Letter: School board right on comment policy

slanderous and civil comments from the community at its meetings is a constructive policy.

Any family or marriage counselor will prescribe certain language and ways of addressing problems to decrease defensiveness and to increase constructive communication. Constructive communication is required if the participants desire an outcome that enhances the family or marriage, or in this case, enhances education for our children.

The school board meeting is not the forum for displaying political rancor. Making it such a forum paralyses the business of maintaining and improving a strong working school system that addresses our children's' needs and the needs of the teachers and staff to whom they are entrusted.

If one has a valid comment or issue, one needs to address it in a way so as to obtain reasonable consideration from the board members elected. Likewise, one would expect the board members to respond in a wise and empathic way.

This is not to say that we cannot address these issues in a political and rancorous way. There are many protected ways of doing this; just keep incivility out of these meetings and address the education issues at hand. Let us save the rancor for the elections.

William Roesch

This story was originally published January 24, 2016 at 6:35 PM with the headline "Letter: School board right on comment policy."