Letter Of Endorsement: Randall For Democrat Candidates
To the Editor:
I’m sorry to see national culture wars playing out in beautiful Newtown.
I’ve lived here for almost 40 years. My children blossomed in Newtown schools, at a time when there were no book challenges to distract the Board of Education from fostering excellent schools. Last spring we had a small group of parents, who quoted scripts that I saw on national websites, challenging books that had been chosen for our schools by library media specialists. It was a huge distraction! If a parent objects to a book, they should discuss it with their own child. Every parent should have the right to make their own decisions for their own family.
We need leaders who will focus on Newtown and what the people of Newtown need. That’s why I’m voting for Dan Cruson, Michelle Embree Ku, and the Democrats on November 7.
Democrats, as well as some Independent and Unaffiliated candidates, have spoken out against the attempted book bans. Now it’s time for the people of Newtown to vote against the intrusion of national politics into our community. The Democratic members of the Board of Education, Dan, Alison Plante and John Vouros, successfully fought these book bans. Together with Chris Gilson, they will work to keep our schools excellent, and to protect the rights of all parents.
Michelle and Dan were on the BoE together for a number of years, and their successful collaboration shows how well they could lead Newtown’s government as First Selectman and Selectman. They are both deeply committed to Newtown, and won’t be distracted by national politics. All the Democratic candidates will work together on the issues that are important to our community.
Please join me in voting for Dan, Michelle and all the great Democratic candidates. Vote Row A for Newtown!
Ed Randall
Newtown
As an Independent candidate for the BOE I am opposed to banning or restricting books in our Libraries and Schools. I support parents ability to decide what books their children can have access to, but not their ability to make that decision for other parents. The new BOE policy sets standards for the school Librarians book selection process and also allows parents to ask for a re-evaluation of a decision to include a book. This should be an end to this, an issue that never should have risen to this level of debate. The issue was blow out of proportion, and identified books that had not been checked out in many years. It was bringing national partisan politics into our school system, with I am diametrically opposed to. I stand with the Democrats on this issue.
So you would have voted with the Republicans on the BOE to defeat the motion that didn’t have any provision to ensure a choice for parents?
Pants-on-fire ‘independents’. The so-called national culture war was brought to Newtown years ago! When some brave parents stood up and alerted us as to what going on in the schools (tip of the iceberg) the actual culture war mob took to the streets (BoE meetings). There is no such thing as an ‘independent’ just someone hiding their true partisanship.