And it continues...

I hope that the Portsmouth school system and the city of Portsmouth are embarrassed by their director of student services and her failure to do what she has been hired to do, SERVE the students. Here is another letter written to the editor that was printed in today's Herald.

City did not try hard enough to get interpreters
Aug. 12 — To the Editor:

I am writing in response to the articles written in the Aug. 11 and Aug. 12 Herald about the loss of the sign language interpreters at Portsmouth High School.

I am disgusted by what I have been reading these last few days. It does not appear to me that Portsmouth High School (my alma mater) and Ms. Hoeflich bent over backwards at all trying to help these kids. If the interpreters had only yearly contracts I would think that it would be safe to say that the school should be thinking ahead to the next year and going above and beyond to make sure that these children are secure until they graduate.

When they found out that an interpreter was leaving at the end of the school year, why in the world would the deadline to fill the position be the first week in June? The 2007-08 school year was not even over yet! Think they could have worked a little harder? These children's towns were paying for them to be here, they wanted to be here.

It seems pretty obvious to me that Sam Long and Chelsea Niles have been "children left behind." These children and their families came to the Portsmouth school system for assistance and when the director of "student services" found out that there was going to be a vacancy at the end of the school year, something more should have been done.

If a regular old job posting was not working to get someone for the position, then you (Ms. Hoeflich and the Portsmouth school system) get on the phone and try as hard as you can to find someone yourself! It should not matter what town these kids were coming from. They are children who need consistency in their schooling, and they need to stay where they are to keep that consistency!

I think Sarah Chase should get credit as someone who saw wrong information being put out by the school to the public and cared enough to say something about it! Ms. Chase has nothing to gain or lose in her letter to the editor. Good luck to Miss. Niles and Mr. Long, I am so sorry that the system has failed you.

Sarah (Thompson) Linnehan

Greenland