To the Editor:

Here we go again. The school district talks about its legitimate and understandable funding difficulties and John Herrington adds his narrow anti-teacher bias to the debate.

This district -- in fact, schools all over the nation, both with unions and without for Herrington's information, are in dire straits. And now, as the long and tedious debate commences about what to do, might I suggest that this is a three-pronged issue? It cannot be dealt with effectively when we talk about only one prong.

In Herrington's narrow-minded view, it's all the fault of union contracts. The fact is that employee costs are only part of the problem, if any at all.

First off, we must determine the requirements, aspirations and expectations of the community regarding our school's overall mission. I am not convinced that this has been done effectively, but that important difficulty aside, when financial constraints loom, those desires of the community must be reviewed and adjusted.

Second, we must address what the cost of meeting those requirements will be and determine what level of support the community can handle. In other words, a price tag must be put on the agreed upon requirements, aspirations, and expectations. Put another way, you can't have that for which you won't or can't pay.

Third, the workload and benefits of employees and the costs of facilities must be addressed to fit within the district's fiscal capacity but still adequate to meet the community requirements. It is the juxtaposition of these two factors -- costs and requirements -- to each other rather than either one alone that is the critical.

Herrington's approach obviously falls well short of either "educating Worthington," as he pompously proclaims, or seriously addressing the issue. Unless we address all three components of the issue simultaneously, and properly align each with the other two, none will be addressed appropriately.

Bob Barkley