Category: Opinion

Regarding the editorial in Sunday’s Daily Dispatch: It seems to me that if you cut someone’s work year by five days, then those are five days when the work doesn’t get done. You’ve made a choice that the money that is saved is more valuable than the work that would otherwise have been done. Increasing the work day by ten or twenty minutes to make up for that work without the appropriate compensation may not be labor abuse, but it’s …

In these difficult times, it is even more important to remember those who have fought and died for things larger than any one of us.

Well, the first week of Testmas is over, and we’re just exhausted. At least we get a three-day weekend to rest up for the second round of Testmas. Happy Friday!

For years we’ve been told that an education cannot take place in less than 180 days, no matter how much snow falls or how many hurricanes we have. Suddenly, one year, things get a little tight in the budget and we discover that, lo and behold, education can perhaps take place in 175 days, according to the North Carolina House Education Appropriations Committee. It can also take place with 12,000 fewer teachers and teacher assistants, it seems. And with 2.5% …

We just caught the op-ed piece in Wednesday’s Daily Dispatch on the virtues of horse racing as a cure for North Carolina’s economic woes. Perhaps we could combine the sport of kings with our Kerr Lake tourism asset and pioneer an equine water polo league. A French lake-front “cheval meat” restaurant could follow soon after, attracting sportsmen/gourmands from far and wide. En garde.

It looks like the city’s metaphorical well has done run dry. When will we finally hit bottom? Let us know your thoughts on today’s open line.

We’d like to congratulate the students, teachers, and volunteers who made the Citizens School program at Henderson Middle School culminate in the WOW! exhibition last night at the Civic Center at Vance-Granville Community College. It’s nice to know that in the age of the End-of-Grade test and No Child Left Behind that kids can still learn and have fun at the same time. We’ll have a more complete story on Citizens School in the near future.

We’re wondering if the proposed Henderson Collegiate Charter School will send behavior cases packing, or whether they will choose to work with them to develop their potential. We in the traditional public schools don’t have the option of refusing service to anyone no matter how they behave, unlike charters, and it may be the case that it makes a difference to the overall result.

Vaulted ceilings in each classroom, HVAC units quietly up in the attic, large windows… I think I want to teach at the new elementary school whether they name it after me or not. (Does my principal read HiH? Have I tipped my hand?) Oh, well. Here’s your open line.

Since the unpaid furlough is now the latest trend in crisis budget management, I hereby announce that I will be furloughing members of my family in order to balance the household budget. Sorry, kids, tomorrow of Foodless Thursday.

Pursuant to the discussion on yesterday’s open line, I will venture this opinion: Regardless of the shortcomings of many parents, the best thing for us, our town, our culture, and our way of life is to do what is necessary to help their children become productive taxpayers who only break the laws of probability by getting out of the cycle of poverty, ignorance, and criminality that so many of our youth are born into. Discuss and fuss on today’s open …

What would happen if we tried to make today a good-news-only day? Let’s give it a try. We’re willing to bet the universe won’t implode.