School fencing is a worthy initiative

Editor:

Here’s a public thank you to the PCSD school board for working diligently to get security fencing installed around our school properties. I wonder if some of us have forgotten that the primary goal of committee members is to keep our students and staff safe. So when they received the recommendations from homeland security as well as local law enforcement officials to install fences around Park City schools, they got on it. You can be sure homeland security folks don’t care if the fences look unsightly or access by parents and other community members is made more difficult. We’d all love it if our school grounds with their large grassy spaces and playground equipment would continue to be open for us to use during non-school hours. But alas, it seems like the days of open access to community places that have been available for us to enjoy are over. To keep some people out — those who would harm our students and staff — we all are kept out.

We should lament these fences going up; we should not impede their installation. Along with fences, our schools will continue to be more difficult to get into. Additional security measures involving changes in entryway design and more stringent entry procedures are underway. I, for one, am saddened by the larger topic of having to keep people safe in all the wonderful places we have always taken for granted are safe. We will be thinking of the time when there was no need for fences and security equipment in our schools as the good old days.

Again, thank you board members for staying the course with getting fences installed around our schools in light of public criticism from members of our community. I’d like to think they weren’t aware that these fences were called for by our country’s top security and safety agency.

Beverly Harrison
Park City

Thank you, Live PC Give PC

Editor:

All of us at the Summit Land Conservancy send a huge thank you to the Park City Community Foundation and all of those who participated in Live PC Give PC. We are grateful for those who helped the cause of open space to a podium finish, demonstrating the community’s continued concern for local land protection. We’d like to thank the kids at the Park City Cooperative Preschool who helped explain why saving land is so important. We also appreciate our friends and partners at Mountain Trails Foundation and South Summit Trails who work to make the lands we protect accessible.

We find that donating during Live PC Give PC is like eating salted peanuts: you can’t have just have one! And that is the beauty of it. There are so many great organizations working to make our lives better here in Park City. Live PC Give PC supports them all.

Thankfully,

Cheryl Fox
Executive director

Support Park City’s superintendent

Editor:

I’ve had the opportunity to work directly with 3 of our past superintendents, surveyed past administrators and been on several committees that have strived to improve the culture in the school district. After just over three years, it seems our district now has what most believe to be the best executive team in PCSD history. This team, under the leadership of Dr. Conley, had also regained much of the academic performance that had started to slide prior to her tenure. I applaud the school board for providing an environment to community members who let their personal feelings get in the way of the facts. I also applaud all of those who have called or messaged Ember with their support each and every time she comes under attack. However, this is not enough. It is time for those of us who care about our local public schools and have lived through the mediocrity of past administrations to not only recognize the excellent work of our current superintendent but to stand up against this kind of biased and personal attack on her accomplishments and record.

Anyone who knows Ember knows she is approachable, will listen to anyone and even change her position when presented with what is best for children. I’ve seen first hand how she has been swayed by reasonable appeals from parents, students, and teachers when it comes to what is best for our children. Then she works with her administration to do what she can within the constraints of public education to address the need. Join me and publicly speak out against the personal attacks, the uninformed minority and the haters in this community that wish to mischaracterize and diminish the work of our superintendent! To do otherwise is to give those misguided few a voice and a platform for their hate!

Ari Ioannides
Park City