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Sheltering homeless
at river a dangerous plan
Regarding Ragan Henninger and housing the homeless along Guadalupe River (“S.J. may house homeless along Guadalupe River,” Page A1, Feb. 16 ), the homeless must never be allowed to camp near any streams, period. This is what created the environmental disaster in the first place. I go there nearly every day. I have seen campers literally bathing in Guadalupe River, with soap. I was taught as a backpacker never, ever, to do this. Why do we tolerate it in our city?
The homeless should be humanely put up in tiny homes or tents between Hedding and Taylor, where there is a plenty of level ground and services are available.
No families will ever return to Guadalupe. River and Park until the homeless are moved. Even then, it will take years of effort to remove all the accumulated trash. Our city deserves better. We deserve better. The homeless deserve better.
Robert Wahler
San Jose
Tech firms may want
to rethink Texas plans
Hey Silicon Valley tech companies. Come on down to Texas where there is no fuel, electricity, or water.
Larry Stone
Sunnyvale
Pressure government
to vaccinate teachers
There is a ton of talk about opening schools for in-person instruction while the pandemic is widespread in our community and new, more contagious, variants are showing up. If people want schools opened up, then the pressure needs to be on the government to get vaccines into the arms of teachers. The government could do this quickly if schools were really a priority.
Any path to bringing students back to campuses will also require implementing multi-layered mitigation strategies that consider community conditions and include robust cleaning and updated ventilation systems, asymptomatic testing of students and school employees, six-feet social distancing and enforcement.
It is time to put pressure on Santa Clara County and state to make vaccines available for teachers and put safety measures into place. There is no acceptable number of school employee deaths. Anything less than fully vaccinating teachers is immoral if you want to reopen schools.
Robert Prola
Teacher
San Jose
Put education ahead
of COVID politics
With all due respect to Joseph Di Salvo, board member of the Santa Clara County Office of Education, he knows not of what he speaks (“Teachers need vaccinations for schools to reopen safely,” Page A6, Feb. 17).
For him to countenance the notion that he knows more about science than the CDC Director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, is preposterous. What he most certainly understands, however, is the enormous power of the public teachers’ unions and the need to keep them politically appeased.
Numerous private and parochial schools around the state have been reopened for months without teachers having been vaccinated and have done so safely and without any noticeable uptick in COVID cases or transmission rates. Clearly, these schools have embraced the science and have put the education of their students well ahead of COVID politics. Di Salvo should abandon his nonsensical rhetoric and support the re-opening of public schools. Now.
Nick Cochran
San Jose
Changing test evaluation
would ease student stress
Ask high school students what’s on their mind, the answer is often “The in-class test next week.”
I’ve been bouncing around the topic of “testing” in my head for a while and there is a simple solution to take the stress away from test-taking: Teachers can consider giving qualitative feedback instead of giving their students points. This way, no one fails, no one is average, and no one is absolutely correct (especially for the humanities classes).
For those who need improvement, their efforts are acknowledged and they are given opportunities to continue making progress on their work. For those who are doing a great job, they can seek to perfect their work.
Giving students feedback is a much more efficient way for them to recognize their mistakes and fix them, without fear or being discouraged.
Kelly Mou
Palo Alto
Column seeking Biden
apology is disingenuous
Marc A. Thiessen’s Sunday, Feb. 14 column (“Capitol Police deserve apology from president, Page A13) requests President Biden apologize to the Capitol Police. It is in the 12th and last paragraph of the column that Thiessen writes, “Let’s be clear: Donald Trump is responsible for what happened in the Capitol that day.”
Thiessen never asks Trump to apologize to the Capitol Police and the nation in response to the insurrection at the Capitol. Thiessen knows that Trump never apologies for his actions. That is why Thiessen’s article is both cynical and disingenuous.
Phillip Doppelt
San Jose
