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Letter: Students need work ethic, not new buildings

Editor, Gazette-Journal:

In recent days Gloucester’s citizens have been offered a proposal by the school superintendent and his architect consultants that contemplates a range of remodel and maintenance projects to school properties, the largest being a master plan at the high school.

Public schools in the United States have taken on enormous missions over the 39 years that the federal Department of Education has existed. And employment in schools to comply with the federal programs and demands has shown steady and expensive increases in compliance costs.

The number of non-teaching employees within school districts has hugely increased and Virginia leads the country. Buildings are expensive to create and maintain but so are the salaries and pension promises to those who work in them.

Mission creep always involves additional staffing. Staffing includes cafeteria workers, custodial workers, bus drivers and maintenance personnel, teachers, reading specialists, substitutes, and s...

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