Blowing smoke Blowing smoke ADVERTISING In the April 12 Tribune-Herald, Council Chairman Dominic Yagong advised that he was drafting an ordinance to prevent trucking our East Hawaii trash to West Hawaii. This followed my letter regarding burning the trash for
Blowing smoke
In the April 12 Tribune-Herald, Council Chairman Dominic Yagong advised that he was drafting an ordinance to prevent trucking our East Hawaii trash to West Hawaii. This followed my letter regarding burning the trash for electricity.
He indicated that he was against trucking the trash, yet he approved a pilot program to do just that. And he was well aware that the county had been trucking trash for over a month already.
Mr. Yagong wants to be your mayor. So the question is, do we want a mayor that speaks out of both sides of his mouth? Do we want a mayor who says he’s against something but has already approved that which he is against?
We live on an island. We have only so much land, which should be used for useful purposes, and not for the purpose of dumping garbage. The only logical solution to our trash is to burn it into electricity. Everyone says, “go green,” and lessen our need for oil. HELCO burns oil. Burning our trash in a clean incinerator would reduce the amount of oil we use, so why is it so hard for our council to understand that making more landfills is not the solution?
John Gallipeau
Honomu
Teacher evaluations
The Tribune-Herald headline article on April 6, “Legislation angers teachers,” had a misleading subheading. The subheading states, “Bill would delay tenure, allow the DOE to set up evaluation system.”
To correct any misconceptions, the DOE already has an evaluation system. Quote: “The Professional Evaluation Program for Teachers (PET-T) is a process for evaluating and rating the performance of teachers. The PEP-T serves these major purposes: (1) to evaluate teacher effectiveness on a continuous basis and (2) to provide ratings for temporary, probationary and tenured teachers in public schools on a regular, specific schedule.”
As to the effectiveness of the rating system, that depends on the rigor and scrutiny by the administrator to the evaluation. An administrator can also place a teacher on an evaluation cycle at any time, if it is deemed necessary.
To make your subheading accurate, it should read: DOE wishes to set up an enhanced teacher evaluation system which will allow it to get federal monies.
As for teachers’ anger: We are not angry about evaluations. We already are evaluated, as well as undergo regular classroom observations. We are angry about having our right to collective bargaining disregarded, and our pay potentially tied to a rating system, when many of the factors of students’ success may be out of our control (family situation, readiness for learning, etc.)
Robin Miller
Hilo
