Ed. note: This letter was read at the Board of Education meeting on Thursday, May 30, by Ben Gevirtz, a senior at Columbia High School and the Class of 2024 salutatorian, on behalf of 72 of his fellow students.
Hi, I’m Ben Gevirtz. I’m the salutatorian and I’m reading a letter prepared and signed by 72 other students.
To the members of the Board of Education and Central Office:
We, the undersigned, would like to forgive you, for all the problems you have brought upon the school. We would like to forgive you for choosing to invest in new construction, rather than repairing existing problems. Which do you think is worse: ignorance of, or refusing to deal with, the various leaks, broken ceilings, burst pipes, broken faucets, missing soap and menstrual products, and other issues students and faculty experience daily? What have you done with the noise complaints that teachers lodged about the construction, especially during testing? We also would like to forgive you for making the library impossible to access. You may not realize that books in schools for studying are still necessary.
We assume that is why there have been numerous IT issues at the school year, including weak and unstable WiFi. And Chromebooks that break without sufficient replacement or fixes. But we’re not sure how to understand the failure to tell the AP African-American Studies students that their test was online.
We would like to forgive you for all of the policies that needlessly damage the environment. We would like to forgive you for illegally and secretly trying to remove trees from school property and for trying to turf Ritzer field, even though the budget doesn’t have room for even one payment, much less a recurring turfing fee. We would like to, but we can’t, and we shouldn’t, because that would be letting you off the hook. We shouldn’t forgive you for firing your irreplaceable teachers. It seems difficult to have a school district without faculty. We shouldn’t forgive you for trying to fire teachers with so much contempt for them as people and for the teachers’ union. We can’t forgive you for letting a budget deficit fester while giving administrators raises.
The hundreds of students and the many organizations and groups that use the stage certainly don’t forgive you for letting it remain broken. The music groups don’t appreciate the budget cuts. The musical didn’t want to go on tour. The Shakespeare festival didn’t enjoy the inability to get a straight answer about the stage extension. No one respects the absurd opacity of the administration’s dealings.
We all resent the sexism that students and teachers experienced in the administration, such as not believing them when they describe problems or by staring at their chests rather than their faces. Institutional racism continues to be a problem even as the district says it is being worked on. We understand that some of these items are not specifically your fault, but we ask you to recognize that they stem from problems you have created or refuse to fix.
The lack of soap and menstrual products comes from the budget issues, for example. Teachers’ inability to get a straight answer comes from your lack of transparency. I personally have seen teachers spend weeks trying to get answers on major issues, like testing and the stage, only to be dismissed in an instant by the administration. We appreciate those of you that have done your jobs. Most of you have not. And you hire the inept administrators who failed to do theirs.
Bear in mind that these are just the grievances that we, the undersigned, could agree on. There are many, many more. You must do better. Take accountability and then improve. You show a callous disrespect of and disregard for everyone else here if you don’t. The students deserve better. The teachers deserve better. The community deserves better.
Sincerely, myself, and 72 other students.
