Education isn’t just a job, it’s a calling. We are the teachers and school professionals of the Montrose Area School District. We strive to connect with all of our students, discover their passions, and unlock their potential. We are proud of our schools and proud of the job we do, and we will continue to fight to have strong schools. We know that our educational community has a vested interest in the quality of education our children receive.

As teachers, taxpayers, and community volunteers we are all equally committed to fiscal responsibility as we are to empowering our students. Thus, early in the contract negotiating process the school district asked the MEA to consider a change in the way they receive their health care coverage. The school board proposed a health care plan that mirrors the current plan in coverage but includes a High Deductible.

The change to the higher deductible plan has the potential to save the District 32% off last year’s premium cost--an amount close to $600,000, per year --almost 3 million dollars over five years. The concept presented to us was that the savings from the reduced premiums would be used to fund increases to teachers’ salaries and the way that teachers contribute to their health care costs. Currently, teachers contribute 1.25 % of their salary towards their health care premiums.

The MEA took the district at its word and agreed to explore the impact from such a radical change to the way health care is funded for our members. We believed that the concept would be to take the health care savings and our current contribution to health care premiums to construct a plan that increases salaries, maintains and even increases a teacher’s contribution to health care costs and saves taxpayers real money. We embraced the concept and attempted to work with the school board to craft a framework acceptable to both parties. That effort seems to be failing.

The MEA’s salary offer is covered by the new health care plan’s potential cost savings. In an effort to compromise and reach an agreement on a new contract, we offered to meet the district in the middle of our respective salary proposals, but we were told that the school board is unwilling to do that.

In addition, the MEA has offered to increase the amounts that teachers pay toward their health insurance—including paying up to 150% of what they currently contribute, but the school board rejected this.  The MEA then offered to increase our contributions up to 175%, but this compromise position was also rejected.

The difference in costs between MEA’s offer and school board’s has a small impact on the district’s overall budget. By our calculations, it amounts to about four tenths of a percent of the current payroll and about fifteen hundredths of a percent of the total district budget.

MEA issued a work stoppage notice for March 29, but make no mistake, a strike is our last option. Over the next two weeks, we will do everything to avoid a work stoppage. But, the school board needs to work with us with a spirit of cooperation to settle the contract dispute.

Over the last two months, the MEA has NOT abandoned any effort to resolve the small differences between the parties. We will not ask the school board to honor the promise they made to us about using the considerable savings in health care programs. We only ask them to meet us at the halfway point we have offered. It is in the best interest to all stakeholders in our educational community. We hope that you stay informed and engaged, so that we can avoid a work stoppage. But we need your voice, and we ask for your help. Together we can protect and keep our schools academically successful and strong.

Sincerely,

The Teachers and School Professionals of the Montrose Education Association

With regards to the article of March 9, "Is Blue Ridge Strike Looming," it stated "there is not one psychiatrist employed in the county."

I would like to clarify the breadth of mental health services available in the Susquehanna County. Since 1974, the county has contracted with several organizations over the years for mental health care.  There have been part and full time adult and child psychiatrists.  Since 1986, Dr. Kenneth Lattimore has dedicated his entire career to serving our county full time in the practice of general psychiatry.

Dr. Lattimore currently practices at NEPA Community Health Care, rotating through the doctor's offices in Susquehanna, Hallstead, and Montrose. In addition, he is also a consulting physician at both Endless Mountains Health System and Barnes-Kasson Hospital.

NEPA Community Health Care has recently hired a psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, who specializes in the care of children and adolescents.  She also practices at all three locations.

In addition to these two psychiatric providers, Licensed Clinical Social Workers work along side the regular doctors and nurse practitioners.

The School Based Health Center at the Susquehanna Community School District also provides both regular physical and mental health care with Licensed Clinical Social Workers, enabling students and staff to access services during the school day.

Scranton Counseling Center is the county mental health crisis provider, with mobile units responding to urgent needs 24 hours a day.

Friendship House, Scranton Counseling, and other organizations are in the schools and in the community with specific programs targeting at risk youth.

There is mental health care available in the county, although the problems of transportation and money may keep people from getting the care they need. If finances are a problem, there are many programs to help cover the costs.  The school based program is one way of eliminating the transportation issue.

The need for mental health services is great, but there is care available in many different locations.

Sincerely,

Mary W. Wetherall, RN, MSN, HN-BC
CEO NEPA Community Health Care

Of all the gods that men have created and imagined down through the ages, none is as strange as the Christian God.

