Purpose of Blog

(update 4/27)
This blog was created for 2 main reasons:

1. To serve as an outlet for civil discourse among parents, adminstrators, employee and others at WLM who are concerned about the children in the wake of the fire and management of the complex decisions that followed.
2. To make these "issues" public and viewable by those professionals who are charged with making many of the difficult decisions that affect our children.

It is time to declare this a success! We have been impressed and grateful to the many parents and employees of WLM who were able to use this outlet in a mature way to share their concerns, post needed information and clarify inaccuracies. We are satisfied that the opinions/concerned have been heard and are being legitimately considered. It appears that the efforts of those who thoughtfully participated will lead to improvements in many places that will benefit our children and future interactions with school administrators.

Personally we would like to thank our friends and acquaitances who supported us. We anticipated taking much more grief from those who would begrudge parents their right to voice concerns about their precious children. I am glad to say very little of this ocurred. Instead we were supported even by those that may have had their lives complicated by this "blog".

We would like to specifically recognize the many posters who did literally hours of work to make sure others had the latest information. Whatever your notions of those who participated on this blog, these posters should be thanked for their dedication. They are contributors, not bystanders and they make WLM and the Mansfield Community a better place for us and our children.

We will leave those most informative posts up for the time being. At this point, this blog can serve as a source of specific information should people want to use it that way. If you wish to share any new information that you believe is relevant you can post it, but it will be delayed pending email review.

Thank you. Francis and Kathleen Craig

FYI: A downloadable file of many of the questions that were raised is available under the "Collected Questions" link in the upper left hand corner of the blog site. I know I probably missed a few questions. I will try to update this later and post a final summary of themes emerging from this week.

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click on the "comments" link at the bottom to post.
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(update 4/27)
Also I want to direct your attention to some recent informative posts by Rob Wolbert and Darice Baker regarding recent communications with adminstrators and health officials.
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(update 4/26)
REMINDER: This blog is NOT for anonymously venting, bashing or alarmist writing. It was put up as a place for civil discourse and clarification. PERIOD. I again encourage you to sign your name as my wife and I have done.

I know some folks maybe confused, saddened, conflicted or angry. Please share your concerns and questions, NOT your character assessment of teachers, parents adminstrators etc. Getting personal takes away from from any authority this board may be granted as a place to review legitimate questions/concerns of those that care about the children and employees of WLM.

The school is well aware of this blog now and if you are open in your concerns/questions you are may to receive an answer. (for example, see Ms. Dutchess's comments today, and my posts regarding the HEPA filter and Air & Soil Testing).

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(update 4/25)
TEST RESULTS AVAILABLE TO PUBLIC: The school has made available copies of all the air and soil sample results for parents or interested others. You can pick them up in the main office. They are on the table with the sign in/sign out binders.

HEPA FILTERS: From our conversation with Ms. Sargent today, we were told the HEPA filters were brought back today because quite a few people voiced concern over the absence (including myself). While the air quality inspector does not believe them to be necessary right now (personal conversation), for many people they would rather have them running just in case
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(update 4/24)
Let me say this first since we have to make the first leap of faith and post... Kathleen and I deeply appreciate all that has been done for our children at WLM. We have tried to give more than we take from WLM and we believe that we have been pretty good about that. Our children love WLM and were very unhappy with us today when we explained that they would not be attending this morning because we felt unconvinced that decisions were being made in which their health was the single overriding concern of adminstrators, especially Dr. Kalata . We are not eager to make anybody's "naughty list", nor is anyone at WLM on ours. We are interested in our children's health first and the quality of our community of which WLM members are so important. Only toward these ends was this blog was opened.
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