randomness abounds

Okay, here we go. I'm diving into this shortened work week. I am taking a few days off starting Wednesday and I can't wait!!

The basketball this weekend was so fun! IU about gave me a heart attack by barely beating Temple, but they won and that is all that matters. How about that Florida Gulf Coast team? First 15 seed to ever make it to the Sweet Sixteen. Wow.

Speaking of sports, our coed rec team won their home opener 3-0.  Two girls scored!! Abbey was one of them!! The ladies looked awesome and the boys on the other team just didn't quite know what had hit them. But the best part is what happened before the game. I guess the opposing team's coach made a comment to our coach that he noticed how many girls we had on our team and he was sorry about that as he only had 4 girls on his team. Our coach assured it that it would be just fine, our girls had played before.

LOLOLOLOL.  Wonder what that coach thought when one of our girls launched one from the top of the 18 and it curled neatly in under the post. Wonder what he thought when our girl crashed the goal and tapped one in right in front of his goalie. Way to go Abbey!! LOLOLOL.

I think the word may get out now that you don't want to mess with these girls and the boys on their team.

The oldest made it home and it is so nice to have her here. I think she is taking lunch to her sister today and visiting some teachers at the high school.

In other news, I have a library board meeting tomorrow night. I need to print the packet and read it.

Our school merger debacle is getting really crazy now. I actually wrote the board last night. Not that it will do a lot of good, but I was pretty steamed and needed to vent.  They are voting on two policy changes. One will allow the administration to transfer students across attendance zones. They were advised to freeze zones for 2 years to let the dust settle first before they started shuffling students around. The second is a real can of worms. They are voting to allow the district to confiscate money, materials etc from the booster clubs, PTAs,  buildings etc. Yep. So if a PTA does a fundraiser for their school, that money can be taken and put in the district's money pot. I'm not quite sure how that can be legal in regards to many of the booster clubs. The soccer boosters are a 501. 3 c.

Things are going to start to get very interesting. I think they may have just stirred the sleeping giant. I continue to hope that our state government will strike down the silly law that prevents municipal school districts in the state.

Or we may need to look at private schools for the boy. Already they haven't posted the summer work for the AP/Honors classes. Never been delayed this long before. If they are shuffling kids and taking money, the big teacher shuffle won't be far behind.

UGH.

Monday, here I come. Ready or not!

the ball is rolling

Big meeting tonight for our fair town. The feasibility study conducted by the consultants hired to determine whether or not we could create our own municipal school district and leave the county wide system is now complete.

The ball is rolling.

All two hundred pages of it are available online. No, I haven't read it yet, but I did skim the table of contents. Of course the big city newspaper is having a field day with this. Lots of articles over the past week and two big ones in today's edition, front page, above the fold.

Our vet, great guy, seems to have taken this opportunity to become a force for change in our community and gather like minded folks together in hopes that if/when our town does this, it is done right. He's young, owns a business and has small children. He is a stakeholder.

I hope tonight that a lot of other stakeholders are there for this meeting and our local government gets the reassurance they need to take the opportunity and run with it.

middle school open house

The movie "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" arrives in our mailbox today. The timing is perfect as I was just escorted around the middle school by my youngest for his Open House night. I met all the teachers, two of them taught our oldest back when she was in 6th grade.  He showed me his routine and after walking the halls with him I can understand why he was late to class at the start of the year. He goes back and forth across the third floor all day long. His trek from the main building to where he meets for band is also a long haul. But, he seems very comfortable now and was greeted by a lot of kids as we toured and chatted.

All of the moving classes and hallway traffic will serve him well once he arrives in high school.  Talk about a maze, the middle school building is not laid out in any semblence of order. You actually have to go down some stairs in order to go up a different set of stairs in order to get to certain areas. Nuts.

Talks are under way and a 'town hall' style meeting is happening tonight to discuss the future of our middle school.  The facility is located just off our town square.  The county is in favor of building a new school as the current one has been added on to so many times it doesn't meet any current building code. The oldest part of the campus is very old. It originally served as a women's college way back when. It eventually became a k-12 facility...then the original high school...and now a middle school. Each transformation included a renovation. Now it is a hodgepodge of architectural details and quite 'ugly' and in some cases not student friendly.

The new school would be built a mile south on land the town currently owns and uses as a park. The current school would be traded out to the local university for a suburban campus.  It could be a major win-win for all involved.  A new school for the 6-8 crowd and a usuable building, renovated yet again, for folks interested in taking college classes. The historic square would get a group of folks traveling through with money to spend and the middle school kids would actually have a cohesive, up to date, user friendly campus.

I hope to make the meeting tonight.