Letter: Dietz has children in Weston schools

I commend both Adam Newman and Steve Dietz for running for School Committee. Having served for 12 years on the School Committee, I can attest that it is a labor of love for the community. While much has changed since I served, some things remain at the very essence of the job.

Undoubtedly, as a member of the School Committee, one is faced with tough decisions. Each Committee Member will need to balance the pressures of the eternal calls to trim the budget against the realities of maintaining a quality workforce for children with different, sometimes special, needs. While it is by no means a prerequisite to have children in the public schools while serving, it does serve community cohesiveness if you are enduring the same cuts, improvements, or changes that you are asking others to bear.

Of course, it is the whole community bearing the burden of taxes. However, it is that shared experience of educating your own children in the same schools, on the same buses and in the same concerts and on the same playing fields that invites community trust in the process. While one can never please all stakeholders, a Committee Member with public school children is, I feel, best positioned to gain the confidence of those many families, past, present and future, who directly participate or participated in public education. Additionally, when seated across the table during union negotiations, the mutual respect between a parent of a student and the teachers and staff overseeing those same children is often a critical component for productive dialogue.

I find it most satisfactory that one candidate, Steve Dietz, has his children in the Weston Public School at every level. If elected, Steve Dietz will, I think, best be able to say: I am not asking more from you than I am willing to give myself. That goes a long way.

Robert Anthony Nolan (“Tony”), Boston Post Road