To the Editor:

Last month, The Selma Times-Journal wrote a series of three reports on the Selma City School system.

All three were important informing us of the system’s finances and the physical state of Selma High but one, Graduate Numbers Down April 15, 2007,was particularly alarming.

Of the 203 Selma High students that took the Alabama High School Graduation Exam, 52 of them failed. When the school hosted a meeting for the parents of those 52 students only eight of them showed up.

The large number of parents that apparently had something more important to do than

tend to their children’s futures flabbergasted me.

Education, and the value of it, begins at home and it is the parent’s responsibility to instill it in their children. That being said, the Selma City Schools, which comprises the superintendent’s office and school board, cannot be left off the hook.

Their responsibility is to provide clean, safe, well-equipped schools with qualified personnel. Barbara Hiouas, a member of the school board and with some grandstanding I might add, was reported in the story above of reading a summary from the state board of education’s annual report card that said 35.2 percent of Selma High School’s teachers were labeled as not highly qualified as mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act!)

As a parent of a child in this system, I urge other parents to get involved in their children’s education … acquaint themselves with the issues facing our schools, go to the school board meetings, go to the meetings being held for your children that didn’t pass the exit exam, and hold those accountable (the Selma City School Board) who claim to be looking out for our children’s best educational interests.

Parental involvement in education is every bit a responsibility to our children as clothing, feeding, and housing them, we would be doing them a disservice by neglecting it.

Terry Lewis