The Athlete on the Sidelines

If they University of Maryland can offer 12 free rides to college can't Brandywine put up a banner or two. The school recognizes cheerleading as a sport the only stumbling block seems to be it is not recognized by the PIAA. Any organization that denies Kutztown and Brandywine football players a chance to combine a limited number of players does not really have the best interest of athletics in mind. Just another bureaucratic organization that has forgotten they purpose for being.

An Op-Ed in New York Times requires Free Registration
"It's midseason in cheer nation. This winter, thousands of girls will travel on college all-star teams to take part in competitions across the country. Practicing more than 20 hours a week, they will refine a routine of back flips, handsprings, round-offs and splits ? all perfectly synchronized and timed to an Olympic second. Their goal: first place. Their game: competitive cheerleading, one of the fastest-growing sports for women in America.
Last year, the University of Maryland became the first Division I N.C.A.A. institution to recognize competitive cheerleading as a varsity sport. That means team members are accorded the same benefits as other campus athletes ? a coaching and medical staff; locker rooms; help with academics; help dealing with the press. By the 2005-06 academic year, Maryland will provide 12 full scholarships to competitive cheerleaders. The question is this: What took so long?" More

The First WMD and Military Industrial Complex

Science -- Cuomo 303 (5659): 771: "It is widely believed that in antiquity, theory and practice were on opposite sides of an unbridgeable divide and that science and technology were marginal to ancient society. Yet, a close look at the development of the catapult shows that such a divide did not exist in reality. "

Beyond Stupid

"FEBRUARY 23--Here's a bit of advice for high school administrators everywhere: If a drug-sniffing police dog somehow misses the pot you planted in a troublemaker's locker, just let it go. Patrick Conroy, however, felt the need to tell Michigan cops about his harebrained attempt to frame a student he believed was selling drugs at L.C. Mohr High School. Conroy, who resigned his assistant principal's post Friday when the Herald-Palladium reported on his scheme, last month laughingly told a K-9 cop about planting the pot, according to the below South Haven Police Department reports. Saying, 'I know this isn't or wasn't ethical,' Conroy, 52, told the cop he put the baggie of marijuana in the student's locker since 'we both know he is dealing drugs, and I wanted to catch him so I put drugs in the locker.' The dog, named Herbie, did not cooperate, however, failing to detect the weed. For his part, Conroy repeatedly steered the K-9 team past the bank of lockers, to no avail. Conroy is now the subject of a criminal probe. " Article:

Most Popular Sports The second most poplular sport for both guys and gals is track and field, in both the number of schools and number of participants.

School Acces Sites Really Catching On

"One online service, which began at Gov. Mifflin High School, allows parents to check on their children's grades, homework assignments and attendance. " MORE :

USATODAY.com - More and more girls got game

"More boys than girls play high school sports, as has always been the case, but the gender gap is getting smaller. The percentage of girls who play varsity sports continues on a slow rise at the same time the percentage for boys is flat, according to a USA TODAY analysis of 23 years' worth of data collected by a national federation of high schools.

Male participation has been stalled near 47% for more than a decade, a trend that has gone unnoticed because the raw number of male and female participants increases every year. But crunched against the rise in population for that age group over that time, the participation rate for boys has been flat for years while the rate for girls has been rising slowly, to about 33%.

Even the rate for girls is flat in the last three years, not long enough to be termed a trend. " MORE

Tournament Win

: "When Brandywine Heights' Kyle Levengood scored the first two baskets of the game Wednesday, Bullets fans rose to their feet and cheered, acknowledging his career scoring achievement.
Little did they know that Levengood's milestone would be but a footnote for a bigger story, namely the Bullets' 59-51 upset of third-seeded Holy Name in a District 3-AA opener at Hamburg.
Levengood finished with a game-high 22 points, giving him 1,018 for his career. But his most memorable baskets came at the end, not at the beginning, as he answered a Holy Name run with some backbreakers of his own.
.....
It all added up to the Bullets' first district playoff win in 15 years, and a trip to the quarterfinals Saturday against York Catholic at Warwick at 1. " Article

Football At Brandywine

Notice In The Topic Section
I know a lot of you out there support football for Brandywine. A football team would allow an outlet for 60 to 90 children. That means doing something constructive rather than hanging out at the park or sitting in front of the tv or video game. All children should be able to participate in what they enjoy, just as your children may be into academics or art or music or industrial arts, and that is how it should be. If you are interested in supporting football here at Brandywine, and helping to get it off the ground, please let us know. Feel free to e-mail us at bulletboosters@enter.net. A group of parents are currently in the process of starting a football booster club. We would love to hear from you.

Rate The Teachers

If you want to praise your teachers or just save others from your frustration here is a teachers rating site:

Middle School

High School

The vast majority of the ratings are very good to excellent and the comments seem fair and balanced.

