
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, May 7, 1993                   TAG: 9305070616
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

TOTA HAS A SHORT MEMORY

DENNIS Brumberg's April 14 letter to the editor, entitled "Schools insensitive to Jewish students," points up how easily the superintendent of schools can ignore the truth when attempting to defend a discriminatory policy. His decision to schedule snow make-up days on Saturdays prompted us to point out to him how such a schedule creates an impossible dilemma for students who are Seventh Day Adventists, Seventh Day Baptists and Sabbath-observant Jews. In our letter we stated " . . . the selection of Saturday forces students to choose between their faith and their education. It is not a choice that young students should be compelled to make."

In his reply, Dr. Tota wrote: "In the past years, I have not received a complaint that any student felt pressured to choose between religious observance and school attendance."

However, in our files we have a clipping from the Richmond Times-Dispatch of Feb. 21, 1987, with a Roanoke dateline, which states: "Announcements that school bells would ring on Saturdays caused superintendent's telephone to ring as Jewish parents, rabbis and a Seventh Day Adventist pastor called to complain." It went on to state that "Roanoke Superintendent Frank Tota said he received several calls from concerned parents about the Saturday classes."

Good policy is based on facts, not on misrepresentations. IRA GISSEN Regional Director Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith NORFOLK

by CNB