May Regret This

Should have posted this last Thursday but Dr. Curtin was receiving enough grief for the No Snow Snow day.

Autism: MSNBC Special Report

"1 in 166. That's the chance a baby born today will have autism. This represents
a dramatic increase from a decade ago, when experts estimated the incidence rate
to be 1 in 2,500."

An epidemic, better diagnosis, or just another scare to keep expecting parents up at night? In the MSNBC Report, nobody seems to know but interesting reading about the current state of research.

There appears to be a cluster in the Silicon Valley area. Researchers think it is a genetic link rather then environmental factors.

"people who carry the genes gravitate toward high-tech professions like computer science that don't necessarily require a lot of social interaction. And when these people, who may not have the full-blown disorders, meet and have children together, the kids could be fully affected because of the double genetic whammy from both parents."

This marriage of geeks to geeks could spread to other fields with more women in the workforce and marriages between co-workers is more the norm then the exception. Can you imagine the brain abnormalities that will become common place in a company town like Washington D.C. as politicians marry other politicians?

Cows Don't Send Their Kids To School

Interesting fact sheet on the cost of development vs preserving open area.

"Farms and other types of open land, far from being a drain on local taxes,actually subsidize local government by generating far more in property taxes
than they demand in services.” · "Studies show that for every $1.00
collected in taxes, residential development costs between $1.04 and $1.67 in
services -- and these costs continue forever, generally increasing over
time. Even including the initial cost of acquisition, open space is less
costly to taxpayers over both the short and the long term than development
of the same parcel. The major public costs to preserve natural areas are
finite, often paid by a bond or loan over 20 years.”

A Bleg

A bleg is a blog item that ask a favor.

The Taxpayers Association of Brandywine has filed an appeal of the Longswamp Township Supervisors' recent Rezoning Approval. They waited until the deadline to file the appeal because the County Commissioners were considering filing their own appeal on behalf of the County. It seems it would be helpful to get a clear explanation for the Commissioners' votes. The Taxpayers Association has taken on the responsibility of appealing on behalf of the citizens. It effects everyone in the school district, Longswamp resident, or not. Legal assistance and representation does not come cheaply. If you could make a contribution, it would be greatly appreciated. The Appeal Hearing is scheduled for March 23, 2005 at 7:30. It may be held at Longswamp Elementary instead of the Township Building. Donations are being accepted by theTaxpayers Association of Brandywine at:

