In a January 28, 2020 letter to the editor to the The Capital (posted below and online), Joanna Bache Tobin and two other candidates for Anne Arundel County Board of Education District 6 express concern with the newspaper's stance on school start times, as stated in a editorial published on January 24.
As candidates for the District 6 Board of Education seat, we read the editorial “Our Say: Anne Arundel school system needs leadership on later start times” with great concern (The Capital, Jan. 24). Every single one of the editorial board’s concerns were addressed and debunked either years ago, or by public testimony at the board meeting in question.
Each of us provided testimony at this meeting, emphasizing the facts of what a change in start times would mean for the students in this county. We are opponents in the school board race. But on this issue we are united.
We are united with the exhausted students, struggling families, frustrated teachers, medical experts, educational researchers, and the State of California. We are united in our opposition to Anne Arundel County Public Schools’ years of resolutions that never produced effective results. We are united against misinformation and misrepresentation of public testimony and readily available data.
While the transportation report did say that the decision belongs to leadership, the report also couched this statement as part of Recommendation #27 — the one where they provided two low-cost options for adjusting start times. The Capital’s “Our Say” failed to share that statement, for reasons we cannot understand.
It may well be that one of us is sitting on the Board of Education by the end of the year.
And if this issue isn’t resolved by that time, we will continue to advocate for the healthy development of all of our community’s children.
ERIN LORENZ
INDIA L. OCHS
JOANNA BACHE TOBIN
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