Take The Kid Ourt Of The Loop

"NEW YORK (AP) - High-tech is marching into the toy box. There's the miniature Batmobile that revs its engine in sync with an animated version on TV. And the furry cat that sings along with a DVD or video."

" 'Instead of watching the television, they are now watching the doll watch the TV. When these kids watch a show, they don't want to be disturbed,' said Stephanie Oppenheim, co-editor of Oppenheim Toy Portfolio, an independent guide to toys and other media. " More

This is great now the kid can go play with the box and the toys can play with the TV. Just because something can be done, does it have to be done?

Brandywine Building Capacity

The schools are running at a total of 70% of capacity. The middle school has the capacity of 1190 and an enrollment of 682 or 57%

Why Learning Is Not A One Size Fits All

Letters, numbers and words all had distinct colors.

He knew it, because he could see it with his own eyes. To him, a page of black print didn't look black at all. It was a symphony of color. The number "2" was bright orange, "5" was green, and so forth.

....

He says parts of medical school were a breeze, thanks to his synesthesia. All those long words in biology and anatomy that are so hard to remember came easier to him, because if he forgot the letters, he could at least remember the colors. MORE

QUESTION: Has there been any studies on beginning readers using colors like:

JANE
SEE SALLY
RUN

Seems like it would help them recoginize letters . Using phonics letters with different sounds could also have different shades of colors. Guess there would be a problem discriminationg against the color blind.

Budget Comparisons between Brandywine, Fleetwood, Kutztown

Comparisons between Brandywine, Fleetwood and Kutztown. Based on budget from 2001-02. The underlying dollars have increased but the % of income remain nearly constant. Will be refresed later. The total budget for that year was Fleetwood: $23,420,775 Kutztown: $18,876,456 and Brandywine $17,696,269

What Holiday Is It

Flashback on National Review Online: "Can you name the holiday that falls on the third Monday in February? Like most Americans, you probably think its 'Presidents? Day.' Every desk calendar and car sale ad seems to confirm it. So it may surprise you to learn that its legal name is still 'Washington?s Birthday.' The law establishing the holiday has never been changed. "

Pennsylvania School Adminstrative Salaries

Summary of school managment salaries

College Majors in a Growth Industry

Even if the current Islamic Fundamentalist wakeup tomorrows as Quakers there will be a need for professionals in Homeland Security (Could they have come up with a worse phrase?). Until research into genetic engineering rids homo sapiens of the stupidity gene some other group will just spring up. The world has more nuts then a Christmas Fruit Cake always has but with modern communication and transportation they can unify. Anyway the following article has both 2 and 4 year degrees in jobs which can't be sent overseas. There is even a quote from Dan Snyder, president of Lehigh Carbon Community College "Five years ago if you wanted to take a course on terrorism you basically had to go to the military, today I think you're seeing a lot more training, and the facilities that are necessary to provide that high-level training."
Educating the Homelander - Towards a Secure Future || kuro5hin.org

Still have Gift Certificates from Christmas

Swap it in for a gift certificate from a different store. Tens of thousands of people have used certificateswap.com, a central clearinghouse for such exchanges. Certificates can also be purchased at a good discount.

People lie more on the phone than by email

"Jeff Hancock of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, asked 30 students to keep a communications diary for a week. In it they noted the number of conversations or email exchanges they had lasting more than 10 minutes, and confessed to how many lies they told.

Hancock then worked out the number of lies per conversation for each medium. He found that lies made up 14 per cent of emails, 21 per cent of instant messages, 27 per cent of face-to-face interactions and a whopping 37 per cent of phone calls. Hancock hopes his research will help companies work out the best ways for their employees to communicate. For instance, the phone might be the best medium for sales where employees are encouraged to stretch the truth.

But given his results, work appraisals, where honesty is a priority, might be best done using email." MORE Instead of speeches politicans should be encouraged to send out email to the voters.

Post Valentine Day

A little late in posting but next year instead of flowers and candy try the perfect gift for the geek in your life: The Mathematics of Marriage: Dynamic Nonlinear Models. "The crucial predictors, say the researchers, are the presence of facial expressions that accompany emotions such as contempt. Gottman says that just watching a couple and looking for this expression, described as a sideways pull of a corner of the mouth accompanied by rolling eyes, is enough to make a good guess about a couple's suitability. 'This is our best predictor,' he says. 'Contempt is the sulphuric acid of love.' " Researchers claim the entire model has a 94 percent success rate in predicting divorce.

