Letter: Brentwood charter school debate
Students raise their hands in a classroom. Credit: istock
Again, the Brentwood school community is trying to kill a charter school ["Charter school opposition," News, May 29]. The school board is only interested in keeping control, not what good the charter school would do for students who are not native English speakers.
Even if the charter school would receive 70 percent of what it costs to educate a student in the Brentwood district, that would still leave the district with 30 percent, making the money available for other purposes. And it would have fewer students to educate.
There should be no need for students to be taught in other than English if they have been enrolled in school for more than one year. When I grew up in the 1930s in New Jersey, no students were taught in other than English, and in a matter of a few months, those whose native language was not English were using English as if they had always spoken it.
William J. Van Sickle, Brentwood
