To the Editor:

At the last school board meeting, I had to listen to Maggie Kemp rail against teachers, and now I have to read her denunciations in a local newspaper. As a retired teacher, with several degrees in language arts, if I were to grade Kemp’s and Ginny Skrapits’ letter, I am afraid they would not receive a very high grade.

The authors open with an antithetical claim that, “We don’t have a negative attitude or opinion toward teachers,” and then they proceed to denigrate teachers, retired teachers and those who are married to teachers.

First of all, in-service teachers are not allowed to serve on the school board, so I am not sure why the authors are including them in their diatribe. The authors claim, “Teachers are ambassadors for the teachers’ union” and are promoting an “agenda.”

Of course, Kemp and Skrapits never explain what they mean by the phrase “ambassadors for the teachers’ union” or exactly what agenda the teachers are promoting. It’s easy to throw around accusations as long as you don’t have to actually explain and defend them.

I am a retired teacher. I have never been an “ambassador” for the teachers union. I don’t even know what the authors mean by that. As far as having an agenda, anyone who knew me as a teacher or who now knows me as a retired teacher, be they a parent, another staff member, administrator or even a representative in Harrisburg, I head-butted against, for several years, when I was asked to provide input on the PSSA state tests. Know that my only “agenda” and my bottom line was and is “my kids” - my students and any child who needs help.

And for the record, that was pretty much the “agenda” of every teacher I ever worked with in Northampton Area School District.

The authors then state that 66% of the district is not teachers, so if there are retired teachers on the board, it is not representative of the district’s population. If the ladies do the math, that means 34% of the district’s population is involved in education.

They said if the judges had picked the candidate most favored, but did not have a quorum, by the current board, there would have been three retired teachers on the board. That means 33.3% of the board would have been in education, representing the 34% of the district population in education. That sounds pretty representative to me.

I would also like to point out that although education was a very important part of my life and a career I am extremely proud of, I, like all teachers, have much more life experience outside of teaching. I have worked in grocery stores and restaurants. I put myself through college working night shift in a convalescent home. I was a small-business owner, a homemaker, a single mother and a stepmother.

I am now a retiree, living in the district, on a fixed income. Every retired teacher brings so much more life experience to the board than Kemp and Skrapits credit them. To say they cannot successfully represent their constituents is a biased vitriolic attack on teachers with no basis.

I, too, hope Nathan Lichtenwalner brings a willingness to examine all the facts, to consider the impact of his decisions on all of the students, staff and community and to collaborate with all of the other members of the board. Our kids and our district deserve much better from the school board than what has been happening since last December.

Sara L. Ertl

Allen Township