Mailbag:

Regarding “‘Caged’ not monitored well,” Community Commentary, March 25:

John Briscoe is an embarrassment, both to the Ocean View School District, where he serves on the Board of Trustees, and also to the broader community.

At a time when our schools are facing unprecedented fiscal challenges, resulting in larger class sizes, elimination of music and arts programs and teacher layoffs, as well as increased high-stakes testing at the state and national level, what holds his attention?

The fact that two middle school libraries have copies of Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” (available for check-out by eighth-graders with parental permission).

Briscoe also plays fast and loose with the facts, claiming that “a member of the community” stood and read excerpts from the book at an Ocean View board meeting.

This was Judy Ahrens, a deposed school board member from Westminster with a history of injecting her personal religious views into public policy questions.

She is indeed “a member of the community,” just not ours.

Briscoe seems to thrive on attention, whether by placing full-page ads in the PennySaver, addressing numerous city councils and school boards (along with Ahrens) about his pet issues, erecting campaign signs before being legally allowed to do so, running for the high school board of trustees when he already sits on the Ocean View board, or costing Ocean View thousands of dollars to research his inquiries.

He gets his attention, unfortunately, to the detriment of the school district he purportedly represents.

Rather than tackle the tough educational issues in concert with the board members, he’d rather focus on banning books. Oh, that’s right, and attract even more attention to himself.

DAN SHEPARD

Huntington Beach