The 'burbs

Competitive spirit sidelined by the rules

   Jordan Maliken and his supporters lost one at the wire Tuesday.

      State Education Commissioner Richard Mills decided he had to let a decision stand:
Maliken, 20, who is diagnosed with mental retardation, cannot race with the track team during
the final two weeks of his last year at Amherst High School.

   Although state law allows students with disabilities to go to school until age 21, rules
say athletes cannot compete for a fifth year, or after age 19.

   Still, his parents and school staff thought there was a chance that an exception could be
made for Maliken, now finishing his fifth year of high school.

   So people went to hearings, made phone calls and tried to navigate confusing layers of
bureaucracy.

   Twice, in March and April, the local division of the New York State Public High School
Athletic Association, affirmed that the rules did not allow for exceptions for students with
disabilities.

   On Tuesday Mills let the association decision stand.

   "There is no authority, in this case, for the commissioner to waive the requirements," said
Jonathan Burman, a Mills  spokesman.

   What do you think?

-- Michelle Kearns

Schools prepare for the worst

   Every year, school boards fall over themselves applauding their efforts to keep tax rate increases down to 3 or 4 percent. A budget proposal that will keep the programs in place and increase you tax bill by "only" $20 or $30 is cause for celebration.

   Those will indeed seem like the good old days in May.

   Barring an economic miracle, the state money that schools depend on to keep the local tax rate down is going to be cut drastically. Districts that worried when the aid didn't grow enough year to year will have to settle for millions less next year.

   Prepare for stories about people losing their jobs, field trips that the senior class has taken for years being eliminated, the tax rate going up by 10 percent or more and voters taking out their frustration by voting down budgets.

   Put it all together and there won't be much to cheer about it.

  --- Bruce Andriatch

   

Girls are ready to hit the ice

   There are 17 public schools in Western New York that offer boys varsity ice hockey.

   Yet despite the hundreds of girls who strap on helmets and skates for community recreation leagues throughout the region, not a single school-sponsored varsity ice hockey program is available to public school girls.

   Not fair, say female hockey players and their parents.

   The Williamsville School District, which was one of the first area districts to offer boys varsity ice hockey, has wanted to create a districtwide girls varsity ice hockey team since last year.

   But it can't because no other area school district has been willing to do the same. On Thursday, Williamsville officials plan to meet with other area athletic directors to gauge the potential for some girls competition in 2009-10.

   Given the rough economic times, some districts might find it hard to justify creating a new sports program. But girls say they want school officials to drop the puck not pass the buck.

   --- Sandra Tan

Survival of neighborhood school at stake in Brant

   Lake Shore School Board members don't want to throw good money after bad, so they're wondering if the district should spend a lot of money on improvements at Brant Elementary School if the school might be closed soon for declining enrollment.

   The district also wants to make sure facilities are equitable and Brant pupils are offered amenities similar to the other elementary schools.

   But Brant is a special school, parents and teachers say. Spend a fair amount, update the school, they say, but don't close it.  What faculty and staff offer their pupils more than makes up for some shortfalls in the building, they say.

-- Barbara O'Brien

Culture and student exchange

   Lake Shore Central School District students and teachers are immersed in all things Chinese this week, because 26 students from a middle school in Jilin Province, China, are visiting.

   The best time for them to visit is in the winter, when they have a month off from school. But the idea is for them to leave with a good impression of Buffalo, not a cold, wintry one. So they came this week, observing National Day Tuesday, which marks the founding of the People's Republic of China Oct. 1, 1949.

   But the visit wasn't about national holidays or politics, it was about youths from China getting a taste of American culture: playing hoops at a backyard basket, spending a little time in a hot tub and seeing a football game under Friday night lights.

   And it was about American teenagers finding out there's not that much difference between themselves and Chinese teenagers, and finally being thankful for school - that they don't have
to attend 12-hours a day like their new friends.

   --- Barbara O'Brien

This won't hurt a bit

   Who's not in favor of oral health? Who could argue against a state regulation that could help get some kids get to a dentist, and then get treated?

   New York State is requiring public schools to ask parents to provide them with a certificate of dental health for their children. But parents don't have to provide it, and no child will be turned away from school.

