It is not the role of the school board to determine curriculum. The superintendent, asst. superintendent, curriculum coordinators and teachers are the professionals who are qualified to decide what to teach. If you don't want your child to read a certain book, then you can opt out of that assignment and have it replaced by another. But you cannot decide what is appropriate for my child. I trust that decision to the professional and highly qualified educators who were hired to do just that. With due respect to your profession, an architectural draftsman is not qualified to have any input into curriculum. If you don't approve of what is taught in a public school, then send your children to a parochial or charter school or home school them.

The only problem Lisa is that 1 of the current members (who has served many, many terms) can not conjugate verbs much less construct a complete sentence while another long term member doesn't have a speck of self control pertaining to herself much less our tax dollars.

Steve, then what you are saying is that you agree with Lisa. You make the perfect arguement for why school board members should NOT choose the curriculum for our children. I agree with both of you; the curriculum choices should be left up to the experienced educators, not to board members. There is nobody running for election from either team that is qualified to make curriculum choices. That in a nutshell is why I'll be voting for the current board members. They may not be perfect, but at least they allow the educators to educate the students.

Dear OMG it's clear that you are a yellow sign team supporter, or perhaps even a yellow sign team member. However, the facts are that if parents don't like an assigned book they can opt to have their child read from an alternative list. Bottom line, the school board should not be pushing their individual morals on our students, and that's exactly what the yellow sign team of Mr.Harbaugh and his runningmates want to do.

OMG, Are you freaking serious? "We need to trust the so called experts...". Here is an idea, how about raising your own children instead of neglecting them by seeking a dual income. The problem is people aren't raising their own children and expect teachers to raise them with the morals they expect. People aren't paying enough attention to their children and are too tired to do homework with them because their careers and fancy houses and cars come first.

OMG, you really need to get a clue. I have never heard the current board state that they want to give up local control, please quit trying to make them look bad by spreading untruths. The problem with you and your runningmates is that you want to choose curriculum and reading materials; yet you are not qualified to do so. No school board is qualified to do this. The current board is smart enough to recognize this and to allow the teachers to teach. It is you and your yellow teammates who want to tell the teachers what and how to teach. This is what is so scary. If you and your mates win the majority, will the book burnings occur on the football or baseball fields?

Well OMG, it's obvious that the yellow sign team members are not experts in English. I received their campaign mailer Saturday and it contained misspelled words and grammatical errors. To say nothing of the puncuation errors. And these people want to select the curriculum and reading material for the district? Please. I did get a good laugh out of it, however. Please tell your runningmates thanks for injecting humor into my day!

I got my postcard yesterday, too. It really does have grammatical and spelling errors. Even superintendent is spelled wrong. Wow.

School districts are required to have curriculum review committees that should include administrative personnel, teachers, school board members, and people within the community.One of the biggest issues within school districts today is the amount of information used within the classroom that does not go through a review process. Too many handouts are even pulled off the internet where no one has given the material an objective review. There are legislators both in Harrisburg, and people within Congress in Washington that are aware of these issues. If they cannot be addressed locally then it will have to be done at a different level. For those of us that believe in local control it would be best for school boards to stop worrying about football fields and spend more time questioning what is being taught to the students. Also with the high cost of curriculum materials, and the concern over the book manufacturers constantly trying to make additional money,it is important that school boards pay closer attention to what the district is spending money on. One of the biggest issues with school boards is their desire to win elections, and occupy a chair, while rubber stamping what adminstrators want. That is a sloppy way to represent the voters and taxpayers, and does not protect the children.
C.E. Boise

Thanks for your insightful comments. I think parents too need to step up and get more involved in kids education. Do you think that it is even realistic that one or even 9 part time board members can possibly determine what is and what is not appropriate for children to use in the classroom? I agree with your comments about publishers. They salivate at school coffers. Hopefully technology (i.e. internet based books) will put them out of business someday.

By the way, I happened to catch the yellow sign team's show on MCA and I found it amusing. Their whole show was simply "Scappe is bad, so vote for us." There was no plan or vision for the districts' future mentioned. They showed an amazing lack of understanding of the issues facing the district. They did, however, make it quite clear that they will be the ones choosing the books and curriculum. Also, when asked why he was running for the two year seat, Ron Steele announced that he will be moving out of the district. Why on Earth would anyone run for a seat when they have no intention of completing the term? Why would anyone vote for such a candidate?

Received another mailer today from the yellow team. Still contains a number of grammatical errors. They claim taxes have increased 22% since Mark Scappe was elected. Since he was elected 12 years ago I say "great job, Mr.Scappe." Over a 12 year period 22% is less than 2% per year. Yellow team forgot to mention that Moon is lower than 29 of the 42 school districts in Allegheny County based on millage rates. Stiil no plan or vision from yellow team, just more personal attacks on Mr.Scappe. People that I speak with are tired of this, and realize the yellow team has nothing to offer the district.

You see, OMG, here is the difference between the blue and yellow teams. The blue team may have some errors, but it's the yellow team that wants to choose the curriculum and reading materials for the MASD students. The blue team, on the other hand, is the team that believes in allowing the professional, experienced educators teach the students.