Letters-Dec. 2, 2004

Thanks for

support of troops
To the editor:
   As the holidays approach, my family is reminded of how fortunate we are to have such good friends in Lambertville and the surrounding communities.
   Our son, Mitchell, is serving in the Army Corp of Engineers and is stationed in Kirkuk, Iraq. In a recent phone call, he mentioned many of you have written to him or sent him packages.
   We are forever grateful for your kindness and generosity. Your gifts, cards and letters help to raise their spirits and make it a little easier to continue their work while away from their families.
   Your prayers at church, your well wishes and good thoughts, the cards and letters make it easier to deal with this situation. We appreciate everything you’ve done.
   This Thanksgiving, when our family sat together to give thanks, you were added to the list of the gifts we thank God for.
   Please continue to keep Mitchell and all of the other young men and woman who are serving their country in your thoughts and prayers.

Cindy and Mitchell Ege
Lambertville

What have you done

for South lately?
To the editor:
   No one can deny the facilities at South Hunterdon Regional High School are in need of a major upgrade and overhaul.
   The question is, with such a small population, how will we afford the upgrades that are required?
   One answer is the re-districting such that the overcrowding at North and Central can be lessened and which will then provide South a larger population base.
   This, however, will not be an easy deliverable. To do this, there must be support in Trenton and in all the communities.
   And with an effort like this, I’m also not sure of the timelines. I’ve been told that this is not something that in reality is achievable.
   However, with a daughter in first grade now in a South sending district, I know we must take action today to improve South. A major step has been the hiring of Lisa Brady as the new superintendent. Ms. Brady has gotten the community involved in the five-year strategic planning project.
   By the way, I did not see the gentleman who had so much to say about this topic in the last edition of The Beacon, volunteering his wisdom at that meeting.
   Hopefully, another outcome will be a review of the teaching staff and the curriculum. True, facilities alone do not make an education, however, in this day and age of technology, you must provide students with what’s current or they will never be able to compete.
   South does not have a media center, adequate science labs, state-of-the-art auditorium, brightly painted walls, to simply name a few. How can you expect the graduates to be able to enter a top academic four-year school and succeed with poor preparation?
   The gentleman also talked about test scores. Test scores are only one indicator, albeit, a very flawed one that has gripped the country by force, to judge performance of students, teachers and a school. He says he doesn’t want to invest in a school that can’t deliver test scores, but has he ever considered this is a proverbial Catch 22?
   If the students are ill-prepared due to inadequacies in the school, they will never increase their scores, and if you need scores to invest to eradicate the inadequacies, you will never invest — a definite spiral downward with no way out.
   As I take the time to learn the facts and reality of the situation, as in the case of what it would take to re-district, it helps me to come to conclusions on what the right course of action is for our school. If you’ve been to South lately or look at how our kids fare after graduation, you’ll agree that "do nothing" is not an appropriate response.
   If you’re for a "do nothing" response, then we might as well close the school.
   We, the community members from all the sending districts to South, need to take action today to ensure our kids are going to get a top quality education so they can support themselves with good jobs. And with the increasing national deficit and proposed Bushonian changes to social security, our kids will probably never be able to retire so they had best be as prepared as possible.
   We need community members with business skills to get engaged with the school. We need community members with educational and artistic skills to get engaged with the school. We need community volunteers with heart to get engaged with the school.
   I don’t know what the right answer is, but I am personally investing my time to work with Ms. Brady, the school board and the community to better understand the issues and to help make a difference.
   We need everyone to do the same. Perhaps the question we should be asking is "What have you done for South today"?

Elycia Lerman
Lambertville

Neat cemetery

not ‘in compliance’
To the editor:
   At least once a week, I pass by the Holcombe-Riverview Cemetery in Lambertville and stop in to visit my parents’ gravesite to say a prayer for each of them and to do some maintenance around their headstone.
   My wife and I had discontinued planting flowers of all different varieties because they never seem to last that long so we decided to plant three dwarf barberry shrubs that have done extremely well, look great, take up very little space and are very low maintenance.
   This past week, attached to these shrubs, I found a note from the Holcombe-Riverview Cemetery Association, stating, "These items are not in compliance with the bylaws of the cemetery (and) if they are not removed, they will be removed by the cemetery and discarded."
   This note had no address or phone number to contact.
   I wonder if cutting the grass once in a while at this cemetery is "in compliance with the bylaws." At least twice this past summer, I had to bring my own lawn mower to the cemetery because the grass was so high. Even when they do cut the grass, they do a poor job, and there are always dead dried-up grass clippings all over every headstone.
   One day, there was a funeral, and I noticed someone had cut a path from the road to the burial site with a push mower because the grass was so high. This cemetery is unorganized, not maintained and instead of going there to pay my respects and feeling somewhat comforted, I walk away upset and disheartened.
   I have been to several other cemeteries that are well-kept and well-organized. Obviously a neat, well-groomed cemetery is not "in compliance with the bylaws" of the Holcombe Riverview Cemetery Association.

Skip Johnson
Flemington