Send us your students

To the editor,

I was both amused and gratified several weeks ago when I read the article about the actions of the School District 6 board regarding their denying the sharing of sick leave among the teachers.

As a recently retired professor at Eastern Washington University, I have had the wonderful privilege of helping many young students from Montana prepare for careers in the teaching field. The scurrilous attitude of the District 6 board is only one more reason why bright young Montanans pack up and come to Washington for both their education and a career in a state that values teachers.

The same day, I read an article in another Montana daily describing the fact that Montana ranks in the bottom percentile of college graduates and access to higher education. Come on folks. What is wrong with this picture? UM and MSU are wonderful universities.

So, why was I amused? In a state that possibly represents the best of what the United States of America is about, a local school district is able to both insult and dismiss the very people that help our young people succeed in this frantically changing world.

And gratified? Actions and attitudes like those exhibited by the District 6 board will continue to send the best of Montana's young people to other Western state universities to pursue careers in an environment that truly values them.

Like one superior transfer student from Montana said to me last year as she was finishing her degree program and already had several job offers in Washington, "I love Montana, but I have a life and a career—and I'm not stupid."

How sad for the children who will never have her enthusiasm, skill and dedication to the teaching profession.

Thanks Montana. Washington, Oregon, and California appreciate your indifference.

Greg Hawkins, professor emeritus

Eastern Washington University