To the Editor:

For the past several months, the closure of Western Salisbury Elementary has been promoted by the district superintendent, debated by the school board and opposed by citizens of the township.

The discussion has been significantly curtailed by a global pandemic - a pandemic which also produces an obvious danger to decreasing available space and overcrowding the remaining schools in the district.

Unfortunately, this situation has arisen, in part, because the administration of an outgoing superintendent presented the board with one option and presented overtly misleading evidence to support its enactment.

It is now abundantly clear that the school board members who would vote to close Western Salisbury Elementary do not have the best interest of the township in mind, the best interest of our children in mind and don’t actually value the desires of the township’s citizens.

This is an action that will irreparably harm Salisbury Township, its school district and its families.

To close Western Salisbury would be to take an action that foreseeably endangers our children - overcrowding schools, decreasing space and forcing long bus rides in the setting of a highly-contagious pandemic virus, and making these changes in a rushed manner that makes miscalculations very likely.

Those who vote to close Western Salisbury Elementary will have failed our community in the most profound possible way.

I am ashamed, at this time, of our schools’ representatives.

Richard McClain

Salisbury Township