One who spares his staff hates his child. What staff was King Solomon talking about? A staff is solid and doesn't change. A staff is used for support on one's way. For parenting rules to successfully show our children that we are trying to build them in ways that are good for them, the rules must be solid and consistent; they must support the growth of the children on their paths, and protect the needs of the parents. The staff is the "measuring stick" that the parent can use to show the child that there are realities, principles that obligate us all. What does this have to do with education you might ask? Everything! Raising my first child in the “Timeout” era I have personally found that this doesn’t truly help a child to realize what they have done wrong. It was just a time for them to sit down and wait until a timer went off, then after that it was time to play again. Most parents these days do not explain to their children the reasons they are being put in “timeout”, so no lesson has been learned. By no means am I promoting beating your child, but as a parent we must all teach our children wrong from right and give them an explanation of the reasons they are being punished. By doing this as your child grows older and enters into school they have a concept of what is good behavior, and what is bad. I was always told as a child that it takes a village to raise a child, and I never understood until I had children what this means. It takes a community working together this being parents first, and teachers second. Without these two in our children’s lives working together discipline in the school system fails. I believe that the discipline in the school district has been failing for many years. Kids can basically get away with anything because the lack of support to our teachers from the administration. When you have children in a school that want to learn it makes for a healthier learning and teaching environment. You may be saying easier said than done right? But it can be done with the proper support system. For example Longview high school has a great vocational system for student available to them why not take these kids that don’t care to be in class and cause problems for other children trying to learn, and teach them a vocation so that when they do leave they have a trade to be able to go into the workforce and be able to use the knowledge they have learned to better themselves in life. Longview high school has all of these programs available, but I do not believe they are being used to the fullest extent, and this failure is due to our current administration not being more proactive with this issue and supporting our educators. I have received many letters from teachers and discipline of the students is one of the bigger issues I have seen. Principals not wanting to correct our children, because it’s “Not in my pay grade”. When a child sees that they can get away with this behavior the school starts being run by the kids, and eventually spirals out of control, resulting in teachers fearing for their safety, teachers quitting, and a high turnover rate. If you do not take care of the staff the education of our children suffer. Let us as a community take back our district vote the correct people to the board, and get the right people as principles, and correct the discipline issues in our district. Instead of a board “rubber stamping” people into positions they have no need being in find the person that is best for the position. Saying all these things, I believe we have the systems in place to do this, but it is not being done correctly. As a member of the LISD community, and a parent of children in the district I believe with the help of parents, teachers, and staff in the district that we can sit-down as adults and tackle each problem one at a time and FIX our broken district. I want my children to be proud of the school they attend, and I want to be proud to say my children got the best education from one of the best districts in Texas. The road is long with many obstacles along the way, but we as a group can make a difference in our children’s life. Thank You All, Jason Bates