There were Butler School Board members and district residents on both sides of the issue of whether the Japanese language program should be ended.

On Monday, the board reversed its prior decision to begin phasing out the program.

What merits a cheer, regardless of which action individuals favored, is that people who knew firsthand the value of the program were willing to step forward on its behalf, rather than just sit on the sidelines lamenting the board’s initial decision.

Graduates of the class collected 240 signatures of people who asked that the phaseout be reversed.

Most people embrace the attitude that a few people can’t make a difference. In this instance, those people were proven wrong.

Jeer It would be ridiculous for the state Department of Transportation to spend an estimated $800,000 to erect a fence on the Route 28 bridge over Buffalo Creek as a deterrent to suicide.If a person from that area — or, indeed, anywhere else — is intent on committing suicide by jumping from that bridge, the presence of a fence isn’t going to prevent him or her from carrying out the intent. The person will just go somewhere else or, perhaps, use another method for ending his or her life.Those who have proposed the fence obviously didn’t give enough thought to the matter before making their suggestion.If a fence is installed on the Route 28 bridge — a fence, by the way, that PennDOT says might interfere with snow removal and federally required safety inspections — then, perhaps, in addition to the current large-scale bridge repair program under way in the commonwealth, the state should equip all bridges for suicide deterrence.The Route 28 bridge has been the site of at least six suicides, officials say. That’s troubling.But a fence on the bridge probably won’t prevent the suicides of those hellbent on ending their lives in the future.The estimated $800,000 cost would be to erect seven-foot-high fences atop the existing three-foot-high concrete barriers on both sides of the bridge.If the fence were necessary for safety reasons, that would justify the addition. But safety isn’t the issue in this instance.Therefore, the expenditure for something potentially unsightly isn’t justified.It’s tragic that people choose to end their lives. If they would seek help for their problems before resorting to that action, in many instances their problems could be resolved.A fence on the Route 28 bridge isn’t going to put an end to suicide in Butler and Armstrong counties.

JeerA study by the Institute for Policy Studies reinforces how badly the corporate tax code works against the best financial interests of this country.The study found that 26 big U.S. companies paid their chief executive officers more last year than the taxes they paid to the federal government.A good question is why members of Congress aren’t addressing that issue, if they’re truly concerned about the financial direction of the nation.According to the study, the companies in question — among them Boeing, AT&T and Citigroup, paid their CEOs an average of $20.4 million last year while paying little or no federal tax on huge profits.The study says that on average the 26 companies generated net income of more than $1 billion in the U.S.One example noted in the report: Boeing CEO James McNerney Jr. was paid $18.4 milllion last year while his company received a tax refund of $605 million.If members of Congress are going to continue lamenting the impact of the retiring baby boomers on Social Security and Medicare, they also should address some other obvious situations that are far from right — like the one in question.Corporations that achieve great success because of the wealth of this country should be required to contribute financially to its well-being.The situation brought out by the new study should be regarded as an atrocity by right-thinking Americans who accept their tax obligations as part of being citizens of this free land.