“Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive!” – Sir Walter Scott.

Lane/Tommy: The talk of Windham and other communities is the alleged dispatch of a school bus after the driver supposedly stated that he/she was suicidal. Let us state the driver is not the problem. The dispatcher should have sought immediate medical attention instead of dispatching the bus driver.

The answer from the Windham School Department was pretty much the same as the $5,000 that was overpaid on bus parts and the auctioning of school buses with the lettering of the Windham School Department left intact, instead of being removed or painted over so as not to give pedophiles a perfect opportunity to gather many children.

Remember that old baseball saying of three strikes and you’re out? It is time to clean house in the Windham School Department.

Lane: I firmly believe that it is time to hire an outside consulting firm to find out why the Windham School Department has had failures of accountability. Yes, this costs money but it is already obvious that the Windham School Department is wasting money like the sudden $500,000 surplus of this year’s budget that was used to rebuild the school superintendent’s offices.

Are there even more hidden surpluses? Even worse, are there even more problems? I would say that the school transportation budget needs an in-depth audit done with a microscope.

Tommy: Lane mentioned auditing. A joint briefing done by an independent auditing firm shows we need a truly independent audit completed on our town government. What is obvious is that when we pay someone to tell us something about ourselves, aren’t we going to get what we paid for? Most audits show no or only minor problems so how could the Windham School Department have a sudden $500,000 surplus?

Lane/Tommy: The taxpayers of Windham need a better explanation other than the problem or process has been corrected and a new process has been implemented to ensure it doesn’t happen again. We would love to see a written explanation of all of these supposed corrective actions from the Windham School Department.

When the school department faces a dilemma its leaders seem to disappear faster than lightning. Corrective actions only seem to come when problems are addressed to the press. We demand, as well as deserve, an answer rather than an excuse. The problem is that we don’t even get an excuse until the problem is uncovered. This is poor leadership.

Here’s the definition of a cover-up. It’s an attempt to hide blunders or crimes. We also understand the workers of the Windham School Department were told not to speak to the press.

Lane: Just prior to sending this column to the editor, I received a telephone call that really shocked me. Evidently there is a rumor that some children of an elementary school believe that the bus driver went to jail. If, in fact, the police showed up to prevent the driver from driving, this is understandable. However, if true, shouldn’t the school department have gone into an immediate emergency counseling mode? If they did, it certainly was not mentioned in a press statement.

The first and foremost action that a person can take to prevent a suicide is not to leave the person alone and this did not happen at Windham’s bus garage. Rather the opposite may have happened, the driver was given a bus to drive. The Windham Superintendent of Schools was given almost a 10 percent pay raise last year. I personally hold him responsible and I believe that he should be removed from office without further pay and benefits.

Lane and Tommy of Windham believe that the readers should know the Windham School Department Web site shows bus routes and stops. Although this information is valuable to parents, they feel it gives a pedophile instant access to where children live.