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The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C., Ruth Sheehan Column: More Questions for Board

Posted on: Thursday, 8 June 2006, 06:00 CDT

By Ruth Sheehan, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.

Jun. 8--I wish state lawmakers were instituting mandatory eye exams for Wake County parents. Because after reading the list of 12 questions school board members need to consider in converting schools to a year-round calendar, I'm going cross-eyed.

If a year-round school were on a train headed north at 95 mph, and a traditional-calendar school were on a bus headed south traveling at 65 mph, which school would need 15 mobile classrooms by Aug. 17?

I don't envy such weighty considerations as whether the schools being converted to a year-round calendar have a way to store the rolling carts containing tracked-out teachers' gear.

Forget the hundreds of millions in bond money at stake, now we're talking brass tacks.

Go from carts into a discussion of spot nodes, and my eyes begin to blur.

In an attempt to simplify this Q&A process for the school board, and the rest of us, I have come up with a list of easy-reader questions that I would like to see answered:

1) Where are all the supporters of year-round schools identified in the John Locke Foundation's poll this spring? (That's the one that found a solid majority of Wake residents would rather go to mandatory year-rounds than pay more in taxes.)

2) Has anyone compiled a school-by-school list of families who would agree to the year-round schedule, or even prefer it?

3) Has anybody asked the children what they think? (Has anybody seen the movie "Recess: School's Out," where kids defeat a nefarious scheme to end summer vacation forever?)

4) Is it possible that converting schools to year-round will allow more children to go to their neighborhood schools rather than getting reassigned?

5) Could we enlist the help of the powerful lobbyists who insisted on saving our summers last year? If they truly want to save our summers, they'll get involved -- unless this was really about tourism dollars and not about children.

6) What about the lobbyists who are already poised to work in the legislature against impact fees and other school funding alternatives that require state approval?

Surely if they want to save us all from burdensome fees, they can help us find a way to convert the smallest number of schools as possible to the year-round calendar.

7) Is it time to take advice from a Ligon Middle School student and aggressively pursue the notion that virtual education isn't just for college anymore?

I remember some of the toxic moments in junior high and high school. I would have happily traded them for time in front of a computer screen, or working on projects from home. Maybe I would even be a happier columnist if I had.

8) Where do all the biggest anti-year-rounders live? We might as well have one of those noise-o-meters that used to be used on game shows to determine who won the audience's favor. Whoever shouts most loudly keeps a traditional calendar.

And finally, the question I always come back to when I read about school board members and their struggles with reassignment, sex ed, bond issues and school calendars:

9) Why the heck did y'all want this job in the first place?

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Copyright (c) 2006, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The News & Observer

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