I am not playing I am doing my Ludology homework

"Rejecting the stigma that games are only for kids, researchers around the world are making computer games the subject of serious academic pursuit alongside literature, music and art. They are staking out space in universities - with Ph.D. programs, research centers and online journals.
Game studies (or 'ludology,' as it's known, from the Latin for 'game'), has spawned a new class of academics who devote themselves to analyzing how the wildly popular form of entertainment tells stories - and what it reveals about how we express ourselves."My Way News:

Reading Eagle - Brandywine Heights superintendent to retire

"Brandywine Heights superintendent to retire
Robert L. Gilly cites health issues as the reason for the surprise move.

By Robin Huiras
Reading Eagle
In an unexpected move, the Brandywine Heights School District superintendent announced his retirement Friday.
Effective April 2, Robert L. Gilly will leave his post as the district's chief.

An announcement was made to district employees at an afternoon teachers' workshop. A copy of his retirement letter, which was addressed to James Mabry, school board president, and dated Feb. 5, was then e-mailed to board members.

“It was very much of a surprise,” school board member Robert Lowry said. “He's been out sick, but it was very unexpected that he was going to retire.”

In the letter, Gilly, who is in his mid-50s, wrote that he had a serious operation Jan. 20 and, due to the extent of the surgery, requires a lengthy recovery time.

“These two conflicting issues, normal superintendent responsibilities and my health and welfare, have resulted in me coming to the conclusion that my family and health needs must move up on my priority list. However, it cannot be at the expense of my responsibilities as a superintendent.

“Therefore, to better serve both the interests of the school district and my full recovery, I will retire effective April 2, 2004,” stated a copy of the letter obtained by the Reading Eagle.

Michael A. Sacks, vice president of the school board, said that before Gilly left on sick leave in early January he informed the board he would be gone for several weeks.

“It was very vague what he told us,” Sacks said. “Maybe he wasn't sure what he was getting into I'm still not sure what he got done.”

Sacks said Gilly, who was hired in 1998, had more than four years left on his contract, but understood the contract's stipulations to allow Gilly to bow out early without penalties.

Gilly's retirement must be approved by the Pennsylvania Public School Employees' Retirement System.

Since Gilly has been on sick leave, administrators have fulfilled his responsibilities, Lowry said.

“They've been kind of overworked the past few weeks and we really appreciate the work they've been doing,” Lowry said.

Sacks said he hopes to meet in executive session with the board between now and the next school board meeting on Feb. 23 to discuss appointing an interim superintendent.

The board also might discuss advertising for Gilly's replacement, Sacks said.

“They (superintendents) are hard to come by; there is a short field of clients to pull from. I'd like to get the word out as soon as possible so we could get someone by summertime and have them ready to roll by the next school year,” Sacks added.

Contact reporter Robin Huiras at 610-371-5037 or rhuiras@readingeagle.com.

"Article

Latin Makes a Comeback

"In danger of disappearing just a few years ago, Latin is now making a comeback in American classrooms. " MORE :

Works of Wisdom For Our School Board

Robert Gilly Retires

Mr. Gilly announced that he will be retiring as Superintendent of Education Brandywine Area School District.

Why My School Sunk

If you have been attending board meetings or a loyal reader of this site you have been hearing a lot about sinkholes. If you haven't you are paying for it anyway. The cost to remedy the latest has gone from an estimate $50K to $100K. If you want to know more about their cause and remedy (new meaning to the phrase "throwing money down a rat hole" ) the publication Sinkholes In Pennsylvania is a most excellent source. Published by the PA Department of Conservation it is written in actual English and not Governmental Bureaucracese. It even has great drawings and pictures.

An Afghan Boy's Life in U.S. Custody (washingtonpost.com)

Ismail Agha was a slight, illiterate village boy of 13 when his family last saw him 14 months ago. When he reappeared last week, he was three inches taller, his voice had deepened, his chin had sprouted a black beard and he had learned to read, write and do basic math.

"'Me go to Cuba, speak English now,' he said with a proud grin as he sat in the police station in Naw Zad. "

Learned a foreign language, reading, writing and math in just a few months. They don't even have an ESL class, amazing. Kid Doesn't begin every sentence with "Like you know..." How do you enroll your kids in Gitmo High? MORE

School Calendar Scheduling Error

The 2/26 special property meeting was cancelled and its agenda will be held tonight as part of the regular property meeting.

Why do we need a Dept. of Educaton?

"The Department of Education itself has grown by 69.6 percent between 2002 and 2004: from $46,282 million in FY2002 to $60,600 million in FY2004. This is a remarkable increase from a party so recently committed to devolving control over education ? and the silence of loyalists on this issue is still more remarkable.
The No Child Left Behind Act has made federal education-spending increases a domestic priority. Conservatives claim that runaway spending is the political price of an important reform effort. But we have seen billions spent and little reform to show for it." MORE :

Small voices make big sound with musical

One Small Voice,” a community presentation set for Sunday in Kutztown, started with a small idea.
Give boys and girls the chance to show off their talents in song and dance, and awareness will be raised about performing arts in the community.
.....

