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Concerned Parents cry for help.

Dear Editor,

Over the past few years, many concerns have been raised about what is happening at St. Dominic High School. News reports have already mentioned that a number of teachers have left the school last year, and many of them pointed to problems with management and a lack of support.

I am writing not only as a former St Dominic High student and a parent of a current student, but also on behalf of more than 15 other current parents who share these concerns and want them to be addressed. We care about the school and want to see it return to the strong place it once had in our community.

I spoke with several teachers who have been at the school for years. Many said they feel unheard, unsupported, and extremely overworked. Others said the stress has become so heavy that they feel burned out. When teachers reach this level of stress, even the most dedicated teachers cannot perform at their best.

I also spoke with someone who has been at the school for many years and who is close to a member of the management team.
According to them, that member of management said that management itself often feels it does not receive the support it needs from the Catholic school board in order to manage the school effectively. Concerns have reportedly been raised to the Catholic school board before, but when it comes time for real action or funding, that is often where things stop. This creates a ripple effect where teachers feel unsupported by management, while management feels unsupported by the school board.

However, many of the teachers I spoke with were also very direct that they do not believe the current management is doing a good job managing the school. They feel that management is not providing the leadership, responsiveness, and support that teachers need. It is important to say that some of the current managers were teachers when I attended the school, and they were excellent educators and good people. But being a good teacher does not always mean someone will automatically be a good manager. If these individuals are going to remain in their roles, then serious leadership training may be needed. But also, they will need better support from the Catholic school board.

My biggest concern is for the students. Students are starting to feel the effects of this situation. My own child has spoken about it. My child is not perfect, but they work hard and try their best. Still, they often feel discouraged because many teachers look stressed and unhappy. This is not blaming teachers. If teachers are overwhelmed and unsupported, it is unrealistic to expect them to create the positive learning environment students deserve.

Many parents are also worried about how often teachers are changing. Some students have had several different teachers for the same subject in a short time. One teacher leaves, another is hired, and then that teacher leaves too. This constant change disrupts learning and makes things harder for students.

The real question is what is being done to keep good teachers. When strong, dedicated teachers leave, what efforts are being made to keep them so students are not constantly facing disruption?

Last year, newspaper articles raised many of these same concerns after several teachers left the school. From the perspective of many parents, nothing really changed afterward.

Our hope is that this time things will be different. Parents want to see real action, clear plans for improvement, and visible steps being taken to address these problems.

We are not raising these concerns to create conflict. We do not want to move our children to another school because that is also disruptive. What we want is for St. Dominic High School to work the way it should and to provide the strong education our children deserve.

St. Dominic was once one of the strongest schools on the island. It can be again. But that will require honest listening, real support for teachers, and the courage to make difficult decisions, even if that means making significant changes to the current management.

The status quo cannot continue. If St. Dominic High School is going to improve and thrive again, meaningful change must begin now.


Invincible Defense Technology: A Strategic Asset for Ending the War with Iran and Stabilizing the Middle East.

By Dr. David Leffler

The conflict with Iran continues to strain military resources, elevate geopolitical risk, and destabilize the Middle East. Policymakers and defense leaders face a strategic environment where conventional tools alone cannot resolve the deeper forces driving hostility. Invincible Defense Technology (IDT), a non-religious, field-tested, scientifically validated approach offers a practical and cost-effective method for reducing societal stress and preventing conflict escalation. The evidence supporting this approach is robust, peer-reviewed, and directly relevant to national security planning.

IDT is not a replacement for conventional defense. It is a force-multiplier that reduces the underlying social stress that fuels extremism, insurgency, and interstate conflict. By lowering the ambient level of tension in a population, IDT helps create conditions where diplomacy and stabilization efforts can succeed.

Operational Logic of Invincible Defense Technology

IDT is based on a well-documented phenomenon in which large groups practicing the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs generate measurable increases in societal coherence. Peer-reviewed studies have shown reductions in war intensity, terrorism, and crime when these groups reach a specific threshold relative to the surrounding population. For defense planners, the operational value is clear. IDT provides a nonlethal method for reducing hostility before it escalates, a low-cost capability that requires no new weapons systems, and a scalable tool that can be integrated into existing military structures.

The mechanism is supported by physiological research showing increased brain coherence, reduced stress hormones, and improved autonomic stability among practitioners. These individual level effects scale upward to influence collective behavior, providing a scientifically grounded explanation for the reductions in violence observed in multiple field studies.

