Letter to the editor: Children lose when politics taint education decisions

Due to actions taken during the Jan. 9 school board meeting, children in the Hempfield Area School District lost an opportunity to have personal instruction from an author who’s written over 100 children’s books — because our school board didn’t like the man’s politics.

A community member raised a concern over inviting Bruce Coville, author of “My Teacher Glows in the Dark” and “I Was a Sixth Grade Alien,” because his Twitter account reflected one-sided political views. Board member Mike Alfery perused the author’s Twitter and, either intentionally or unintentionally, mischaracterized the Twitter account to the board. He claimed that the author wrote about drag queens (he actually said that drag queens were not proselytizing) and distasteful tweets about boys (he did not tweet about boys; in anger, he complained about immature “man-boy” motorcyclists revving engines loudly on his street).

The board then took a vote — working on no more information than Alfery’s interpretation of reality and community complaints that the author was political — and denied our children the opportunity to learn from an experienced, award-winning author.

How long are we going to let badly informed, politically skewed politicians with no experience in education or child development direct and micromanage the education of our children in the Hempfield Area School District?

Ceil Kessler

Greensburg

The writer is a parent in the Hempfield Area School District.