Letters

Support Lakeland Rise Candidates for Lakeland Board of Education

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Joe Ascanio, Paul Edwards, Chuck Monsanto and Laura Perozo are all wonderful people. I know them all personally, and I really wish they had already been on the Lakeland Board of Education during this past school year, which was a wild roller coaster ride.

I know because I have attended most of the meetings this year. The infamous Feb. 10 meeting was not the beginning, but the culmination of a school year in which folks motivated by alternative (false) facts they heard on TV, and even some money from a wealthy right-wing movement that is trying to hurt public education across the country, were loud and abrasive and disruptive at board meetings. Some of these folks are now running to be on the Board of Education.

The board incumbents, who are also running in this election, unfortunately did not keep control over these meetings or the disruptive people, and, in fact, at times caved to their agenda. We need new leadership that is not part of a right-wing noise machine, but grounded locally and supported locally. Folks that will take control of these meetings, put all our children first and not allow Lakeland to become a national laughingstock again.

All four Lakeland Rise candidates are smart, skilled, capable of understanding the hard work that is ahead of them and currently have children in the Lakeland School District. Lakeland Rise is a grassroots group made up of local residents and not funded by outside groups. Please support these four great candidates for the Lakeland Board of Education on May 17.

Maura Gregory

Mohegan Lake

 

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