Learning is Not an Option

Here's a screen capture from a letter sent home with my nephew last October:

Here's a screen capture from a letter sent home with my niece, last week:

And here is an open letter to the principal of Camerado Springs Middle School:

Dear Ms. Enns,


Though I do not currently live within your school district, I am a concerned parent. Not just concerned for my own children, but for all children receiving public education.

It came to my attention some time ago that you have a “Solutions” program which is geared towards ensuring students are getting their homework done. This is a fine plan.

The problem is that I was shown a copy of the Solutions letter that students bring home to their parents. A letter that states, “At Camerado Springs Middle School we believe that learning is not an option.”

Excuse me as I pause to restate: “Learning is not an option.”

When it’s said that something is “not an option” what is implied is that there are other options, but such-and-such is not one of them. Here are some examples:

• Failure is not an option.
• Skipping your bath is not an option.
• Texting while driving is not an option.

Nobody I know who speaks English as a native language would ever confuse any of the above statements as meaning:

• Failure is a must.
• Skipping your bath is a must.
• Texting while driving is a must.

And yet, the faculty of your school would have parents believe that “learning is not an option” means “learning is a must,” in defiance to conventional English as shown above. Should parents not expect a school - entrusted with providing a solid education to their children - to be capable of making the subtle, yet powerful, distinction between “not an option” and “not optional?”

It is a simple enough mistake, and therefore easily overlooked, and easily allowed to slide. Fortunately it is also easy to correct. I would not be writing this email, if not for the fact that this particular problem was brought to my attention by a parent of a child at your school about a year ago. This parent contacted the school at that time and discussed the nuance at length with someone I had assumed to have been the principal, and who gave a shoddy explanation defending the wording.

Now that a year has passed, another of this parent’s children has brought home a Solutions letter with the identical wording.

Perhaps the faculty of Camerado Springs Middle School does not believe that correcting their mistakes is an option.

I hope I am wrong.