Taxpayers Association
P.O. Box 161
Topton, PA 19562

BlackMarkets In Schools (at least Dark Chocolate Markets

When Austin High School administrators removed candy from campus vending machines last year, the move was hailed as a step toward fighting obesity. What happened next shows how hard it can be for schools to control what students eat on campus.
The candy removal plan, according to students at Austin High, was thwarted by classmates who created an underground candy market, turning the hallways of the high school into Willy-Wonka-meets-Casablanca.
Soon after candy was removed from vending machines, enterprising students armed with gym bags full of M&M's, Skittles, Snickers and Twix became roving vendors, serving classmates in need of an in-school sugar fix. Regular-size candy bars like the ones sold in vending machines routinely sold in the halls for $1.50.
"There was no sugar in the vending machines, so (student vendors) could make a lot of money," said Hayden Starkey, an Austin High junior who said he was not one of the candy sellers. "I heard kids were making $200 a week just selling candy."
The Austin High administration, which won't elaborate on how much or little it knew about the candy black market, has since replenished the vending machines with some types of candy.
Principal Barbara Spelman said the school did so after becoming more familiar with the minimal nutritional standards.
According to the state, milk chocolate, for example, meets minimal nutritional standards because it does have milk in it. Candy with peanuts contains protein. The vending machines still don't carry Starburst, Skittles and other so-called pure sugar products.
As for students peddling such contraband, Spelman would only say, "I'm sure there's a temptation to do that. Is it something that we condone? If there's something that we hear about that's going on, we do deal with that because they shouldn't be doing that."
Regardless of the reason, Austin High's retreat on treats highlights the limits to which school districts can create a healthier eating environment for students on school grounds as education officials around the state and the nation work to combat the growing health crisis of childhood obesity.
In 2000-01, 16.5 percent of children 6 to 19 years old were overweight, and an additional 15 percent were at risk of becoming overweight, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The picture is more bleak in Texas, where the rate of overweight and obese children is almost 50 percent higher than the national average. In a September Governor's Conference on Childhood Obesity, Dr. Eduardo Sanchez, state health commissioner, said that one in three babies born in Texas is projected to develop Type 2 diabetes as a result of obesity-related problems — a far cry from 10 years ago, when children were rarely diagnosed with that form of the disease.
State lawmakers have proposed a number of options to address the obesity problem. State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, has introduced a bill to provide incentives to school districts to keep campus facilities open for recreation after school hours. In January, Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, filed a bill that would require schools to calculate each student's body-mass index and send the assessments to parents along with report cards.
But at the local level, the effort to trim expanding waistlines has focused largely on purging schools of junk food and replacing it with healthier options.
In August 2002, the Austin district took all carbonated beverages out of its schools. Renegotiating the Coca-Cola food services contract to replace sodas with options such as sports drinks and bottled water cost the district $2 million over five years, Superintendent Pat Forgione said.
The district also shrank the portions of its cafeteria offerings to more accurately reflect USDA-approved serving sizes. And this year, it redesigned its menus, replacing candy bars with multigrain snacks and low-fat, baked potato chips.
Three weeks ago, Austin schools introduced lunchroom stations serving made-to-order wraps, and Austin district food services manager Chris Carillo-Spano said that made-to-order sub sandwiches will be coming soon.
But when students go off-campus for lunch, they often go to fast-food chains such McDonald's or Wendy's, or "greasy-spoon" establishments close to school.
In the Austin district, only seniors are allowed to venture off campus during the school day, and Reagan Assistant Principal Paul Darby said that on his campus, "there are consequences" for underclassmen leaving school grounds, starting with a one-day, in-school suspension for a first offense.
But students at Austin and Reagan said that they know of many underclassmen who go off-campus for lunch anyway. Others get seniors to bring food back for them.
Then there are the students' reports of the underground candy market.
School officials at Austin High removed all candy from the vending machines during the summer, replacing it with items such as tuna kits, granola bars and baked chips. They began bringing the nutritionally acceptable candy back in November.
During the prohibition, one student, who asked not to be identified, said that he sold candy at the school and made as much as $50 in a day.
Students said that while they did not know of anyone being disciplined for selling candy on campus, some were called in by administrators and told to stop. However, ninth-grader Justin Francisco said, the underground market only slowed "after they put candy back in" the vending machines.
And if the supply of sweets runs low again, there's always the candyman, waiting in the wings.
"It's all about supply and demand," said Austin junior Scott Roudebush. "We've got some entrepreneurs around here."

The article is Here but going there is a pain. One of those sites that actually thinks you are going to tell them what they think they want to know. For a newspaper they sure don't understand human nature.

Bus Car Crash in Kutztown

WFMZ-TV Online: "MAXATAWNY TOWNSHIP, Berks Co. (WFMZ) Some 14 students from Kutztown Area High School were taken to area hospitals after their bus collided with a car on an icy stretch of Eagle Point Road near Kutztown this morning. None of the injuries among the students is serious, but they were taken to Reading and Lehigh Valley hospitals as a precaution. The driver of the bus and the driver of the car were also taken to the hospital. Watch 69 News at 5:30 and 6:00 for the very latest on this developing story."

Bullets Win Team Title in Section 3-AA Wrestling Tounament

"Brandywine Heights and Schuylkill Valley stated their cases as district favorites at Saturday's District 3 Section 3-AA Wrestling Tournament at Hamburg, and the Panthers' Glenn Shober and the Bullets' Blaed Gerhart made some impressive individual statements of their own.
The Bullets advanced 13 of 14 wrestlers to next week's district tournament, had 10 finalists and five champions, and won the team title with 220 points. Schuylkill Valley advanced 11 to the district meet, had eight finalists and five champions and finished second with 203 points. Shober and Gerhart each had huge championship wins in an entertaining finals session." Article:

History of Names

Trying to decide on a name for a member of the class of 2023 here is a fascinating site and a great time waster Name Voyager . Shows how the popularity of names since 1900.

Cell Phones-Once banned in school, now the next text books?

This seems more like "just because we can" use of technology.

