To the editor,

This is to the parents of schoolchildren of the Wareham School District. You have probably heard through rumor the situation that is going on in your school system: the new superintendent's agenda going after the custodians.

They are being threatened with privatization, a means in which half of them will be let go and the rest will be assigned to the high school and middle school.

This attack on them is disgraceful and demeaning. As a retired custodian I know and worked with these people and I am taking this personal. I'm calling the superintendent out - this is an action that is self-serving and divisive and a very reckless use of authority. The custodians requested she come to a meeting to have some kind of dialogue and she refuses.

This to me smells of union busting. Right now it is mind games and madness thought up by this administration. These men and women are the very core of the school system. They are responsible for the air quality and overall security of the building, the cleanliness of the building and the cleaning of bodily fluids when a student falls ill. They care very much for what they do and take pride in their work so your child can come into a clean and sanitary building each morning.

This plan of privatization perpetrated by this superintendent in my view is tantamount to throwing a drowning man both ends of the rope.

You know what they say, we do stupid things to save money. If this so-called plan is allowed to proceed there will be unknowns cleaning this building, strangers among the young people, your children, and uncertainty.

I am also wondering if these replacements will have a CORI (Criminal Offender Record Information) or be fingerprinted.

I want to request the superintendent and upper echelon administrators to take a pay cut to set an example we all must sacrifice for the common good. My feathers have been ruffled. This is all for now, more later.

Arthur Sandland
Retired Custodian