Letters To the Editor

City's Schools Uninspired

I taught in the Manassas city school system at Osbourn High School for 12 years. I left the school system at the end of the 2004-05 school year, along with several other teachers I had worked with for more than five years. Where did we go? You might imagine we left for high-paying corporate or government jobs. Instead, we are still teaching, some of us for less money, in Prince William, Loudoun and Fairfax counties.

Part of the reason we left was exactly what The Post reported: a lack of inspiration from the Manassas school system's leadership.

I applauded the School Board's decision to fire Superintendent Chip Zullinger. The Post reported that Zullinger claimed to have visited four to six (of only seven!) schools a week. Well, my classroom overlooked the main hallway and main office, and I certainly did not see Mr. Zullinger at Osbourn once every week or two.

In fact, at a back-to-school night two years ago, I approached him in the hallway to offer assistance in finding a classroom. He looked like a lost parent. Another teacher had the same experience elsewhere in the building that evening. At that time I realized how little we knew about our superintendent and how little we saw him. (Yet his office is just across the street from Osbourn.)

During the all-district faculty meeting before school two years ago, he was the final speaker. He started his comments by stating that his staff was making him talk to us. Is that inspirational? Only if you are looking for reasons to leave. So I did. My only regret is that things are probably looking better now that he has left.

Leslie Jones

Manassas

Taking Credit Not Due

The epitome of hypocrisy arrived in my mailbox Tuesday! It was a four-color brochure extolling the virtues of Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William) in meeting the transportation needs in our area.

Surely this can't be the same Mr. Marshall who voted no on the recent bipartisan tax increase enacted by the General Assembly to keep Virginia solvent and its highly valued triple-A bond rating. Surely this can't be the Del. Marshall who has offered little or no leadership in meeting the fiscal needs of the state. Surely this must be the same Mr. Marshall whose main mission in Richmond has been to attempt to write Catholic dogma concerning abortion into state law. That, of course, would mandate that every woman of childbearing age in Virginia would have to follow the dictates of the Vatican concerning her own body!

His brochure is cleverly presented. It features four-color photographs of transportation work in action, as if he had anything to do with any of it. The accompanying letter features such phrases as "we directed" and "we designated" such and such. What he is saying, however, is the General Assembly enacted the enabling road legislation. The record clearly shows that Del. Marshall voted no on the GOP-Democrat-sponsored tax increase and appropriations measure that provides the money to make such road work possible!