To the editor:

Adrian Melott said in a March 17 letter that he would vote “no” on the school bond issue because the school board has, in the past, closed some neighborhood schools and weakened the high school science requirement for graduation. Professor Melott’s threatened “no” vote is puzzling.

First, the bond issue is completely irrelevant to school closings, past, present or future. Second, the bond issue would improve high school science education, most obviously, by replacing 40-year-old science labs at Lawrence High School. Third, the bond issue would help students in a great many ways: by replacing “portable” classrooms, by minimizing overcrowding, by improving safety and security, by increasing computer access and so on.

Society, science and technology are changing, and schools must change, too, if Lawrence children are to be kept safe and prepared for their responsibilities. I hope Professor Melott can come to focus more on children’s futures than on policy decisions that are over and done with.

T. John Rosen,

Lawrence