Apr 16, 2014 By David Carey 3 min read

I am writing this letter with the intention of alerting the public to the unethical, politically motivated hiring practices of the Laurel Highlands School Board.

I would like to encourage concerned taxpayers from the Laurel Highlands School District to attend the school board meeting that will be held at 7 p.m. tomorrow at the Laurel Highlands Middle School Auditorium.

A vote will be conducted to hire a full-time biology teacher at Laurel Highlands High School. The logical candidate for the position is the candidate who is currently teaching the class. This candidate has held the long-term substitute position for the past three years and wrote the curriculum for the environmental science class.

Laurel Highlands taxpayers have paid this candidate’s salary for the last three years, and the mentoring, training, and experience the candidate has gained from being in the current biology position is priceless.

In addition, this candidate is also an athletic coach at the Laurel Highlands High School, and this coach goes above and beyond for the team, providing study sessions that emphasize the value of academics for his athletes.

At last month’s school board meeting, the hiring for this position was tabled. Five school board members could not agree on who should fill this teaching position, for reasons that could only be concluded to be their concern for their own political agendas.

After all, when a candidate is presented who already has established and proven successful at the position being hired for, it seems obvious that the students’ education must not be what is on the minds of the school board. It is time for the taxpayers from Laurel Highlands to take a close look at who represents us and how they hire teachers.

The education of our community’s children should always be the only factor in the hiring of educators in our school district. All other considerations amount to so much corruption and a lack of concern for the real value of education. If the school board members don’t represent integrity, it is time for the taxpayers to elect board members that do demonstrate integrity and rationality when hiring teachers in our school district.

The Laurel Highlands school board needs to hire quality candidates and leave the politics to the politicians. I hope on Thursday evening the only candidate with six years teaching experience, three of which have been in the Laurel Highlands School District teaching biology classes, is recognized for his hard work serving the educational needs of our students and he is hired for the position that he currently teaches.

Let’s hope the Laurel Highlands School Board members will keep the best interest of the students and taxpayers in mind and hire Zach Sipe for the full-time biology position at Laurel Highlands High School.

David Carey is a resident of Hopwood.