Abigail Clayton for School Board- Sylva Herald Letter to the Editor by Pamela Krauss

The survival of public education that serves all of our children is the true concern of the July 26 school board election. Public education is not, nor was it intended to be, religious education.

We have a choice of an incumbent, Abigail Clayton, that has family in the school system. Or the other choice is someone that is a strategic widget of those that fear teaching bona fide history, and prefer to mix public education into teaching Christianity and prayer in a public school. More bluntly, the other choice, the other candidate, is part of the warped philosophy that wants to blend her own flavor of religion into public education.

And, it becomes more and more clear that we better pay attention, and hope that our children can overcome the hot mess “we” have created losing sight of the purpose of public education. We can only hope that today’s children can right the ship of a country that is not acting in their best interest by teaching facts and critical thinking rather than religion in public schools.

So who are “we”? “We” are voters, or maybe even the sometimes nonvoters that have placed or allowed to be placed “representatives” in Washington, D.C., and Raleigh that find that public law does not apply to them, and basically set an example of the very behavior we would not accept in our children. This behavior violates not religious standards, but violates common law abiding standards consistent with our state and federal constitutions. Religious teaching belongs in religious institutions. We are seeing a trend in the leadership of the United States and North Carolina, and now maybe our school board, leaning toward a government that does not consider the needs of the future generation, (climate change, for example) and attempting to substitute true public education with religion.

But, we have a choice. We can choose to avoid the misguided candidate that wants to change the purpose of public education. The only real choice is to vote for Abigail Clayton, who has the best interest of our children and their future, public education, and will continue to work for Jackson County students.

Pamela Krauss, Webster