The Greek Scriptures (New Testament) reveal Him as having a universal presence: “For in him, we live and move and have our being,” Acts 17:28.

This God is a spirit that is omnipresent. Go beyond the farthest star, and infinitely beyond that, and one is as close to Him as in a private moment in prayer. How can His presence be infinite? How can this God not only have no limits but cannot be limited even by Himself?

Paul records Christ saying, “it is impossible for God to lie,” Heb. 6:18. Christ does not say God will not lie, but that He cannot lie. The God, who is omnipotent who has no boundaries is incapable of thought, word, or deed that have the faintest shadow of imperfection.

How are we to understand this: An omnipotent being that has limits, constrained by a morality that is incapable of fault?

From where did this Being come? What defined His character and set its limits? How strange.

Now this Spirit who cannot be contained deigns to create an image of Himself that can be seen and heard. It is not Himself, but a likeness of how He wishes to portray Himself. It is His Spokesman; the visible and audible manifestation of Himself.

All that this Spirit creates, the universes of the unseen and seen, are brought into being by this Spirit and through His Spokesman.

In the course of time, on the last day of creation, God's Spokesman walks by a riverside, kneels in the miry clay and fashions a form like unto Himself. Into this red clay, He breathes, and it becomes a flesh and bone sentient being. He is named, Adam, meaning “ruddy man.”

“We are Adam's offspring,” (Acts 17:28), facsimiles of God's Spokesman, not of God, Himself. That Spirit is infinite and cannot create more of itself.

Next, God's Spokesman gives Adam a helpmate, Eve, and places them in a garden in the land of Eden. In the midst of this garden, He plants a tree. Eating the fruit of this tree will impart the knowledge of good and evil. But the Spokesman commands Adam not to eat of it.

But this he and Eve do. They become like God. Unlike any in God's cognizant creation, they can recognize the moral distinction between right and wrong, of good and evil. But at a cost to them and their progeny. The stain of sin would indelibly mare their species.

The pair were cast out of the garden into the land of sorrow in which we presently dwell. Soon Eve's sorrow would turn to tears. One of her sons rose up and murdered his brother. And is not fratricide written bold on every page of history to this day?

Now, after a determined number of days, the Spirit directs His Spokesman to become flesh and to live in His creation. “And the Word [Spokesman] became flesh and dwelt among us,” John 1:14.

The eternal Spirit determines that His beloved, the Spokesman, is to be born in a stable, wrapped in rags, placed in a feed trough, and worshiped by the lowest of the low: shepherds. It is the first Christmas.

Is not this, too, odd: The highest of the high descending to the lowest of the low?

At the appointed time, the Spokesman, who became flesh, named by an angel, Jesus, meaning “savior,” ascends to a hill overlooking Jerusalem. The prominence is called, Golgotha, the Place of the Skull.

It is here, in eternity's darkest day, He is nailed to a cross, suspended between heaven and earth. Then the Spirit places upon the Sinless One all the sins of humanity. “For since death came through a man [Adam], the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man [Jesus],” 1 Cor. 15:21.

The inflexible righteousness of the all-pervasive Spirit that Jesus instructs us to call “our Father” is satisfied. God and man estranged in a garden are reconciled in the Garden of Gethsemane.

In this garden, there is a tomb hewn into the rock. The massive stone blocking the entrance was rolled away by an angel. Inside sit two angelic beings, one at the head and another at the feet of the loci where Jesus was placed. Two women who had come to prepare Jesus' body for its final entombment enter the tomb. An angel questions, “Why seek ye the living among the dead?” Luke 24:5.

It is the first Easter, the day of the empty tomb. It is a day of joy and expectation, for if Christ rose, then in a day to come our tomb shall also be empty. For “if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus,” 1 Thes. 4:14.

How wondrously strange is that?

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins

New Milford, PA

Whether you like Donald Trump or not doesn't give you the right to obstruct his right to free speech. The Chicago mob that shut down Donald Trump's campaign speech last week should have been put in jail. Trump's campaign was hosting the rally. This was Trump's party. Your right to free speech does not Trump someone else's right to free speech.

Ronald Reagan's most famous line may be, "I am paying for this microphone Mr. Green." The statement was made in Nassau, New Hampshire leading up to that state's primary. Reagan was trying to explain to the crowd why the debate was being delayed when the Nassau Telegraph newspaper editor told the soundman to turn off Reagan's microphone. Only he and George H.W. Bush had been invited to debate but Reagan thought that was unfair not to include the other candidates and insisted that Bob Dole and the others running at the time be on the platform.  Dole had previously complained to the Federal Election Commission about the debate stating the Telegraph was making an unfair campaign contribution to the Bush and Reagan campaigns.  The Commission agreed and hence Reagan's campaign agreed to foot the bill. The Nassau Telegraph newspaper editor whose name was Jon Bren and not Green asked that Reagan's microphone be turned off when Reagan began to say something. Reagan responded with the famous statement.