Strategic Application to the Iran Conflict

The war with Iran is driven not only by political and military factors, but also by deep-rooted societal stress across the region. High-stress environments increase the probability of miscalculation, radicalization, and escalation. Conventional military operations cannot neutralize these underlying drivers. A dedicated IDT unit (known in military circles as a Prevention Wing of the Military) within the armed forces could serve as a coherence-creating group that reduces regional tension. As societal stress declines, the likelihood of escalation diminishes, diplomatic channels open more easily, and extremist motivations weaken. This approach has been shown to produce measurable effects even in high-conflict environments.

For policymakers, IDT offers a strategic advantage. It reduces the operational tempo required to manage crises and lowers the probability of large-scale conflict. It is a stabilizing capability that reduces the likelihood that adversaries will attack under the influence of high societal stress.

Peer-Reviewed Research Supporting IDT

A substantial body of peer‑reviewed research supports the effectiveness of IDT. Studies published in the Journal of Mind and Behavior and Social Indicators Research have documented notable reductions in crime, terrorism, and international conflict during periods when large groups practiced the TM and TM‑Sidhi programs. Dillbeck, Landrith, and Orme‑Johnson reported that a relatively small portion of the population engaging in these practices seems able to improve overall societal quality of life, emphasizing how scalable the effect may be. Orme‑Johnson and colleagues found statistically significant decreases in war intensity during large coherence‑creating assemblies and concluded that the findings are consistent with the idea that such groups can lessen societal stress and conflict. More recent work by Cavanaugh, Dillbeck, and Orme‑Johnson in Studies in Asian Social Science identified reductions in homicide rates associated with these practices and described the underlying mechanism as a nonlocalized field of consciousness that influences social behavior.

Research supporting the mechanism behind IDT is equally strong. Studies in the International Journal of Neuroscience have shown increased EEG coherence during TM practice, while research in Psychosomatic Medicine has documented reductions in stress hormones and improved autonomic stability. Sociological analyses published in the Journal of Social Behavior and Personality have linked periods of increased societal coherence to improved economic performance and social well-being.

A particularly relevant contribution comes from the Journal of Conflict Resolution, which published a study examining the relationship between societal stress, group coherence, and conflict dynamics in the Middle East. The authors found that reductions in societal stress were associated with measurable decreases in hostility and conflict intensity. Their analysis concluded that societies exhibiting higher levels of collective coherence demonstrate lower levels of violent conflict, a finding that aligns directly with the operational goals of IDT. This research provides an important bridge between the physiological and sociological mechanisms of IDT and the real-world dynamics of Middle Eastern conflict.

Together, these and many other studies form a coherent scientific foundation for understanding how IDT reduces violence and enhances stability.

A Strategic Path Forward

Ending the war with Iran and stabilizing the Middle East will require more than military strength. It will require a strategy that reduces the underlying stress that fuels conflict. IDT offers such a strategy. It is practical, affordable, and supported by decades of peer-reviewed research. For policymakers and military leaders, the question is no longer whether IDT works. The question is how quickly it can be integrated into existing defense structures to reduce conflict and enhance national security.

About the Author:

Dr. David Leffler served in the United States Air Force and earned his Ph.D. in Consciousness-Based Military Defense. He has published extensively on IDT and has presented on this topic at military and security conferences worldwide. He is the Executive Director of the Center for Advanced Military Science (CAMS).

Improving Small Claims Court.

Dear Editor
Small claims court was established to facilitate the recovery of funds owed to individuals in a civil manner and has served the community well. The only drawback is when a defendant does not have an address registered with the census office. In this scenario, the plaintiff usually wins his/her case because the defendant did not receive the summons, but at the same time, it makes it difficult for the plaintiff to collect.
Unlike the government's gerechtsdeurwaarders, regular deurwaarders do not have the authority to request banking information from banks, nor do they have the power to request tax filings or employment information from the tax department.
This leaves the plaintiff at a huge disadvantage, as they would have to pay a serving fee and a garnishment charge upfront, without a guarantee of recouping their funds, and would also incur additional administrative costs.
In the same way, the government wants its money, so the small claim plaintiffs want theirs. When a defendant loses a case in small claims court, they should also lose their right to financial and employment privacy. Also, by rights, they should be fined for not having their correct address registered with the Census Office.
Currently, too many people are getting away with it, as the restrictions imposed on regular deurwaarders seriously undermine their authority. These conditions also deter many people from using the small claims court and may prompt some to collect their money the old-fashioned way.

Francis D. Hodge

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