Instead of a reading teacher we get a $52,500

Committe of The Whole Agenda Items

Sorry Bad Assumption
I was just informed that tonight's agenda is not on the school site. Since they had promised over 6 months ago to do this trivial task I just assumed it was there. OK Kids what would your punishment be for not doing your assignments.

Committe of the Whole Meeting: Tonight at 7:00 PM. The committe of the whole meeting is where the board discuss items that will be voted on during the regular board meeting next Monday at 7:30. If you have any items thet you want the board to ignore this is the meeting you should attend. The agenda for tonights meeting is posted at the Brandywine School District web site. Welcome to the Brandywine Heights Area School District

This Just Quacks Me Up

To: Dept. of Homeland Security

Dear Sirs:

I am writing to you for further instructions to what the next step is for me to take in protecting my family from possible attacks by terrorists.

I have my duck taped....now what?

Thanks To The Community

Both Jennifer Johnson and myself would like to thank
faculty, staff, students, administration, parents and community
members for their tremendous help and donations that made last Friday's
benefit dinner for Zach Smith a real success. It was sonderful to see a
small town pull together to help a kid in need. Special thanks to Mrs.
Donna Kline, manager of the cafeteria at the high school, for donating her
time and expertise to make the dinner possible. We could not have done it
wihout her.

Sincerely,
Kelly Shaw
Junior class adviser

USA Freedom Corps: For Educators: Schools & Educators Educators in America's K-12 schools and in its colleges and universities have long encouraged students to participate in volunteer service in many forms. They have supported individual volunteer activities, service projects organized by student groups and faculty members, and formal service projects that link to academic lessons – the practice known as service-learning.
The Learn and Serve America program at the Corporation for National and Community Service supports service-learning activities in thousands of K-12 schools and on college and university campuses around the country through grants and other resources, including the National Service Learning Clearinghouse.
The USA Freedom Corps is working with the Learn and Serve America program, the Department of Education, other USA Freedom Corps coordinating council member agencies, and nonprofit organizations to create resources that will enable America's schools to do more to help our young people develop habits of service that will last a lifetime. The Students in Service to America initiative is an outgrowth of that effort, and we have included links to that and other resources for educators below.....

Why doesn't Brandywine want its students to go to college? This school district seems determine to sabatoge its students from competing for college admission with other schools. First they come out with a more strigent grading policy which puts our students at a disadvantage in that area. They first claim it doesn't matter because colleges look at each school grading policy. When a parent took the time to investigate with area colleges she found that was a totally bogus claim. Colleges don't have the time or inclination to investigate how each high school in the country grades its' students. The board then brushed off this work with colleges don't even bother with grades they look at SAT scores. OK if that is true then why are the PSSA test being given to the 11th grade the week before the Saturday SAT test. The SAT test are grueling enough without having had to spent the four previous days being brain drained by another set of standardized test whose results doesn't amount to a hill of beans to the individual student. With all of these high paid administrators couldn't somebody look at a calendar and think or is that asking too much?

Another in a long line of Irish Warrior-Poets
Someone who can combine historical, biblical and MTV references is a person whose school district didn't waste time and resources teaching middle school computer courses.
*****************************************************

“THE enemy should be in no doubt that we are his Nemesis and that we are bringing about his rightful destruction. There are many regional commanders who have stains on their souls and they are stoking the fires of Hell for Saddam. As they die they will know their deeds have brought them to this place. Show them no pity. But those who do not wish to go on that journey, we will not send. As for the others, I expect you to rock their world.

“We go to liberate, not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country. We are entering Iraq to free a people, and the only flag that will be flown in that ancient land is their own. Don’t treat them as refugees, for they are in their own country.

“I know men who have taken life needlessly in other conflicts. They live with the mark of Cain upon them. If someone surrenders to you, then remember they have that right in international law, and ensure that one day they go home to their family. The ones who wish to fight, well, we aim to please. If there are casualties of war, then remember, when they woke up and got dressed in the morning they did not plan to die this day. Allow them dignity in death. Bury them properly, and mark their graves.

