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Post Independent
Glenwood Springs, CO Colorado

On March 18, the GSPI published a letter from Mr. Carl McWilliams of Silt questioning Ursa’s water usage and the legal basis therefore.

Ursa has secured a water supply for all of its operations that is entirely consistent with Colorado law.

The water is owned by the state of Colorado, not Garfield County, and Ursa’s operations will result in injury to no person as a result of the operation of water law that governs the state of Colorado.



There is no basis to criticize the Garfield County commissioners for Ursa’s water resources.

Scott Balcomb



Glenwood Springs

It’s hard to imagine Michelle Obama topping her last $540 sneakers at a Food Bank/”Let them eat cake” stunt as reported in The Guardian UK:

“Michelle Obama is not stopping, however, she is just shifting her focus onto the ‘move’ part of Let’s Move. The program is expanding into the self-explanatory ‘Let’s Move! Active Schools’ with a $50M subsidy from Nike.”

“We have to get creative,” she said via online video, “regardless of resources.”

She advocated dancing indoors, when it’s not safe to play outside. She told a group of third-graders who video chatted in from Maine (all interactions took place by video chat) that they should play outside in the snow on snowy days.

“Go outside, roll in the snow, roll down some hills, have a snowball fight,” she said.

“My family – we like to ski,” she added as an afterthought.

And yet, she manages.

Lee Mulcahy

Aspen

As a taxpayer, parent and grandparent, I need to know more about the Expeditionary Learning program, also known as Common Core, about to be rushed into Glenwood Elementary School. After researching Common Core (EL) I have many unanswered questions.

Parental involvement seems to be centered around helping the teacher implement the program. Where is the direct local involvement of what our children will learn?

Many field trips are involved in Common Core, a good thing for hands-on-learning, yet I don’t see any references as to when children actually sit down and learn a subject, such as, science, arithmetic, mathematics, phonics and reading of classical literature necessary for a well-rounded education. You have to be proficient in subjects before you can actually go into the community and put your knowledge to use and going into the community seems to be what this program revolves around. Studying water for a whole school year, like one Common Core school did, and then going into the community to test water to find poisons in wells is best left to our experts who have college educations specializing in this area.

There are many superlatives being written by those trying to bring Common Core to our schools across the nation but I think there needs to be a discussion on the textbooks used, at what grade level they are used and what grade level students are expected to be proficient in a subject. I actually read on a Common Core information site that some schools use technical manuals and government documents rather than textbooks.

In conclusion, we seem to have an excellent school system already in place in Garfield County. Just look at the award-winning Glenwood Springs High School. Common Core will cost our community $65,000 a year for three years to implement and about $20,000 a year thereafter. Why are we jumping into a relatively unknown program to supposedly fix that which is not broken?

Gail Hartop

Silt


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