TO THE EDITOR:
Education is important to me as an N.C. tax payer. If education is important to you, read The Daily Tar Heel article from Sept. 26 “Housekeeping alleviates language barrier.”
Here are a few things one can learn: We taxpayers are paying for interpreters to attend UNC housekeeping meetings or functions, we are paying an agency that provides written and in-person translation services, language classes are offered to employees for several months at a time, and the administration plans to invest in opportunities through Rosetta Stone.
And get this: Language classes are complimentary to employees and offered during work hours. Yes, during work hours, during hours when the employees are being paid to be on the job.
In short, housekeepers are being paid to learn English. I suspect there are many other N.C. employees who would gladly choose to participate, during their work hours, in such an opportunity to learn a new language for free.
While I support education, I am disturbed by how our precious revenues are being spent.
Recent N.C. budget cuts prompted House Minority Leader Joe Hackney to call the cuts to education “devastating,” with the money lost equivalent to salaries for 3,400 teachers, according to a June article in The (Raleigh) News & Observer.
The complimentary language instruction to housekeepers should be offered fully “complimentary” — volunteer teachers giving free lessons during free time.
I appreciate the UNC housekeeping administration trying to make sure everyone understands what’s being communicated. I hope all the North Carolina tax payers are listening and learning.
