We all have warts, but I would bet that Jon, Laurie and Lassie have fewer than most of us.

Jim Sands, Lawrenceville

Dog proves loyal friend in good and bad times

You really hit the nail on the head. Lassie was the epitome of loyalty and good character. I do think too much focus is put on celebrities, but that by no means excuses them any more than it does the so-called common man (or woman).

When my four-legged baby died, some people questioned how much it affected me. I said that I never had to wonder where he was. He was home waiting and always absolutely thrilled to see me even if I had been gone just a few minutes, not down the block with some chippie, expecting me to forgive and forget over and over.

This was the same little fellow who, after my husband’s death, would sometimes during the night reach out and touch me lightly with his little paw as if to reassure himself I was still there.

In doing that, he reassured me too, and I still miss him. Yes, many of today’s celebrities would do well to emulate him or Lassie or thousands of others like them.

JUDY HARRIS, ATLANTA

Reduce teacher sick days by requiring notes

When I subbed, a lot of teachers would ask me to sub for them on a certain day because they were taking one of their sick days.

In my county, teachers have three special days they can take, and all they have to do is turn in a slip requesting a special day. They also build up so many sick days each year. They said if they didn’t take sick days they would be giving the money to the county.

I told the teachers that sick days were a benefit and when they took these days off as sick days, the taxpayers were paying for the substitutes. But they didn’t seem to mind as long as they got the day off with pay.

With everyone including the schools having trouble balancing budgets, the school board should be more strict on teachers taking sick days when they are not sick.

Why doesn’t the state Department of Education adopt a rule that every school require each teacher taking a sick day to bring in a doctor’s statement before he or she is paid?

Ruby Cook, Cumming

Taxi squads for teaching could help absenteeism

I have 43 years of teaching experience, including 11 years in an intercity where we had 20 sick days a year.

Why so many days?

When an incident happened to a teacher — injured in a fight, threatened, weapon pulled — you needed R&R to recover.

Today, such incidents would make headlines. By having the extra sick days, you could send the teacher home to recover and hush up the incident.

Why are the sick days being used today? Teachers are reacting to high-stakes testing. They are caught between what administration wants and what the students are willing to do.

If you don’t take these “mental health” days, you come to school with the possibility of overreacting and losing your job.

An answer is to develop a plan to hire replacement teachers who are like the taxi squad for sports, available for the high-absentee days of Monday and Friday and in the building during the week, learning the ropes and taking classes to become teachers.

You have reported on the symptoms; now let’s develop a plan to help the schools understand the problem.

Don Franklin, Hampton

Career educators save days for retirement

Career teachers have an incentive to go to work every day. They can, as I did, plan ahead and save those leave days.

Accumulated leave time can be used as service time for retirement.

I was able to retire with 29 years actual service and 1.2 years of accumulated leave.

Being able to retire a full year early was certainly an incentive for me to go to school every day possible.

The great majority of teacher absenteeism does not come from career educators. It comes from those who know they will not stay in teaching for 30 years or more.

They are offered no incentive to save leave time and, consequently, they use every available day.

Steven Braden, Atlanta

Fully fund Joshua’s Law to save lives of teens

High schools that teach driver’s education are up 800 percent in Georgia since the Joshua Brown Foundation began its mission over four years ago to help stop the slaughter of teenage drivers. Furthermore, crashes for teenagers in Georgia, ages 15-17, are down 50 percent.

Alan Brown of Bartow County started the foundation in honor of his teenage son Joshua, who died in a car wreck in 2003.

Adopted in 2005, Joshua’s Law requires driver’s education for all 16-year-olds, and created a way to pay for the program via add-on fines for certain traffic violations.

Joshua’s Law has generated approximately $33 million, but Gov. Sonny Perdue has only given $9 million to the schools.

Please call Gov. Perdue and your legislators and demand that our schools receive all of the money intended for driver’s education.

There are few, if any, issues in this state that are more important than stopping the carnage among teenage drivers who have not been properly prepared to drive. You can also donate to the cause by going to www.joshua brownfoundation.org.

George and Kathy Willis, Cartersville