Editor:

I was happy, and at the same time got a reminder laugh, to read the statement of Northgate School Board’s Shirl Reinhart that a college visitation program costing “...a couple thousand dollars each year” faces possible elimination. (The Citizen, March 12).

Don’t like the word “possible.” I would strongly urge the continuing of good financial responsibility and scrap the “...or reduction of the trip...” consideration.

I am assuming that the trip’s purpose is to provide on-site familiarization with colleges and universities.The expenditure of one or two thousand dollars in a year’s time for such seems inconsequential given the “big picture.” However, I believe the program should be scrapped. Others, too. The vision that my portion of the school taxes might be what is paying for this doesn’t sit well with me. Maybe if some of the people who refuse to pay taxes would share, it might seem more equitable. But it amounts to a field trip, and it should be eliminated in light of the district’s finances.

Now what made me laugh was the reminder that after I was graduated from Bellevue High School, my first job was at Allegheny General Hospital in its record room. I couldn’t have loved that job more if I owned the place. All of a sudden at home, a month later, my mother stopped me on the stairway and told me that I was going to college. I was not an academics major in high school, I was a commercial student. I did not want to go to college. “Your dad wants you to go,” she said, “and you will be going.” I cried, right there on the steps. So every weekend this is how the on-site business went: My dad would drive us to the campus of one college or another. Sitting in the back seat, I would look out of the window, evaluate the building I saw, and nix them all. We hit every curb in front of every college in the western half of PA. I was not nice about the whole thing. My parents were totally patient. At the end of the surveys, I was told to make a decision. My girlfriend had gone to Westminster College the previous year so I reluctantly said I would go to Westminster. We went back to New Wilmington, walked in the door, walked up the steps to the administrator’s office, signed up, paid the money, got a room assignment, was told when to report in September, and then went to the Kaufmann House restaurant near Zelienople to cheer me up or calm me down -- whichever.

Not recommending this method. It wouldn’t work even if I did. What I do say is this: Dads and moms -- drive your children around in your own vehicle with your own gas with your own monies for the post-high school business. And with my thousands in school taxes, I will be helping to pay for the legitimate use of my taxes -- books, teachers, desks.

Virginia Miranda
Bellevue