Calling off school I’ve lived in Colorado since 1977, Monument more specifically. I went to school here through blizzards that dropped 12-18 inches overnight, through negative-20 wind chills, through days when the only thing getting us to school was a rusted-out Ram Charger with bald tires and a prayer. We didn’t have all-wheel-drive crossovers, remote start, or heated steering wheels. We had snow boots, garbage bags over our socks, and a collective understanding that winter happens and life doesn’t stop for it. Yet here we are, December 3, 2025, and it seems all of Colorado has called off school again. Every coffee shop is open. Amazon is still delivering. Construction crews are out. Hospitals are staffed. The guys who plow the streets were out at 1 a.m. This isn’t about safety anymore, it’s about convenience and fear of lawsuits. Never mind that those same kids will ride in the backseat of their parents’ cars on the same roads ten minutes later to get to daycare or the babysitter because Mom and Dad still have to work. The message we’re sending couldn’t be clearer. Your education is optional. It’s the one thing in society we’re willing to pause before everything else. Your parents’ jobs? Essential. Grocery stores? Essential. But the place where you’re supposed to learn how to think, read, argue, and become an adult? Eh, we’ll get to that tomorrow. Or next week. That’s insulting. It’s insulting to the kids who actually want to learn, to the teachers who show up ready to teach, and to every taxpayer who funds buildings that sit empty. We’re raising children who believe discomfort is danger and inconvenience is catastrophe. They watch the rest of the world soldier on while they’re told, yet again, that school can’t possibly function under anything less than ideal conditions. Well, I’m tired of it. I’m tired of watching my state, a state that once prided itself on Colorado Camp Hale mountain toughness and American grit, treat its children like fragile ornaments that might crack if exposed to a little cold air. Colorado kids are tougher than we give them credit for. Maybe it’s time we started acting like it. The kids need and deserve better, they deserve opportunity to overcome, they deserve a right to produce something, they deserve the pride in something that was difficult to accomplish. If we can’t stop robbing them of these experiences, then we are to blame for the outcome it will inevitably produce. Benjamin Burlinson Colorado Springs Legislation would be pointless As a dual citizen of the US and Australia, I am writing to express deep concern about the proposed legislation to force people with dual citizenship to choose between the two. My wife and I met through an exchange teaching program between Colorado and Australia in 1984. We have made commitments and built a life and family, including dual citizenships, that honors both our rich backgrounds and worlds. I do not see how this legislation will do anything to benefit the economy, the security, or the wellbeing of America. It is simplistic, symbolic, mean-spirited, and pointless. What productive outcomes will it achieve? I believe it is actually counterproductive. For one thing, it wastes valuable resources that could be used to deal with those who are here illegally. It penalizes people who have done the right thing and attained their US citizenship. It will be disruptive and stressful to individuals and families and to international businesses. It dishonors those in our military and foreign services who have married and built a family with someone from another country. I understand the desire to have those seeking public office declare their dual citizenships, but there is nothing to be gained by making millions of Americans symbolically reject part of the life they have built. America is built on and benefits from a rich diversity of backgrounds. This legislation diminishes and dishonors that strength by forcing an unnecessary and counterproductive choice. Pete Hokanson Manitou Springs Give the cattle guns Regarding The Gazette headline “Zoo panel on wolves focuses on solutions.” Karen Vardaman, executive director of Working Circle, said that the answer to wolves preying on a herd of cattle is to have the ranchers teach the cattle to withstand wolf pressure. As if the ranchers had time to teach the cattle to stay in a herd. I didn’t know that cattle were that smart? Maybe the ranchers can teach them to shoot a gun. Don Kusulas Colorado Springs What FDR thought about welfare Federally funded program like SNAP is what FDR warned us about when he said: “Continued dependence upon relief, induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. Yet government programs, being shallow and impersonal, tend to drift into handouts. They are like the superficial giver who drops a dollar into the beggar’s cup and walks on, feeling self-satisfied.” Sam Taylor Colorado Springs ...read more read less