(In response to, ‘If this happens, we lose everything,? The Citizen, April 14, page 4)
Dear Editor,
Do you really know what ‘privatizing? does to thecommunity? These private companies hire people from all works of life, and a lot of them come from the wrong-side of the tracks, so to speak. When these companies pay low wages and no health bendfits what kind of
job do you think they are going to do cleaning and maintaining the schools? I wouldn’t bust my butt cleaning a school, that means nothing
to me, but only a paycheck! Do these companies do background checks or drug screening on their employee’s? Probably not, especially when the ‘fine? charged for not doing these checks is far less than what it
costs to do these checks in the first place. These privat companies have a 600 percent turn-over rate, probably because their employees work long enough to put a ‘jingle? in their pockets and move on. How long before the community has to fork out more money, because little or no maintanance was performed and now our schools are crumbling and need repairs? Our dedicated custodians that are in our schools now love their jobs and their schools and see to maintaining its integrity…always! Transportaion privatizing is another issue….Didn’t we all teach our children about ‘stranger danger?? well, if transportation is privatized a stranger will be bussing your children every day, and probably a different person on a daily basis. Our children need assurance that someone they know and the same person they should see every day is someone they can trust to get them to school and home again safely. Community be aware that when there are thefts at our schools from the employees of the privatized company, thats right we will be paying for that too! Our communtiy isn’t really saving any money……so, its time for the school superintendent and right on down the ladder of school officals to take a 20 percent pay cut and
show this community that our children do come first and foremost! To privatize our schools only means two things: Our childrens safety and
putting more people in the unemployment line. Stand up school officials and do your part in solving this privatizing issue. We do not want privatizing in Brandon.
Marsha Elkins,
Brandon Twp.