More Coffee, Please

About a month ago, I reported that Miss Katrina Baumgartner and Miss Natale Novak had made it to the semi-finals of the speech content.

That semi-final round of the District Four Way Test Speech contest was held May 3 at the Henniker NH Community building. Twenty four young men and women participated from across District 7870 participated.

And it was there that Miss Baumgartner was selected as one of the four finalists to travel to the Balsams in Dixville Notch for the District Conference.

May 30 is coming—let’s keep hoping.

Destination Imagination is one of my personal pet loves, and I’ve talked about it more than once.

I pointed out that MRHS will—once again—be going Global Finals competition in Knoxville, Tennessee on May 19-22. As always, we’re going to hope that this team¹ will do well—I think we all have every confidence in them.

It’s Friday—which means that we’re on the third night of the MRHS Fine and Performing Art’s performance of Amadeus.

This is not an easy performance—and for that matter, neither was Les Miserables. It says something about our kids, our teachers, and our support staff to pull them both off in a single year—and it’s never a bad time.²

Go see it.

No huge shock here.

Greedy? Us? No… Never! Well… hardly ever.

Speaking of…

The Keene Sentinel, earlier this week reported that Monadnock Taxpayer’s Association is up to the usual, again:

“It is time that this board took a stand with regard to out-of-district students,” [Jim Carnie] said.

But Pickering objected to Carnie’s motion.

“We’re prepared to lay out, to the best of our ability, the entire plan — which may or may not include some of what Jim has brought up right now,” Pickering said, while indicating the administration should be included in the discussion.

Known by many in the district as “MC2” or “MC-squared,” Monadnock Community Connections was created in 2002, partially funded by a federal grant that supported so-called school “choice” programs.

The grant was awarded to the Monadnock district but benefited students and educators in the N.H. School Administrative Unit 38, which includes Monadnock, Hinsdale and Winchester, and Unit 29, which includes Keene and a slew of area towns.

Since then, Monadnock Community Connections has received accolades, including landing on a list of silver-lining commendations when a commission of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges put Monadnock high school on probationary accreditation status.

However, the grant has dried up and the Monadnock district is footing the alternative program’s bill.

Pickering said 13 people are now in the program and said he thinks four of them are from out of district.

Students who attend the program from other districts pay the tuition cost of the high school, despite the assertion by some people that the per-pupil cost of Monadnock Community Connections is considerably higher.

A stand against “out of district” students? Please. Mr. Carnie doesn’t like the program—and the program gets easier to cut, and harder to justify keeping, as its numbers go down.

Of course, one of the reasons its numbers never go up is because everyone wonders if it will be around the following year—thanks to the Monadnock Taxpayer’s Association. See how good they are at what they do?

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Mr. Carnie doesn’t really care about out-of-district students. I don’t see this as a principled stand for “what’s right.” We’re not talking about millions of kids—we’re talking about less than a handful.

And let’s just ignore the programs our kids take advantage of in Keene—CVC, and a host of others. Those things benefit MRHS and MRSD students—and we’re fortunate that Keene and other schools care more about a kid’s education than where they put their head at night.

I’d like to think we live in a world where cooperation and collaboration allow us to get further together than we would alone—Mr. Carnie and the reactionaries he works with would probably prefer to see a version of the Berlin wall built between each town.

I’ve complained about textbooks, and I’ve complained about Texas, but there is some good ideas coming from the prospect of using a textbook.

That’s about the only point I can see to investing thousands of dollars in a textbook—use them as examples of how thinking shouldn’t be done. Were I to have my way, there would never be another textbook—at least, in an English class. I’d rather spend the money on Norton Anthologies or poetry collections or other rich collections of literature—give the kids the material and teach them to think from the hard stuff.

But that’s just me.

Today is Keene State’s graduation—and a huge chunk of the class of 2005 is walking to receive their diplomas today. From there, they’re heading into the “real world.”

Of course, it’s likely to be pretty tough.

1 Al Hummel, Briana Karasinski, Alex Martin, Lucas Braley, Molly MacLean, Kylie Mason, Dillon Mercier, Ian Noyes, Cam Wichland, Caitlin Blanchard, Brian Corbett, Sarah Dick, Gwen Hummel, Brianna Mannion-King, Tianlu (Donna) Qian, Levy Smith, and Susan Vaughan—if you see them in the halls, stop and say hello, and wish them luck. ↺

2 Even if I didn’t get to play the villain—sadly, there are no Nazis or Asylum Keepers in either work, and though Javert and Salieri have their moments, I’d have to sing with one and act with the other, neither or which are my strong points. Hopefully next year they’ll do something with Klingons… ↺

Gregarious

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