This Texas school district is concerned with students spreading lice — but not COVID

Peaster ISD has weird priorities

I am exasperated that Peaster ISD continues to defy the Texas Education Agency’s public health guidelines. District leaders refuse to establish any COVID-19 protocols and do not notify parents when their children have been exposed.

I have raised this issue but was told that parents should monitor their children’s health and that if I didn’t like how the district operates, I could move or home-school.

The student handbook contains three paragraphs outlining protocol for lice cases, but when it comes to a deadly virus, parents are left to their own devices. Many are turning to social media groups to determine whether their children have been exposed and what they should do.

This is ludicrous. Our school leaders need to sideline their personal and political agendas and put the safety of our children first.

- Kjersti Powers, Poolville

Listen to the music and learn

I recently rediscovered the 1967 song “Get Together” by The Youngbloods, written in the midst of that turbulent decade. The lyrics seem timeless: “C’mon people now/Smile on your brother (and sister)/Everybody get together/Try to love one another right now.”

I was an adolescent and young teen in the ’60s. There was so much mistrust, both among the generations and of the government. Civil rights marches, so many young Americans being killed or maimed in Vietnam, and the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King Jr. were deep scars of our civil turmoil. But our great nation emerged with small but purposeful steps forward.

We’re approaching the same level of civil discord. Mistrust and misunderstandings, fueled by misinformation and the burdens of COVID-19, are pushing us apart. We’re not talking together through our differences.

“Smile on your brother” again.

- John Roberts, Azle

Don’t forget Bush’s role in this

Republicans are quick to blame President Joe Biden, who is trying to get us out of Afghanistan. Why didn’t they stop President George W. Bush from starting our involvement there and the Iraq War in the first place?

Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. How many people died in both wars because he wanted to be a war president? That’s why I will not vote for a Republican, unless they clean up their act.

- Jack Brocious, Grapevine

Playing your part isn’t that big a deal

During World War II, British citizens were required to turn over to the government pots and pans for their metal and many items containing rubber to support the war effort. The country was at war, and the British people thought it was their patriotic duty to help in any way they could.

We are now at war with a formidable viral invader. The best way out of the pandemic is to not grumble and just take the vaccine.

- Judson P. Smith, Fort Worth

Mileage tax breaks Biden’s pledge

While there is much to dislike in the $1 trillion infrastructure bill, there is a sinister provision that could lead to increased taxes on most taxpayers, and in a regressive fashion.

The bill includes pilot programs to test a mileage tax. Many people who work in Fort Worth yet live in Johnson, Hood, Parker or Denton counties to avoid Tarrant County and Fort Worth taxes are working class. Taxing the miles they drive would destroy the advantage of living the more rural life.

The tax would hurt lower-wage earners. It also would break President Joe Biden’s pledge not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 a year.

- Charles Andrews, Fort Worth

This story was originally published September 16, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "This Texas school district is concerned with students spreading lice — but not COVID."