"NEW YORK (AP) - Over the past couple of years, the cell phone has emerged as a sound system, a video game player and a TV screen. Now, it could become the latest outlet for books.
Random House, the country's leading trade book publisher, announced Thursday that it had purchased a 'significant minority stake' in VOCEL, a San Diego-based company that describes itself as a provider of 'premium-branded applications for mobile phones.'" More :

NEWS FLASH- TEENAGERS TAKE RISK

Your tax dollars at work

A National Institutes of Health study suggests that the region of the brain
that inhibits risky behavior is not fully formed until age 25, a finding with
implications for a host of policies, including the nation's driving laws."We'd
thought the highest levels of physical and brain maturity were reached by age
18, maybe earlier -- so this threw us," said Jay Giedd, a pediatric psychiatrist
leading the study, which released its first results in April. That makes
adolescence "a dangerous time, when it should be the best." - Washington
Post Article

Somebody should tell the Army they might want to start enlisting people between 18 -25.

Life Imitating almost art

Anytime a newspaper account resembles a Monty Python skit it has to be blogged. From the Globe & Mail.

An indignant Israeli is suing a pet shop that he says sold him a dying
parrot, reports the Ma'ariv newspaper. Itzik Simowitz of the southern city of
Beersheba contends the shop cheated him because the Galerita-type cockatoo not
only failed to utter a word when he got it home, but was also extremely ill. Mr.
Simowitz adds that the shop owner assured him the parrot was not ill but merely
needed time to adjust to its new environment.

Gorillas In The Midst

In the post-Columbine world schools should take precautions but teenagers have always done things that in retrospect might not be considered a great idea. Considering the fact that this student was a National Merit semifinalist shows even the brightest among them don't always consider all the potential consequences of their actions. Who among us didn't do something at that age that is looked back on fondly but could have gone terribly wrong. If you didn't you wasted too much of your education in a classroom or studying. There has to still be room for students to make errors in judgment, without all the legal entanglements this student now faces. Nobody was hurt, no damage, come up with some appropriate punishment that actually fits the "crime", call the police action a drill and call the whole incident an educational experience for everyone.

OLEY, Pa. (AP) -- A student apprehended on his high school roof in a gorilla
mask was charged Tuesday with trespass and other crimes when his senior
prank led to a school lockdown, officials said. No one was injured and
police found no weapons on suspect Matthew Pattison or inside Oley Valley
High School in rural Berks County, state trooper Ray Albert said. The
18-year-old Pattison - a National Merit semifinalist with no school
disciplinary record - was charged with reckless endangerment, disorderly
conduct, resisting arrest and criminal trespass. He told police he donned a
gorilla mask and gloves and climbed up to the cafeteria roof Tuesday morning
in order to peer down into classroom windows, Oley Police Chief David A.
White said in a statement.The prank was foiled when school staff saw someone donning the mask in the parking lot and scaling a wall and called authorities, who sent officers, a state police helicopter and a bomb squad. According to police, Pattison said he wore the disguise and covered his license plate in the school parking lot so he could not be identified on school surveillance cameras. The school, which sits just off of Main Street in Oley, has about 660 students. School board member Robert Moore said his daughter, a sophomore, called him on a cell phone Tuesday morning to say police were at the school and students were under a lockdown. She was not overly alarmed, Moore said. "In today's day and age, that's a precautionary measure," Moore said. No one answered Tuesday at a home believed to be Pattison's, and it was not immediately clear if he had been released. Article

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Teaching Students to Swim in the Online Sea

Big news to students just because it is on the web doesn't make it true, except for information on this site.

"INFORMATION literacy seems to be a phrase whose time has come. Last month, the Educational Testing Service announced that it had developed a test to measure students' ability to evaluate online material. That suggested an official recognition that the millions spent to wire schools and universities is of little use unless students know how to retrieve useful information from the oceans of sludge on the Web.
Clearly, 'computer skills' are not enough. A teacher of Scandinavian literature at Berkeley recently described how students used the Web to research a paper on the Vikings: 'They're Berkeley students, so, of course, they have the sense to restrict their searches to 'vikings NOT minnesota.' But they're perfectly willing to believe a Web site that describes early Viking settlements in Oklahoma.'" MORE in the NY Times :

Close But No Cigars.

The Bullet wrestling team was defeated in a narrow 37-30 decision to Northern Lehigh in the PIAA state semi-finals. Sounds like we wuz robbed.

It's one of the smallest words in the English language, yet one of the biggest in sports.

If Brandywine Heights had won the prematch flip, it could have gotten the matchups coach Sam Lovello needed at 215 and 275 pounds.

