Nebraska Family Forum

It is the Mission of the Nebraska Family Forum (NFF) to promote education policies in our state that preserve and protect parental authority and the integrity of the family. In so doing, we will preserve the cooperative and respectful relationship between school authorities and parents, preserve a family-centered community, and provide a well-rounded education for our kids.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Letter to Brad Ashford

January 4, 2012

Dear Senator Ashford:

I am attaching an Op-Ed piece from the December 21^st Omaha World-Herald. The writer refers to Maddie Chambers, a 13-year-old girl who personifies the collateral damage resulting from LB 800 and LB 463. I’m sure you know Maddie’s story and you must be familiar with the many other families who are suffering as a result of this overreaching legislation.

After Maddie’s story was aired on Omaha’s Fox 42 on December 20^th, your voice insisting that the truancy law is working followed her sweet voice pleading with authorities to just leave her alone.

Senator Ashford, each time you insist that your legislation is not faulty, you look a little more out of touch, a little more hard-hearted, and a little more foolish.

And now, instead of fixing this faulty law, you are blaming the school districts for the way it has been enforced, stating that they have always been responsible for discerning excused and unexcused absences, that there’s nothing in the law that changes that and therefore, the new law is working.

That makes absolutely no sense to me. If indeed nothing has changed, then why has there been an 1180% increase in truancy filings from 2008-09 to now? Why have so many families been negatively affected? Why are school districts telling parents that they are only following the law—your law? Blaming the schools is completely illogical and we parents aren’t buying it. The school districts didn’t just suddenly, randomly, out of the blue begin sending threatening letters to sick children after five absences and start involving law enforcement after ten (or even sooner). Their actions are a direct result of the law that you wrote. Please stop blaming the schools; this one’s on you and Nebraska parents know it.

Parents are angry--they are angry with you. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that this issue is going to fade away, that we’re going to eventually settle down and shut up, that we’ll finally get used to this new “normal”, the nanny state. If this law is not fixed to restore the true definition of truancy (absent without permission), I can guarantee you will still be hearing from angry parents the next time you try to run for elective office. You have taken away our natural rights to make decisions for our own children, and we are not going to let go of this issue until the problem is fixed. Your legislation has caused honest, law-abiding Nebraska citizens to be treated like criminals. You have thrown thousands of children, many of them sick, into the clutches of the juvenile justice system and our failed DHHS. You have forced hundreds of Nebraska families into financial hardship due to attorney fees spent to defend children whose only “crime” was illness. We will not stand for it and we will not be quiet.

I’m sure you didn’t intend for any of this to happen. I’m sure it was not your intent to hurt ten children for every one child that has been helped, but that’s what has happened. Even according to your own website (also attached), your original intent was different from the end result. So why not just call a spade a spade and acknowledge that your plan didn’t work the way you wanted it to?

Senator, we all make mistakes, and this time you made a big one. It’s time to step up, admit it, and fix it.

Sincerely,

Brenda Vosik

4 comments:

Autumn Foster CookJanuary 05, 2012

Hear, hear!
ReplyDelete
Replies
AnonymousJanuary 05, 2012

If he doesn't "get it" (an understanding that a change needs to be made--and soon) after reading this letter--he truly is a member of the GDI Club.
ReplyDelete
Replies
AnonymousJanuary 05, 2012

AMEN . . . AMEN. . .AMEN!

Only thing more to add would be to include Governor Heineman and Commissioner Breed.
ReplyDelete
Replies
AnonymousJanuary 06, 2012

I hope he gets it, but then again I'm not so sure he (or the majority of state senators) care. This is such a horrible, badly written law. Everybody wants habitual truants to go to school, but sick children, children with mental illnesses, and yes, even a attending a family reunion, should be excused absenses!
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

The Personal Impact of Nebraska's School Attendance Law

We began collecting stories in April of 2011 and will continue to collect them as long as the law is abused. The stories we have collected demonstrate how our community has been impacted by Nebraska's school attendance law that counts all absences rather than "unexcused" absences for purposed of "truancy".

It may seem by the district by district breakdown that the law has impacted Millard Public Schools the most, but it is important to note that the Nebraska Family Forum grew out of the Millard Parent Society and therefore the awareness within Millard Public Schools is longstanding.

Out of the 3000+ cases referred to the Douglas County Attorney last year only 400 came from MPS. For every story collected here it is reasonable to assume that they represent dozens more who are affected who have not written their thoughts in a public way.

Nebraska Family Forum: What we Stand For

Mission:

NFF Guiding Principles:

Family is Key: We believe the family is the single most important element to a child’s ability to learn and be successful in school and life, and parents are the foundation upon which family success rests. For this reason, it’s imperative that the state honor the authority of parents as they exercise their natural rights, obligations, and responsibilities to raise, manage, direct, and educate their children.

Freedom in Education is essential: We believe that flexibility in education, school choice, stimulating curriculum, quality teachers, and innovative education reforms are essential to a family centered education. We support policies that will lead to greater parental influence in education innovation, curriculum, and choice.

Family struggles are a healthy part of life: We believe that the fundamental right of a parent does not cease to exist simply because a parent may fail to be a model parent. Parents often struggle to meet the needs of their children, but this is not in itself sufficient cause for unwanted and unwarranted government intrusion into family life. We join with Father Steven Boes of Boys Town in "proclaiming that not only are there no bad boys, as Father Flanagan taught, but there are no bad families.” There is always at least one person in a family that wants what is best for their children and is willing to ask for and receive the help they need.

Government Intrusion can be Harmful: We believe that the right of parents to raise their children without undue government interference is a fundamental liberty that has long been protected by the Constitution of the United States and is not void upon the enrollment of ones child in a public school. We warn that governments who seek to micro-manage the everyday choices of parents in pursuit prescribed outcomes, will do great harm to the integrity of the family and by extension, the well-being of children and society as a whole.

The Simple Truths

Children have to be educated, but they have also to be left to educate themselves. ~ Ernest Dimnet

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. ~ Oscar Wilde

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. ~ William Butler Yeats

Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. ~ B. F. Skinner

Education... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading. ~ G. M. Trevelyan

Every educated person is a future enemy. ~ Martin Bormann

I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly. ~ Michel de Montaigne

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards. ~ Mark Twain

It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants. ~ John W. Gardner

No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding. ~ Ezra Pound

The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives. ~ Robert M. Hutchins

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education. ~ Albert Einstein

To the uneducated, an A is just three sticks. ~ A. A. Milne

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school. ~ Albert Einstein

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. ~ Abraham Lincoln

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors. ~aya Angelou

Dad kept us out of school, but school comes and goes. Family is forever.

I hated school. Even to this day, when I see a school bus it's just depressing to me. The poor little kids. ~ Dolly Parton

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Nebraska Family Forum

Pages

Search This Blog

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Letter to Brad Ashford

4 comments:

Elkhorn Public Schools

Gretna Public Schools

Lincoln Public Schools

Community Voices

Open Letters

Omaha Public Schools

Millard School District

Outstate Nebraska

The Facebook Effect