   One of the cases cited in favor of this law is that of a 12-year-old Maryland boy, who died from a brain infection that had spread from an abscess in a tooth root.

   Local dentists have stepped up and will offer free and reduced price dental screenings for one week next month, and they'll sign the certificates after the screening.

   But will the certificate be a piece of paper that gets tucked away in a child's folder, never to be seen again - like the Ark of the Covenant in "Raiders of the Lost Ark?"

  --- Barbara O'Brien

The most important meal of the school day

   Maybe they have great food. Maybe kids at John F. Kennedy Middle School don't want to wake up in time to eat breakfast at home, or maybe this is an example of peer pressure gone good.

   Whatever the reason, more than half the school ate breakfast at school Thursday. For 75 cents, they get a bagel, or a "breakfast pizza" of a biscuit, sauce, cheese and breakfast sausage and milk or juice.

   That's 192 children choosing food off carts in the hall, and paying at a cash register on wheels … all in about 15 minutes.

   Instead of being chastised for eating in the halls and classrooms, they are encouraged.

   You might wonder why schools are going to great lengths to feed children in the morning, but teachers know a full stomach makes learning a little bit easier for everyone in the classroom.

  --- Barbara O'Brien

The view from the OP principal's office

   Robert P. Farwell Jr. will be retiring this summer as principal of one of the largest high schools in the area, Orchard Park Central.

   Some notes from the world of Bob Farwell, who has spent the last 28 years at Orchard Park High:

   -- The book he will leave in the high school library is "Boom! Voices of the Sixties" by Tom Brokaw.

   "That's what I'd like to tell my students: make a difference. It's like I tell employees, if you're not making mistakes, you're not doing the job."

   --  On the buses that start unloading students about 7 a.m.: "The big yellow limousines come and drop off satisfied customers on a daily basis."

   -- How students have changed:

   "I see a greater disregard for truth when you're in trouble."

   The cliques in 1980 were much stronger, he says. "You went into the cafeteria in 1980, you could see the groups. There were the preppy kids, here were the jocks, here were the motor heads.  Now when you walk in the cafeteria, there are still groups, but you can't tell who comes from a very wealthy family and who doesn't."

   Dress is much more casual, which has caused some problems. But the man who doesn't like rules doesn't put much stock in the "no skirts shorter than the end of your fingertips" rule of thumb. "Three young ladies wearing the same outfit, purchased at the same place, and somebody has shorter arms or longer legs or whatever, and one student has to go home and the other one doesn't?"

   -- On dealing with drugs and alcohol: It comes with the job, he says, and is something he won't miss.

   "I've attended too many wakes and funerals of kids. We're going to do everything we can to make sure it doesn't happen."

   -- Barbara O'Brien

A musical interlude

   Gail Leary jokes about how emotional she will be when she leads her East Aurora pupils in song for the last time this Sunday. When I interviewed her for my column today, I suggested that she might want to stay away from the film "Mr. Holland's Opus" for a while.

   But it's not a stretch to understand why she feels this way. Teachers develop a special bond with the children they spend time with. There's a reason they use the term "my kids" the same way a parent would about his or her own children.

   We hope that teachers take such an intense interest in those young lives, because next to parents, no one spends more time with your children. And in many cases, the teacher might be the child's main role model.

   I suspect that a lot of the people who come to East Aurora High School Sunday to say goodbye to Mrs. Leary will be there because of that connection.

   So my question is: Did you have a teacher like that? What did he or she mean to you?

   --- Bruce Andriatch

 

Diversity comes to suburbia

   When Barack Obama gave his now famous speech about race in America, it gave people a reason to talk about a subject that is right up there with religion and politics in the taboo topic pantheon.

   But students in a growing number of first-ring suburban school districts do more than just discuss racial issues; they live them every day. Students are not only exposed to people of different races but cultures as evidenced by the growth of English as a Second Language programs. Go into many of the schools in the towns of Tonawanda, Amherst and Cheektowaga and the population is akin to a meeting of the United Nations.

   That was the point of my column today , which was centered on the efforts of one of the local BOCES districts to help students appreciate diversity.

   Today's students are living a kind of integration that was unimaginable in the suburbs even 25 years ago. The question is: What will that mean for their - and the nation's - future? 

  --- Bruce Andriatch