LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Mental health care needs attention
1/6/2014Thanks for your Dec. 26 editorial “Mental help” and recent articles in The Blade about state initiatives to improve the mental health system in Ohio. I hope readers don’t get the impression from such news items that all is now or soon is going to be well for mental health in our state.
The initiatives represent small amounts of money distributed across all Ohio counties. Lucas County will receive $134,000, according to your editorial, in the next fiscal year to pay for a case manager and medications for mentally ill patients coming out of jail. Yet your editorial says there is a range of 17 to 25 percent of mentally ill inmates.
A small beginning is better than nothing. The key is to keep working to improve a fragmented and dysfunctional mental health care system.
ROBERT RUDOLPH
Sagamore Road
Cats bigger threat than turbines
I agree with bird lovers that the wind turbines near Camp Perry may be ill placed (“Collateral damage,” editorial, Dec. 30). However, there is no accurate wind turbine kill count for populations of birds along that shoreline.
By far the biggest threat to wild bird populations, aside from insecticides, is free-roaming cats. The unseen enemy is killing more birds than the highly visible whirling blades of technology.
JACK SNYDER
Erie, Mich.
WWII research learning at its best
Thank you to Joe Boyle’s Scott High School class and the rest of the students in Toledo Public Schools for their research on local men who were killed in World War II (“Honors class looks at 1940s peers; Tributes to servicemen killed in WWII hit home,” Dec. 21). I had both parents, an aunt, uncles, and a grandfather serve in that war.
Unfortunately, we are in an era where teachers only teach to tests. Students are drilled day in and day out to prepare for achievement tests given once a year.
It was an amazing project and experience for these students to learn more about the great war, and the men who made the ultimate sacrifice. By making this research personal, Mr. Boyle has achieved his goal.
Classrooms need to return to this type of meaningful learning.
CHERI KAINTZ
Provincetowne Drive
Scott students saluted for study
I commend Scott High School students for the work they did researching men who were killed in World War II.
I salute teacher Joe Boyle for his assignment, which makes us realize that brave men are everywhere when they are called upon. Thank God for our free country.
JO MIZER
Barstow Avenue