Published: May 13, 2008 09:45 pm         

Our Readers Speak - Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Ambulance charges are unreasonable



Why? For three months I was a patient in Heartland Nursing Home and once a week I had to have a checkup on my leg for PAD or ulcers from poor blood circulation in my leg.

I was transported from Heartland to Southern Regional Clinic and back to my room under doctor’s orders to save my leg and check on infection by the good doctor’s nurses.

Now as to why the local ambulance service charged over $500 each way (less than two miles). Do they have the same people that these gas companies have running their business? Maybe they are just their teachers. Whatever the answer is, I pray to God for mercy because they’re killing me and my pocket book, or finances if you don’t know what I’m speaking of.

Help us, Lord God Almighty, for these people must be crazy, maybe corrupt?



Donald Leonard

Beckley



Teacher recruitment should push diversity



Faced with a professional population that includes a substantial number of educators at or near retirement age, soon, county personnel directors will be in need of an influx of new recruits. What a great opportunity for our counties to seek out and widen recruitment efforts in order to arm our areas with teachers that represent the diversity of our student population.

Research studies conducted over the past 10 years provide a definitive link between the positive progression of minority student achievement and the proportionate representation of minority educators based on the minority student population of a given school district. Studies show minority students benefit from the existence of minority professionals working as a vital part of their educational experience. As educators, we not only teach subjects, we teach life. We have the opportunity to guide our students by exhibiting high standards and making them attainable to all students. Students will succeed if given the environment for growth and development as well as the initiative to maintain a positive belief system for their own futures.

School systems have a responsibility to provide diversity among their staff to ensure all students are exposed to professionals that share commonalties with them such as race or culture. If our counties are sincerely interested in closing the achievement gap, then the current research should be utilized. Could a more focused recruitment effort of minority teachers and administrators be the stone that has been left unturned?



Torri Burke

Beckley