“You will be shunned unless your conduct is of the highest, for your deeds will follow you down history. Iraq is steeped in history. It is the site of the Garden of Eden, of the Great Flood, and the birth of Abraham. Tread lightly there. You will have to go a long way to find a more decent, generous and upright people than the Iraqis. You will be embarrassed by their hospitality, even though they have nothing ...

“There may be people among us who will not see the end of this campaign. We will put them in their sleeping bags and send them back. There will be no time for sorrow. Let’s leave Iraq a better place for us having been there. Our business now, is north.”

- Lieutenant-Colonel Tim Collins, the 42-year-old commander of The Royal Irish battle group, which he delivered to his troops in Kuwait on Wednesday afternoon, just hours before they went into battle.

The words of Colonel Collins will long survive this war, for in their raw clarity, they capture its essence, and a military sensibility that is peculiar to our time. In sharp contrast to the gusts of war rhetoric from politicians we have been hearing for the past month, Collins spoke of history, family, respect, dignity, and the individual moral choice between killing justly, and just killing. Saddam may merit the fires of Hell, but Collins’s men will also remember the ordinary man who got dressed this morning in tattered Iraqi uniform, with a culture older than ours.

London Times

Peter H. Gibbon on Heroes on National Review Online For most of human history, the word “hero” has been synonymous with “warrior.” George Washington was a soldier, as were many of our other presidents: Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Monuments in every town square in America honor those who gave up their lives so that the promise in the Pledge of Allegiance — “one nation under God with liberty and justice for all” — could be realized.
Yet as I travel around the country talking to students about heroes, they ask about athletes, humanitarians, celebrities, parents, and only infrequently about soldiers. In New Haven, Connecticut, a high-school student followed me after my talk, upset by the suggestion that soldiers could ever be considered heroes. In New York City, a student asked, “Aren’t the heroes the soldiers on the winning side?” Even after the attacks of September 11, warriors are off their radar screen. Why?
........
........
During a visit to schools in Indianapolis last week, I walked to each of the city’s many war memorials, including its newest, a wall containing the names of America’s Medal of Honor winners. Climbing the steps leading to the World War I Memorial, I read the names of thousands of Indiana soldiers who died in the war. Standing in the enormous vaulted room at the top of the steps, I saw no scenes of battles, no statues of soldiers with bayonets, no inscriptions glorifying war. Instead, the words carved into the building at the entrance to the memorial speak to the hope for a better world, “…to the end that peace may prevail, justice be administered, public order maintained and liberty perpetuated.”


— Peter Gibbon is the author of A Call to Heroism: Renewing America’s Vision of Greatness. He is a research associate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. During the last five years, he has traveled around the country talking to students about heroes.

One item on last night's initial budget meeting that should be of concern. There appears to be two teaching positions that are under consideration and enough money for one. One position is for a specialized reading teacher for the HS/MS and the other is a computer instructor for the middle school. The MS computer teacher is another hidden cost of the separation of the middle school from the high school. The administration wants to concentrate the help for reading on the lower grades. One teacher with training in reading instructions will have some time freed up to teach the teachers about reading instructions in the upper grades. The district will then use the available money to hire a middle school computer instructor.

This is a waste of limited funds. Concentrating on the lower grades for specialized reading instruction is a good ideal but there should also be someone dealing with students that have either slipped through the cracks or in need on continuing help. All studies have shown that the ability to read with comprehension is the most valuable tool a student can have to achieve future success regardless of their chosen path.

There are more efficient ways to teach middle school students basic computer usage Why not purchase and use self pace courses like "Video Professor" or use one of the numerous internet sites. This is how the majority of professional techies learn new skills and keep up with new developments. Computers can be used with success to teach computer courses but they are far from ready to teach students to read. Free up other teacher(s) time to monitor the computer student's activity and allow the teacher(s) with specialized reading instructions knowledge be put to far more beneficial use.

Life can be a continuing self pace course as long as the person has the ability to read.

A NATION'S STRENGTH
Ralph Waldo Emerson

What makes a nation's pillars high
And it's foundations strong?
What makes it mighty to defy
The foes that round it throng?
It is not gold. Its kingdoms grand
Go down in battle shock;
Its shafts are laid on sinking sand,
Not on abiding rock.
Is it the sword? Ask the red dust
Of empires passed away;
The blood has turned their stones to rust,
Their glory to decay.
And is it pride? Ah, that bright crown
Has seemed to nations sweet;
But God has struck its luster down
In ashes at his feet.
Not gold but only men can make
A people great and strong;
Men who for truth and honor's sake
Stand fast and suffer long.
Brave men who work while others sleep,
Who dare while others fly...
They build a nation's pillars deep
And lift them to the sky.

