. . .The Department of Education distorts the true image of Richmond High School with its one trick report card.

My name is Fred Browne. I am a Richmond resident and a substitute teacher within RSD 2 where I have been “subbing” for four years; long enough to see the present senior class progress through the high school years and transform from young freshman students into mature seniors about to bid farewell to the nurturing and formative four years that have formed them.

I take great exception to the entire process of the Department of Education “report card.” I have worked with the faculty and the administration at Richmond in my duties and am nothing less than impressed with the commitment of each and every teacher in the school to reaching out to the students and equipping them with the educational tools they will need to take their next step into a world that awaits them when they exit the school doors for a final time.

There are other components to the process of education of our young; it is an easy shot for a group of suits to blame schools, administrators, and teachers for failings, either actual or perceived. I have seen on a daily basis, the efforts of Steve Lavoie, principal, and Ryan Keith, assistant principal, paying off with positive results.

In my four years working there, it has been my personal privilege to come to know the students in the various grades; young men and women who have dreams, aspirations, questions and doubts, personal issues and problems. In a nutshell—they are people— like you and me!

Let us not seek to denigrate and disdain the work that is done; let us instead, seek to assist and reward the efforts of those who strive to succeed; find ways to bring together the community to bring support to our young adults who are also our future.

A quotation from a speech of Theodore Roosevelt seems fitting:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming. . .”

Frederic Browne
Richmond