Let's not make same mistakes with school district again

When I learned that former Superintendent Frank Baker was elected to the Sumter School Board, I was amazed that the voters of Sumter had chosen to put the fox back in the hen house, since Dr. Baker was in charge when we had the $6.2 million shortfall. Now that Interim Superintendent Debbie Hamm along with the former school board and advisory members have dug us out of that hole and currently have a $10 million plus surplus, Dr. Baker wants to eliminate any input by business and community leaders into the schools' finances. If he and the finance committee at the time were capable of managing the finances we would not have had the shortfall in the first place.

Rev. Ralph Canty and Greg Thompson each had an article in The Sumter Item explaining the benefit of closing Mayewood Middle School for the good of the school district as a whole. More recently Mayor Joe McElveen and James T. McCain Jr. had a joint article in The Sumter Item supporting the Mayewood closure and the advisory committee.

We have had enough problems with our school district over the past decade, and now that things are going in the right direction, let's don't mess up by making the same mistakes again. Dr. Baker needs to go.

ROBERT W. WILDER

Sumter