Public schools should focus on needs of all students

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

By Ruth Luse
   Many years ago, William J. Nunan, who was the first superintendent of the Hopewell Valley Regional School District, said something repeatedly that I never have forgotten.
   Dr. Nunan, when talking about the need to educate all sorts of students, said schools not only should place emphasis on scholastics, but also on skills needed by those whose life plans included working in the trades. He said people need houses in which to live and places in which to carry on business, and, therefore, plumbers, carpenters, builders, electricians, landscapers and others who do that kind of work. Without these people, he noted, many college-educated people, who seldom have those skills, would be lost. I agreed with him then and still do today.
   The late Dr. Nunan did not believe all youngsters should go on to college. As a public school leader, he felt education should focus not only on academics, but also on the trades and on the skills needed to survive in the business world.
   I immediately thought about Dr. Nunan when I learned this week of the planned retirements of Dick Estelow, who has taught auto shop for 41 years, and Skip Johnson, who has overseen the works of woods shop students for 40 years.
   These men — like those who coach dedicated athletes and those instructors who concentrate on the arts — have provided special guidance and learning for many students. As one parent affirmed at the Feb. 21 school board meeting, "They saved my son . . . If it weren’t for these two men, I don’t know where my son would be. They protected him. They set him straight. He has a good job and is doing very well."
   Public schools, once they have taught the basics excellently to all students, should be able to serve and/or guide those who must excel in SAT tests to get into the colleges of their dreams, those who plan to enter the work force after high school, those who want to become tradesmen and those who want to be musicians or artists. All should be served with equal dedication.
   Teachers like Mr. Estelow and Mr. Johnson obviously have filled places at Hopewell Valley Central High School that will not be filled again — not by teachers like them. Perhaps the woods shop job will be filled, but it appears the auto shop post won’t. That’s too bad, because it has been of value to many CHS pupils over many years.
   I know time must march on and some things, which many of us have valued, will fall by the wayside, in the interest of what many see as progress or changing needs.
   But, I think educators must re-examine closely what students’ needs really are — including basic skills (once known as the three Rs) that should be mastered on the elementary level. More people, like the parent who spoke Feb. 21, need to tell them.
   Hopewell Valley educators should concern themselves not only with those who will go on to get the doctorates, but also with those who will answer calls in the wee hours of the morning or the late hours of the evening when pipes burst or septic systems overflow. When things like these happen, there is no difference, nor should there be, between the two.