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A Modest Proposal for Ramona Unified School District & the Citizens of Ramona

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By Dr. Jane Tanaka and Greg Chick

Loyal and Forthright Ramonans

Given the current state of hopelessness and despair, since the demise of Proposition R in the November 2012 election; Ramona Unified School District with its leaking roofs ready to collapse; its school buildings being held together by tenacious termites linking arms; its tattered textbooks it cannot afford to replace; with certain citizens ready to throw moldy melons at our district superintendent’s back; with its teachers’ union president forewarning that Ramona will turn into a “town of only old people” if its teachers are forced to take a 10 percent pay cut; and given that even the most patriotic “teatotalers” of Ramona are ready to toss the school district to the school czars of State of California due to impending insolvency from its $34 million mortgage debt, we most humbly and modestly propose the following:

FOR THE GOOD OF RAMONA, THE CHILDREN OF RAMONA DO NOT NEED TO BE EDUCATED.

We are told by a most respected despot of a third world nation, who shall remain anonymous, that children in his country are doing very well without an education. Of course, it keeps the poor working class in their place, especially if they are unable to read or write and unable to organize to overthrow the government. More importantly, children of Ramona would also be able to fulfill their original filial purpose on Earth, to support their parents and grandparents by going to work at the age of 5 or 6 years. This is all is made possible if they don’t go to school.

If they cannot find jobs in industry, sales or other traditional trades, they can become young soldiers, trained by drug militia, as they do in certain other countries, and serve us proudly in this way. There is certainly enough heroin, cocaine, crystal meth and cannabis in Ramona to protect, so it is certain that our children will not want for employment.

Ramona, protected from the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) by its young militia, would become a mecca not only for all in San Diego who have medical marijuana cards, but also those San Diegans who do not wish to risk traveling to Tijuana, or find it distasteful to carry balloons of heroin in their anal cavities across the U.S.-Mexico border. The former administrators, teachers and staff of Ramona Unified School District could become officers in this militia, and would have much more generous salaries, benefits and pensions than they have now.

The RUSD administration buildings and school campuses, no longer needed as schools for children, could be bought by the nouveau-riche of Ramona; and this would aid the ailing real estate industry of our town. The football and softball fields of Ramona, which require too much water to irrigate in our Valley of the Sun, could instead grow cannabis, a much more drought-tolerant crop than turf grass. Ramona could then honor its $34 million debt via profits from sales from these crops in a year or two, with less interest accrued than if the 55% of voters of Ramona had approved Proposition R.

The newest former schools, which are still in excellent condition, could then be refashioned into Drug Depot Centers, which could employ the parents, who would no longer have to travel so many miles to work down the hill. These savings in petroleum and time will then further benefit the now happy and content families of Ramona who no longer have financial strife. Families in Ramona could spend more quality time together, and also parents could retire early.

Ramona could then finally be financially self-sufficient enough to secede from the county, state and union, and have its own government, make its own laws. Most importantly, we the citizens of Ramona could finally snub our noses at our poorer cousins who live in Poway, Rancho Santa Fe, and La Jolla.

We have thoroughly researched the plausibility of this proposal, and are fairly certain that no Ramonan has a better solution to RUSD’s hopeless plight. We are certain that Ramonans will support this proposal because it does not increase their property taxes by even a mere dollar per day, for the next 20 years; nor does this proposal coerce Ramona adults into volunteering at their children’s or grandchildren’s classrooms.

It will most certainly not violate any union rules or risk liability by having community volunteers come in to repair school structures either. After all, it is far more important that we Ramonans stand by our principles! Above all, we Ramonans MUST NOT enable the school district administrators and board members, who UNFORGIVABLY built two new elementary schools during a time of declining enrollment, by giving them any of our hard-earned Ramona dollars, in response to their pathetic pleas for another school bond measure, even if they should ask for $34 million instead of $66 million.

(A Modest Proposal for RUSD and the Citizens of Ramona is the opinion of the writers, who are Ramona residents. Any resemblance in content to A Modest Proposal by Mr. Jonathan Swift are purely plagiarized and purposeful.)

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