PBH IN BRIGHTON

To the Editors of The Crimson:

This is in response to an article which appeared in The Crimson of Monday, March 19, 1973 entitled "PBH to Eliminate Brighton School Tutoring Program."

Phillips Brooks House is not eliminating the Brighton Educational Opportunity Program. The volunteers in that program have decided to end it of their own choosing. Though the Principal and teachers at the school where the B.E.O. volunteers work have been very pleased about their presence, many volunteers have felt that their presence is being used by the school administration in Brighton as an excuse for ignoring the essential problems which must be faced if education there is to be improved in the near future. In addition, some volunteers have felt that the actual services which they provide as tutors could be done just as well by the parents and High School students of Brighton itself. One of the main activities of the B.E.O. volunteers this last term will be to integrate the parents and High School students into the existing tutoring program so that they might run it themselves this coming year without the help of the outside students.

PBH does not drop programs just because they don't "pull their own weight" financially. It is true that we are undergoing thorough evaluations of all of our programs this spring. Programs are being evaluated, though, according to the value they serve to the community they are working with. The programs at PBH do not merely place student volunteers in "social service" settings, but try and recruit a wide variety of people and ideas in the areas of "social change" and "community action." We want volunteers who take their commitment seriously, and we want programs which affect change in addition to serving people, We also realize that sometimes some of the better committees working out of the House are those which might (and do) have a harder time getting funds from the traditional funding sources. Phillips Brooks House has contributed many thousands of dollars in the last couple of years to such committees from our central funds.

I hope this letter has helped in giving you a clearer view of what Phillips Brooks House is, and is trying to be. Amy Schneider '74   President for the Executive Committee