A vivid real-time web diary of a young Iraqi.

... A BBC reporter walking thru the Mutanabi Friday book market (again) ends his report with :“It looks like Iraqis are putting on an air of normality”

Look, what are you supposed to do then? Run around in the streets wailing? War is at the door eeeeeeeeeeeee! Besides, this “normality” doesn’t go very deep. Almost everything is more expensive than it was a couple of months ago, people are digging wells in their gardens, on the radio yesterday after playing a million songs from the time of the war with Iran (these are like cartoon theme songs for people my age, we know them all by heart) they read out instructions on how to make a trench and prepare for war, that is after president saddam advised Iraqis to make these trenches in their gardens.
But in order not to disappoint the BBC; me, Raed and G. put on our “normal” faces and went to buy CDs from Arassat Street in a demonstration of normality......

BUDGET OVERVIEW - On Wednesday, March 19 at 7:30 PM an over view of next year's budget will be presented at the high school.

State Spending Per Student Which states spent most on primary, secondary schools
As many states consider educational cuts as part of their efforts to address record budget deficits, a new Census Bureau report shows that recent increases in public school funding have not kept pace with mounting costs for items such as new buildings, textbooks, and computers. School-district debt jumped 13 percent to almost $202 billion in the 2000-'01 academic year, the latest for which statistics are available. That, as funding rose 7 percent to a national average of $7,284 per student. Utah was the most frugal, at $4,625. The 10 states with the highest average per-pupil spending in 2001:
1. New York $10,922
2. New Jersey 10,893
3. Washington, D.C. 10,852
4. Connecticut 9,236
5. Alaska 9,165
6. Massachusetts 9,038
7. Rhode Island 8,775
8. Vermont 8,706
9. Delaware 8,603
10. Pennsylvania 8,191 - Associated Press

Welcome to the Periodic Table of Haiku
Site combines the Periodic Table and Haiku Poetry. A new twist on writing across the curriculum.

Zach Smith Benefit Dinner - March 28, 2003 5 - 6:30 pm at the BHHS cafeteria Tickets can be purchased by calling the school at 682-5102 and ask for Kelly Shaw or Jenn Johnson, the junior class advisers. $12 adults, $10 students $6 children 12 and under.

Pennsylvania School Boards Association - PSBA - HOME PAGE School Funding and Tax Reform
Referendum policy paper
and kit online
The debate over local property tax reform and school district funding has been an ongoing exercise in Pennsylvania for decades. Read PSBA's position on this issue.

Technology and Education Reform Actual examples of technology being used in the classroom

ESTME Week 2003 Main Page Excellence in Science, Technology and Mathematics Week March 16 -22. Site has links to resources to help parents and teachers excite K-12 students about the opportunity to discover and explore their world through math and science.

Bestselling author Michael Fumento writes: "Trick Question, A Liberal Hoax Turns Out to Be True." A conservate writer looks at the Myth and Facts on ADHD and the use of Ritalin.

ABCNEWS.com : Teens Abusing And Selling Ritalin for High — A growing number of young people are snorting Ritalin — a much-lauded drug for hyperactive children — to lose weight, study for exams and in some cases, just to get high, according to some drug experts.

Reading Eagle: School Links Latest Reading Eagle Articles on Brandywine School Board.

BUDGET OVERVIEW - On Wednesday, March 19 at 7:30 PM an over view of next year's budget will be presented at the high school.

Kyle Kemmerer won Brandywine's first State Champion wrestling title on Saturday. Matt Guerrieri and Mike Mackie brought home second place titles. Way to go, guys!

CNN.com - Pennsylvania school district weighs report card for parents - Feb. 7, 2003 LEBANON, Pennsylvania (AP) -- Come fall, Gino Vargas and other parents of schoolchildren in this city could be getting report cards of their own: The school system's superintendent is proposing that parents be graded on how involved they are in their children's education. Will these grades go on your permanent record?