Dear Editor,
I'm writing to comment on a few big issues I've been reading about in the Times. First about addiction, I give a lot of credit to the Times and all the officials for finally realizing and talking about the epidemic of addiction in Warren County. I've been infront of the court twice in Warren County and never received a drug and alcohol evaluation when clearly addiction was a huge factor of why I was there. Let's hope Warren County actually tries to help fight addiction and understand it. Let's not forget to mention what addiction does to others besides the addict! It ruins families, causes pain to love ones; everyone suffers when it comes to addiction, not just the addict.
Now education and the WCSD. Citizens of Warren County, it's been said that if you don't have a strong commitment to education, then you need to have a strong commitment to incarceration. Pennsylvania's government has UNDER funded, to a significant extent, both basic and higher education in Pa. while continuing to build prisons. Injustice becomes clear when our state and the people we elect, choose to spend more on prisons then it does on our schools. If the state spent more on educating our youth we wouldn't need more prisons. Gov. Tom Corbett cut education by millions of dollars this year, but increased the D.O.C's "Department of Corrections" budget by millions. Pennsylvania's youth is the key to our future. Kids are most important, not building more prisons. Warren County's fight is in Harrisburg, not with the WCSD. Educate our children, build schools, not prisons.
Thank you,
Jason L. Wilson
Huntingdon
P.S. The teachers in our state are underpaid compared to other states, that being said I encourage anyone reading this to look into the "Right to Know" act. Review some if not all of the public officials salaries in our county. You'll be shocked at what you find! And I don't see anyone offering to take a pay cut to help where it's needed the most. EDUCATION!