When Lyndon Johnson paraded through Inez, Kentucky in 1964 nobody dreamed of trying to yell down the President.  I was there. When Barack Obama came to Indiana I stood in line for three hours to hear the Senator speak to almost 13,000 people. Everyone was courteous. No one yelled out or tried to interrupt Obama. My son and I went to hear Hillary Clinton a few years back. We went down and shook hands with her. No one tried to disrupt her speech. In each scenario it was Johnson's, Obama's or Clinton's party, people were invited to listen and not to make buffoons of themselves.

If you have something to say free speech gives you the permission to say it. Rent your own convention space. Announce you have something to say and then stand up and say it. Have a party at your house, subdivision or stand in front of your courthouse or state house and say what you want to say. People should listen without interrupting you if they are interested in what you want to say.

Freedom of speech does not mean forgoing all civility. If you are having a hamburger party in your backyard and want to espouse all your reasons for smoking Cuban cigars then so be it. You don't expect people to show up and shout you down.

There are many ways to foster your first Amendment right. However, trying to Trump someone else's speech with your speech is out of line especially when that person is paying for the microphone. 

Sincerely,

Glenn Mollette

Editor’s Note: Glenn Mollette is an American Syndicated Columnist and Author. He is the author of eleven books and read in all fifty states.

I have an issue with the Forest City Police Department. My son received Special Relief Custody of his two young children, ages three and six.  For months, we asked Forest City Police Chief Lukus to find a warrant for the boyfriend of the children's mother, who was living with them. He repeatedly said there was nothing. Myson's attorney found that warrant in under five minutes, in two phone calls. With all the resources of the police department Chief Lukus couldn't find it? He wasn't looking!

When we arrived at the home, Chief Lukus gave the court order to the children's mother, telling her we were taking the children. He then proceeded to cuff her boyfriend andtakehim into custody. Chief Lukus took this man into custody based on our court order- no warrant, leaving the children in the house alone, putting us all at risk not knowing who else may have been in the house! He had to go back to the station and wait for the warrant to be faxed to him! He should've given us the children, looked for that warrant and gone back later!

She (the mother) then moved in with a couple on Main Street. Two months later, the children were at an overnight visit with their mother when the man who lived there came in drunk, fighting with her and chased her with a knife. He busted windows, knocked over a bookshelf and kicked the doorout. He was cuffed and placed in the back of the police car while the officer questioned the girls and the neighbors, then took pictures and statements. He was then questioned by the officer, confessing to what he'd done and took the officer to the knife he used that he threw in the alley. He was then given a ride to a home in the next town. Why was this man not arrested? He could have come back later with a gun to finish what he started and these children were still in the house. Chief Lukus was the first to arrive on the scene. He should have called Children and Youth to remove the children but claims he didn't know they were there. My son has a text stating the mother told Chief Lukus the children were there.

Why would they continue to put these children at risk? Because their mother is friends with Asst. Chief Rowan. When this incident went to the Magistratein Clifford, four out of five charges were withdrawn,only being charged with Criminal Mischief- Damage Property. The Assault charges and Terroristic Threats charges were withdrawn! How is that when these children were witness to an attack on their mother, with a knife in his hand?

Mayor Pauline Wilcox said she gave my complaint to Children and Youth. That does not address police misconduct and they have never contacted us. I have had words with her several times, she engaged in a four-hour hostile text to where she has now told me to delete her number. Very unprofessional! Isn't it her job as mayor to listen to complaints and get them resolved?

Forest City Borough Council better think long and hard as to who will replace Chief Lukus when he retires in July. Asst Chief Rowan should not even be considered as he has had open-heart surgery, he's a liability. I believe officers should protect and serve- not pick and choose! These “protectors” should never let animosities or friendships interfere with their duties.

There's a reason we can't keep part-time officers in Forest City. Not lack of hours or low pay- they don't want to be involved in this type of nonsense. They resign as quick as they get hired on. One bad apple shouldn't rot the barrel but if left unchecked, they all go bad. Especially when the Chief is putting children at risk and the mayor says to delete her number....where is the justice? Sincerely,

Karen Ligus

Richmondale, PA