Letter to the Editor: Frustration and Anger Over Attacks on School District

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We appear to be bracing for another entirely unnecessarily contentious school board election in 2024.

As a community member, a public school taxpayer, a Lowell Area Schools supporter and former Lowell Education Foundation board member, I’m frustrated and angry that our school board, administrators and teachers are having to endure continual attacks on their character and are being robbed of time, energy and focus on our students to fend off book challenges.

I’m angry that a small group of community members are being led to believe our public school libraries are where students are being “provided pornography,” when an entire universe of explicit and horrific material can be explored on the cell phones in their pockets that their parents provide, ironically, to try to keep them safe.

I’m angry that a parent from outside our district is the orchestrator of all this, and that it also has robbed our Lowell Police Department of time, energy and focus on our community that she tried to submit false charges against our Board of Education. That when she did not get the response she hoped for, she badmouthed a Lowell officer online, then went to the Kent County prosecutor and was told, again, that there is no ‘there’ there.

Our LAS Board members are our neighbors. They are people we have known for years, often generations. They sit next to us in church and at local restaurants. They volunteer on our children’s sports teams and in our community. They are people we have voted for to lead our district in setting policy, guide spending and shape our young people into critical thinkers and empathetic citizens of the world.

I’m tired of the nonsense, and I’m angry all this time, energy and focus has been spent attacking our school district. No ONE parent has the right to dictate what YOUR children can read. Any district parent can provide their school with a list of books they do not want their own children to check out. That’s it; that is literally all it takes.

We have several real challenges in Greater Lowell: the cost of food and the scarcity of housing; the quality of our water, roads and infrastructure; the ever-present need for constructive participation of adult community members in our schools; and the fact that children are far more likely to be blown to pieces by someone with a gun than corrupted for life by a word or image they might come across at school. Every one of us should rally around those real challenges.

Morgan Jarema
Vergennes Township

Editor’s note: This letter makes reference to a police report filed by an LAS parent regarding “crimes committed on Monday, May 8, 2023 at the Lowell Board of Education meeting.” The parent alleges that by accepting the recommendation of a book challenge committee, board members are criminally guilty of disseminating sexually explicit material to minors. Using a Freedom of Information Act request, Lowell’s First Look verified the existence of the police complaint and Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker’s response that this is not a criminal matter.