If Bullets 103-pounder Matt Yocco would have gotten a fall when he had Andrew Arnold on his back for more than 30 seconds, Brandywine could have been wrestling for the PIAA Class AA championship.... Article

The Little Town That Could

Great article in the NY Times concerning a small town intead of just complaining about everything under the sun and then making up stuff to complain about went out and did something. The school district made 15 million dollars last year and employees everyone in town that wanted a job. They put their collective heads together and the district with only 65 students in their brick and morter school created an online school. Article

Long Term Capital Improvement Plan

For your reading enjoyment the Long Term Capital and Maintence Plan that was discussed last night in the property committee meeting. Under Type M would be a one time or ongoing maintence project and C would require capital money to complete. They are prioritized with 8 requiring immideate attention down to 0 for would be nice. Some items that are currently 0 as in the $37,000 needed for Rockland to comply with ADA (American Disability Act) requirements or the would be bumped up to 8 in a hurry if the need arises. It seems that for 5 years while the H.S. was being planned and completed all work not absolutely necessary for the existing buildings was postponed. The 5 years are up folks.

Bar Coded Kids

"SUTTER, Calif. (AP) - The only grade school in this rural town is requiring students to wear radio frequency identification badges that can track their every move. Some parents are outraged, fearing it will take away their children's privacy.
The badges introduced at Brittan Elementary School on Jan. 18 rely on the same radio frequency and scanner technology that companies use to track livestock and product inventory. Similar devices have recently been used to monitor youngsters in some parts of Japan.
But few American school districts have embraced such a monitoring system, and civil libertarians hope to keep it that way."
...
InCom has paid the school several thousand dollars for agreeing to the experiment, and has promised a royalty from each sale if the system takes off, said the company's co-founder, Michael Dobson, who works as a technology specialist in the town's high school. Brittan's technology aide also works part-time for InCom.
MORE

The only real problem with this is that a local company didn't offer Brandywine the same deal.

County Commissioners Discuss Longwamp

A heated discussion yesterday between Commissioner Scott vs Comissioners Schwank and Gajewski regarding undisclosed talks between the two commissioners and Longswamp officials. Sometimes Berks Cable Access is must see TV. From todays Reading Eagle

The commissioners also talked about supporting a zoning appeal filed by
Longswamp Township residents, but delayed a vote. Closed-door
meetings have been held with township officials and their legal advisers to
discuss a possible settlement. Residents are appealing zoning that will
allow 742 houses to be built on two separate tracts because they fear the
developments will negatively impact their quality of life and drive property
taxes higher in the Brandywine Heights School District.

Marginal Revolution: Those Pesky Charter School Reports

A good synopsis on the state of charter schools in this country.
"About twice a year, a think tank, government agency or teacher's union will release a report slamming or praising charter schools. Each side will claim victory. The cycle repeats itself. So, what is the truth about charter schools? As usual, it's a little complicated..."

...

"In my opinion, fans and critics miss the best thing about charter schools – bad schools close. Since people are under no obligation to attend these schools, they will actually close if they are poorly managed and do a disservice to their students. Critics see a closed charter school as a victory. Yes, it is a victory, but not for charter school opponents. It is a victory for education in general – a poorly run institution has stopped operating, something you rarely see in other schools." MORE :

The Race Is On

The last one to the store for milk, bread and eggs loses.
Thursday
Snow likely. One to three inches total accumulation possible. Highs in the mid 30s. North winds 15 to 20 mph. Chance of snow 60 percent.

Rep. Samuel Roher Introduces Revised Tax Plan

Article in today's Reading Eagle on the revised tax plan designed to help relieve the property tax burden. They are switching from a 4.5% tax on business receipts to a 5% sales tax. Everything will be taxed except doctors and dentitst. Brandywine even got mentioned in the article

Rep. Douglass G. Reichley, a Lehigh County Republican who represents parts
of Berks County, said the plan probably will remain in the background of tax
policy discussions for a couple of years.
“All the mental energy on property-tax reform was expended last year on the gambling bill,” Reichley said. “We have to let the gambling bill run its course so people can see its flaws before Sam's plan can get a fair hearing.” Reichley's district includes the Brandywine Heights School District, where hundreds of people have packed school board meetings protesting property-tax hikes. The district has the highest tax rate in Berks.

Speaking of taxpayer protest the once vocal group was strangely silent on the whole Rockland closing issue.

Rockland To Remain Open

Some Good Sports News

The Eagles might have come up short over the weekend but cheer up local fans Brandywine Wrestlers are headed for state competition. Brandywine defeated Delone Catholic 46 -23 in the finals to claim the 2005 PIAA District 3 AA Championship title. They move on to the state competition this Friday, February 11th at the Giant Center in Hershey, PA. We are now down to the final 16 teams in the state.