LETTER: Three reasons why it's hard to vote for needed improvements

The sales campaign by the Daily Inter Lake for the Kalispell school bonds clearly shows the need for improvements and extra space for the physical infrastructure of our educational facilities.

However, these sales pieces ignore the more profound issues affecting our citizens’ preferences and are, therefore, incomplete and inadequate. The overlooked issues occur in two categories, the philosophical and the demographical.

Although I have consistently supported our school bond issues, I have had, for some time, three main objections to the operation of our public schools. First of all, is the support and leadership our educational lobby has given and continues to give to the far left political spectrum. It is well known our state’s educational lobby is the most powerful entity in our state Legislature, dominating our legislative sessions toward the far left’s positions.

Besides my belief that public entities should not have powerful lobbies, it galls me to know that a portion of my taxes (which pays teacher salaries) ends up, through forced contributions, in the hands of an entity that consistently opposes my political philosophy. I fundamentally believe that is wrong.

Collaterally, education opposes good-paying jobs in the utilization of our natural resources. Never have I heard anyone from the educational community standing up for the thousands of people who have had their good-paying jobs eliminated by far-left out-of-state environmental groups. I think it is the height of arrogance and duplicity for education to ignore the plight of 200 Columbia Falls workers and then turn around and ask them to fund this infrastructure for the educational community. I think it would be fair for them to say education should do more with less as they are forced to do.

Nor do I support the movement to turn our schools into day-care centers (i.e. kindergarten) and/or welfare centers. I was shocked to learn our schools now give out free breakfasts to any and all students, even sending home food with some students. Are we that rich? Maybe that problem could be alleviated with some good-paying natural resource jobs instead of the tourist-related, low-paying, seasonal jobs so prevalent in our valley today.

But worst of all is the objective of our public schools to indoctrinate our children in the world-view philosophy of secular humanism. This philosophy is overtly anti-Christian, teaching such subjects as the scientifically impossible theory of evolution, gender awareness, tolerance of transgenderism, freedom of unrestrained sex and a tainted politically correct notion of the history of our country. Political and/or religious philosophies should not be taught in our schools other than from an informational perspective, and then all sides should be given their fair due.

I can no longer philosophically support an entity that is so clearly prejudiced against my core beliefs. Only if the Kalispell superintendent publicly acknowledges these problems and agrees to forcefully and publicly find solutions to them could I see fit to support this bond issue.

Further, the Daily Inter Lake articles ignore the problems of demographics. It is true that Kalispell is growing, but what about our other communities? Regarding our elementary schools, Kalispell has indeed grown, adding a whopping 521 students to its rolls in the last 10 years. West Valley is up 216 or 61 percent. But Columbia Falls is actually down 193 during that time and Whitefish is only up 63. So why Kalispell? Has Whitefish, populated by rich politically correct individuals, made housing so expensive that people must come to Kalispell to afford to live here? If so, is it fair that only Kalispell should pick up the expense to provide education to kids of workers who supply Whitefish with its labor force? Collaterally is there excess capacity in Whitefish, C. Falls and/or Somers that could be utilized before we spend all this money? Should the school district boundaries be changed to provide more equity?

Our high schools show similar distribution patterns. Over the last 10 years, Kalispell’s high-school enrollment has grown by 279 students yet Whitefish has decreased by 216. In total our valley’s high-school students have actually decreased by 257. So what’s going on? Have these trends been studied and the reasons for them ascertained? It is patently unfair for the taxpayers of Kalispell to pick up the burden of educating the vast majority of children in our entire valley without giving good reason for it.

Also ignored is the valuable contribution that our private schools are making to this total effort. According to the county superintendent of schools, private schools (including home schools) are educating 1,231 elementary students and 348 high-school students. Although these people pay taxes to support our public schools, we, as a society give these entities no support whatsoever (or in the case of our public educational lobby actually oppose them in every way) although the statistics show they actually give their students a superior education. This is clearly unfair.

These issues and concerns must be addressed by the Kalispell district in a clear and cogent fashion. I can no longer blindly support every request by education for more money.

Agather is a resident of Kalispell.