Susan Newby, Managing Editor
The Southern Standard
105 College Street
McMinnville, TN 37110

Dear Editor Newby:

With the August election fast approaching, this might be a good time to remind candidates for the Warren County School Board and County Commission that parents in Warren County who choose to exercise their legal, constitutional, and moral rights to send their children to private schools or to educate them at home also pay taxes to support our local schools. They also vote in county elections. And these parents also have the right to expect that their children - insofar as they interact with the local school system - will be treated exactly the same as all other students and children without being subjected to discrimination.

The Tennessee Board of Regents, the Board of Trustees of the University of Tennessee, and the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) have taken steps to end discrimination against graduates of Christian schools at the post-secondary level. Perhaps the time has come for our local school board members to see that similar discrimination against students from Christian schools which in the past has occurred in our local high school comes to an end.

Yours,

Walter J. Clark