“This thing took on a voice of its own,” said Lisa M. Hunter, program coordinator. “We didn't expect it to get to this level.”

Initially proposed by Brandywine Heights parents as a talent show for elementary school children, it later attracted children and parents from the Kutztown School District as well. The activity has gained community support and has grown into an event featuring a variety of musical performances.
.......

“One Small Voice: A Community Performance,” will be held Sunday at 6:30 p.m. at Blatt's Dinner Theatre, 600 Noble St., Kutztown. Students from Brandywine Heights and Kutztown elementary schools, parents and local artists will perform musical acts.
Tickets are $8 for adults, $3.50 for children 10 and under.

Call 610-682-7115 for more information.

More in Todays Reading Eagle

Property Meeting Wednesday Night

The property committee will take up several important issues tomorrow night. One being the state of the HS soccer field. There are all kind of stories about its status ranging from the administration view that everything is OK to their being rocks and broken glass all over the field. It seems that the landscape company push the original top soil during construction and then pushed it back over the field without any regards to the rubbish it contained. Anyone with first hand information or anyone who plans to play soccer in the upcoming years should attend. There are supposed to be representatives of the landscape company present. The meeting will be held at upstairs in the MS starting at 7:00 pm.

Mars Exploration Rover Mission

Press Release Images: "From its new location at the inner edge of the small crater surrounding it, the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity was able to look out to the plains where its backshell (left) and parachute (right) landed. Opportunity is currently investigating a rock outcropping with its suite of robotic geologic tools. This approximate true-color image was created by combining data from the panoramic camera's red, green and blue filters." The following is by far the most interesting.

Board Members Update

Link has been revised to show current members and phone numbers by popular request. The phone numbers are from the recent revised board room pamplet.

A Little Perspective

If you think we are having a long cold winter.

Campaign Strategy

An unofficial Edwards for President site has an interesting map for political junkies, You click on the states to make them Red Or Blue to develop a strategy how your party can win the magic 270 electoral votes in November. Sorry it doesn't have a Green option. Republicans were the reds in 2000 because they were the challenger. It will be interesting to see if the networks stick with the traditional method or keep the Republicans red after all the words written about the red and blue states. "Interactive electoral map. :

Brandywine Closed Have A Nice Weekend

WFMZ-TV Online: "Brandywine Heights Area S.D. (updated: 02/06 at 07:26)
CLOSED FRIDAY UPDATED INFOR "

"A child who learns to read too early has an individualized mind, what we want is a more collectivized mind." John Dewey - Arguably the most influential thinker on education in the twentieth century.

Early Dismissal Today

Brandywine Heights Area S.D. (updated: 02/03 at 12:00)
HS DISMISSAL 12:30; MS 1:45, ELEM 3 PM UPDATED

New Old Proverbs

BY MORT CRIM
"According to an e-mail I received recently, children have some interesting takes on the proverbs we adults take for granted.
A first-grade teacher gave each student the first half of a well-known proverb. The child was to fill in the rest.
Among the gems:
'Better to be safe than punch a fifth-grader.'

'Don't bite the hand that looks dirty.'

'A penny saved is not much.'

'Don't put off till tomorrow what you put on to go to bed.'

'You can lead a horse to water, but how?'

I don't know whether these little nuggets of wisdom are truly the work of first-grade philosophers, but I like the idea of seeing conventional wisdom with a fresh perspective.
We all have formulas and rules to structure and guide our lives. But sometimes it helps to look at them in new ways.

Today's thought: Like diamonds, great ideas don't lose their value with time. But their true brilliance may be seen only when we turn them around."
MORT CRIM: Get new twist on old ideas:

Techie Names First Son Version 2.0

HOLLAND, Mich. (AP) - Tacking Jr. or II onto a boy's name is too common, a new father decided, so the self-described engineering geek took a software approach to naming his newborn son.
Jon Blake Cusack talked his wife, Jamie, into naming their son Jon Blake Cusack 2.0.
Version 2.0 was born Tuesday at Holland Community Hospital, and the proud parents took him home Friday.
'I wanted to find something different to name him besides Jon Blake,' Cusack, who is self-employed with Westshore Design and Cusack Music, told The Holland Sentinel.
He said he had the idea for a few months, and spent the better part of that time persuading his wife to go along.
Jamie Cusack said she didn't concede until the week before the birth. She said she had 'picked out the theme of the baby's room and done other things. I decided to let Jon have this.'
After 2.0's birth, the Cusacks sent out an electronic birth announcement.
'I wrote in the birth announcement e-mail stuff, like there's a lot of features from version 1.0 with additional features from Jamie,' Jon Cusack said. "
My Way News: