To the editor:<\/p>\n
In Lee County, public schools are the backbone, brains, and heart of your community.<\/p>\n
We get sports, we get music, we get drama, and we get places to exercise. Our civic leaders graduated from those schools. Public schools are a top economic driver, employing thousands and buying millions of dollars of goods and services.<\/p>\n
Most importantly, our public schools teach, train, and mold today\u2019s students into tomorrow\u2019s moral leaders, business entrepreneurs, and wonderful neighbors.<\/p>\n
Why, then, are we letting politicians play political games with our children?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s time to hold school board members accountable for their mistakes. We need to elect people who will put our kids\u2019 social needs, physical well-being, and education first, not political allegiance or party affiliation. We have a chance to do just that when the polls open on Aug. 18. (Make sure you check for your voting district, location, and time.)<\/p>\n
Your choices aren\u2019t that difficult. The status quo is failing our children and voting for the same people won\u2019t fix anything. Instead, vote for the folks who support \u201ckid-friendly\u201d policies.<\/p>\n
Instead of voting for a political point of view, vote for neighborhood schools; child-centered budgeting; teacher recruitment and retention; mental health support for students; accountability and transparency; respect for parents, teachers, and children; and an educational program that prepares young people for college, careers, and life.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s just that simple.<\/p>\n
Candidates supporting those ideals are Debbie Jordan, Jennifer McDaigle, India Palencia, and Carline Saintilus. Check out their websites and see for yourself.<\/p>\n
They will put our children first.<\/p>\n
Tom Beebe<\/p>\n
Fort Myers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To the editor: In Lee County, public schools are the backbone, brains, and heart of your community. We…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-296870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}