To the editor:

Are you fed up with the School Board rules that take away your parental rights? I am.

I am on my last child in the system and have had enough of the nonsense that I am not smart enough to parent my child.

I understand there are parents who don’t care what their children do or where they are. But don’t make rules covering me and mine because of them.

The Suffolk schools’ administrative staffs need to start earning their pay. They should quit making blanket rules so they don’t have to be the bad guy and make a parent mad. Administrators are paid to be problem-solvers, not problem creators.

They should deal with each child and family independently. Administrators hold all the records, they know the problem children and the problem parents, and they should deal with them accordingly.

Parents who voice their opinions are not always the enemy. Some have well thought-out positions that administrators may disagree with. But that does not necessarily make them wrong.

I am a very active parent and resent when the school system doesn’t respect my rights as a parent. For example, why do I have to ask the doctor for a note saying my child saw them? Apparently, my word as an adult and her parent is not good enough.

As another example, I can’t as a responsible adult send unopened Midol or any other over-the-counter medicine to the nurse’s office for my child’s use without a doctor’s prescription. Instead, we have to defy the rules, risking expulsion, by telling our children to hide the medicine or we have to remove the child, giving the pills off school property and disrupting the whole schedule.

If you feel as I do call and write to your board members. (They all work for us.) If enough of us do so, maybe we can retrieve some of our rights as parents from the school district.

Their job is to teach my child and keep her from harm while in their care. Nothing else. It’s my job to raise her and keep her as safe as I can until adulthood.

Steve Omtvedt

Suffolk