Sometimes a valid point gets lost in translation or an article falls short of conveying its intended message.

That is certainly the case when it comes to the editorial in Friday’s edition of The Sun.

As publisher and the primary author, I’ll take full responsibility for that and apologize for not doing a better job in this case.
Let’s be very clear: We appreciate and support teachers. We know they go above and beyond the call of duty every day to perform an often thankless job. We applaud their desire to stand up for better education funding.
We have shown that support over and over again with our news coverage of the schools, weekly features on educators who stand out and countless opinion page editorials supporting public education and all the great things going on in Clark County’s schools.
The Friday editorial attempted to show our support for teachers and their desire to make their voices heard, while also emphasizing that the state education commissioner should not require these days to be made up due to the extenuating circumstances.
We feel very strongly about these points, but didn’t do enough to convey that clearly.
A second point was that protests, while understandable and admirable, might not the best way to get this message across because they do impact children and have essentially been ineffective with obstinate lawmakers.
The best opportunity for change will come by working with legislators, creating lasting initiatives that push for social changes and, ultimately, in the voting booth by electing individuals who will represent their constituents.
Although this viewpoint may still anger some teachers, we truly believe it is the best approach to creating needed changes.
But we clearly fell short of the standard we strive for in clarity and communication of this message.
We removed the article from our website and social media because of these shortcomings and also because flaws with how the digital version was presented didn’t clearly identify it as opinion commentary written by the editorial board of the newspaper.
For all these failures, we sincerely apologize.
We feel strongly we must take a position on this issue, just as we have done on countless others that teachers and others in the community agreed with including the flawed handling of the pension reform bill, the failures of the Legislature to build a stable budget that prepares us for the future and the governor’s lack of leadership.
Important issues need to be debated, and nothing may be more important than providing the best education possible for our children. We won’t always agree on how to best accomplish that, but The Sun will continue to strive to outline its views clearly and accurately. It is important for the newspaper to have a voice and we provide that same opportunity to our readers and our community.

Editorials represent the opinion of the newspaper’s editorial board. The board is comprised of publisher Mike Caldwell and managing editor Whitney Leggett. To inquire about a meeting with the board, contact Caldwell at 759-0095.