This letter is in response to your "Care Package" commentary published in your Dec. 19, 2000, issue.

  Thanks for standing tall in defending the children of Louisiana. You are perfectly correct in stating that we must put children first. They are indeed our future. We must send children the message that hard work and perseverance will be rewarded. We must continue to challenge them to perform at a higher level and reward them when they do so.

  TOPSis a motivator for high performance, and results over the years since 1989 have shown that students are measuring up to our challenge. TOPSis making a difference. We truly appreciate Gambit standing up for our students when we have had repeated attempts by Baton Rouge bureaucracy and some misinformed lawmakers to cut TOPSand redirect the money to expand the bureaucracy or pet projects. This must stop.

  Once again, thanks on behalf of the 35,000-plus students who are receiving TOPSgrants and the 100,000-plus students who are working hard to meet TOPSstandards. Remember, TOPS is designed to reward all students who meet our challenge, not a select few. Working together, we will keep our promise to the children of Louisiana.

Patrick F. Taylor

Editor’s Note: New Orleans oilman Patrick Taylor founded the tuition assistance program known as the Taylor Plan in 1989, now known as TOPS.

I read, with more than a casual interest, the article on the Voices for Children mandatory co-parenting class for parents divorcing in Jefferson Parish ("The Great Divide," Jan. 30).

  You see, I was divorced almost seven years ago, and custody and visitation issues have been a virtual nightmare ever since. My child still suffers today, as do I.

  I am the parent of a child with an alienating parent and stepparent. And although I cannot say that this class would have stopped any of what happened in my case, it might have reached another parent or two who dismissed the importance of working out a post-divorce relationship so that the child does not suffer the loss of either parent in addition to the loss of their nuclear family.

  It is of utmost importance, in my opinion, that this program continue as a requirement in all divorce cases where children are involved. I have now taken this class on my own, and I can see that there are many areas which are so obviously necessary, but often overlooked, in the co-parenting scenario. My only suggestion is that there be a continuing program, also mandatory, for divorced couples who are involved in continued litigation around custody issues.

  Further, I have a strong statement to make to our community’s judges and the legal profession:

  Until the bar association starts monitoring its own members’ ethical behavior in these cases, the children will continue to come as lambs going to the slaughter. High-priced lawyers continue to fatten their purses by encouraging their clients to battle in high-cost and time-consuming court cases, marching myriads of professionals across the stage in order to publicly expose every perceived fault until the character of one or both of the parents has been assassinated. And, as the kids grow older, force the child to take sides and, in many cases, buy the child’s loyalty with promises of favors or money or a better lifestyle.

  Some lawyers and clients go so far as to "buy off" the competition’s lawyer just to win. I see this as despicable behavior, not fitting for the profession. I suggest to the legal community that if you are insulted by the image the public has of you, then begin acting responsibly and ethically to countermand that image.

  What troubles me most about my personal experience with the system is that there is an obvious absence of active monitoring of the relationships between parents, and there are no sanctions in place for a parent who actively alienates a child from the other parent nor for the legal team who advises the alienating parent to take the actions he or she does take to achieve the almighty win. I have seen cases of physical, emotional and mental harassment and intimidation by one parent or stepparent in order to display a sense of power and perceived love to the child. This behavior is nothing short of evil personified, to me.

  Ultimately, the child and the other parent loses, sometimes for a lifetime. This price is too high to pay for any parent, and there is no one there to protect the parent’s rights when the parent’s income is too high for public assistance and too low to be able to afford the services of the "Board Certified Professional Domestic Law Attorney."

  I ask the courts, the legal profession and the media to take the initiative to save our children and the parent/child relationships that are so often ruined by malicious ex-spouses, who only care to win at all costs. I further ask that enforceable sanctions with specific time frames be placed on the books and that those sanctions be supported by professionals devoted to encouraging loving relationships between parents and children.

  I say it is time for this project to not only be endorsed, but expanded, to stop tearing children and parents apart in these perverse, malicious and endlessly destructive child custody battles.

Name Withheld by Request