Guess Which School System is Leading the State in Reading

 

There's a Northwest Alabama school system leading the way in elementary reading proficiency with an almost 43% of students reading at or above desired levels. (Let that sink in that 43% is considered best in this state.)

You say it must be Florence where all the cool kids are? Sorry, guess again. How about Muscle Shoals, a system which concocts its own elaborate titles? No. Care to guess again?

No idea? It's Russellville! As Quicksilver once said, you didn't see that one coming!

Congratulations to the City of Russellville School system for pointing its students in the right direction. 

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Hi, I'm Cheddar, but there's nothing cheesy about me. I'm a three year-old male German Shepherd mix looking for a new gig. I'm old enough to be settled, but young enough to be your playful best friend. Come see me at the Florence shelter in the industrial park:

A Russellville School System Oddity?

 

While doing some research into the Franklin County School Board appointments, we came upon some very interesting information concerning the Russellville School System. Is it meaningful? Obviously, school demographics play at least a small role, if not a large one, in school success.

Several years ago, we discussed the meaning of Hispanic, a word widely misused. A Hispanic is a person from Central or South America whose first language is Spanish. Yet not all agencies/systems use the word correctly. That limits what statistics can tell us, but they are nevertheless interesting in this case. 

According to the most recent census, the population of Russellville is approximately 35% Hispanic. The number of Hispanic students in the Russellville system? Approximately 54%. While we expected a difference, we didn't expect it to be 19%.

What could account for this? There would seem to be four possibilities:

1. Hispanic families have more children than their non-Hispanic counterparts.

2. Non-Hispanic residents of Russellville send a large percentage of their children to county or private schools.

3. The U.S. Census Bureau and the Russellville City School System are using vastly differing definitions of Hispanic.

4. Russellville City Schools are somehow inflating the number of Hispanic students.

Perhaps we should add that more than one of these scenarios could be involved. The most troubling is that the system could be inflating the number of Hispanic children for tax dollars. 

It will be interesting to look at these same two stats in five years...

Just How Many in Our State Legislature Are Total Crooks?

As you know, we've been highlighting some odd bills currently proposed in our state legislature. Here's one we haven't gotten around to, but someone else has: A proposed Constitutional Amendment was introduced in the Senate that would remove the Lt. Governor as the president of the Senate, and provide that the sole duty of the Lt. Governor would be to succeed the Governor upon his removal from office. The bill is pending in the Senate Constitution, Ethics and Elections Committee [SB88 by Senator Gerald Dial].

We were going to ask the purpose of the bill and if the reduction in job duties precipitated a reduction in pay. Silly us! This morning we read this by John Archibald:

A Power Grab

So the Lt. Governor would have less duties, but get a 26% raise. That sunk in yet? The state senate would then elect one from among their ranks to preside over it. So what's the biggie here?

According to Mr. Archibald, it's the Lt. Governor's current duty of appointing various senate members to committees. Just think of the ability committee members have to influence votes in favor of certain programs/businesses.

This bill was introduced by Gerald Dial who also introduced one to allow the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public buildings. Mr. Archibald mentioned how much defending this bill would cost the state taxpayers, but we'll reiterate it. This bill would be quickly overturned, but not before some members of the law firm Brashly Arrogant made a few bucks.

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We received this from a reader:

Russellville Elementary School

One of the elementaries at Russellville City Schools has no soap dispensers in the bathrooms. They have paper towels, and sinks with water (but) no soap dispensers.

It's the RES elementary school. With the flu and other viruses going around and the fact that you can catch staph, pink eye, etc.. without washing hands with soap. So if a child gets feces, vomit etc. on their hands and uses water with no soap does that kill the bacteria? NO!! They then touch door knob going back to class rooms and they spread it to everyone who touches that door knob if they rub their eyes, touch their mouth ! Would you eat at a place where I was a cook in the bathroom who washed with no soap knowing I would be cooking your food? I wouldn't. I've emailed superintendent Heath Grimes...

We see this in restaurants and public buildings all over the Shoals. We recently were in a public building in Florence where only one soap dispenser worked. If you think it wasn't the one of two where we were washing our hands, you're a great guesser. We had to wait until the person standing next to us finished.

Yet this is much worse for children in public school systems. Is the janitor not doing a good job? Are supplies low because of inadequate budgets? We're thankful parents care enough about their children to make sure this is corrected. If you know of a local school that is short on basic hygiene supplies, shoot us an e-mail.

Florence City Council District One/Russellville City Schools

Next to the mayoral race, District One may be the most hotly contested bone in Florence. Here are the players:

* Dave Smith - Current council member, Smith easily won the position four years ago after a campaign in which he arranged a news conference for his opponent's ex-husband to accuse her of bigamy. At the time, Smith denied malice and pleaded ignorance. During his current term, Smith has done all he could to derail plans for a new animal shelter on Fairgrounds Road, playing the race card. Smith has also done nothing to assist in building the new shelter. He is frequently seen throwing candy in parades. Yes, we believe him when he proclaims his ignorance. No campaign page at this time.

* Yolanda Verna Johnson (Falk) - Smith's opponent four years ago, Johnson is a doctoral student. One of her prioriites is a new College Street Bridge to connect West Florence with more facilities in that end of the county. Johnson has never held elected office. No campaign page at this time.

* Kaytrina P. Simmons - Simmons is a Florence businesswomen with her fingers in several business and social pies.This is Simnons' first entry into the political foray and she has heavily papered her district with campaign handouts. No campaign page at this time.

We'll be doing more in depth articles on this election in the future and request each candidate to send us their platforms, preferably in Google.doc format. We'll add that this district includes not only West Florence, but a large part of North Florence which seems to receive little or no attention. Comments?

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We've had several readers ask about Brady Ann Irons' most recent arrest. We don't have any specifics at this time. We do know her pretrial had been set for May 31st and that she was taken  into custody on the afternoon of June 1st. She was most recently arrested on drug charges on April 6th; she remains in the Lauderdale Detention Center at this time.

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From a Russellville parent on new school district rules:

The out of school zone ordinance passed was nothing but a tool given to the RHS principals to decide who's good enough to attend their schools. Yes I have an axe to grind. My son is a 504 plan student with Tourette's and ADHD, he was supposed to be grandfathered in under the rules. But he has been denied no matter if we can pay or not.

The new principal Jason Goodwin has all authority in these selections. I wonder if he ever thought that a student with health and medical conditions might be absent more than the average. Or one with ADHD might forget to turn in his doctor's excuses within the required 3 day period. After finally getting a return call from Goodwin, he cited absenteeism and a poor grade as his reasoning for denying my child. The biggest disappointment we have is our son will be a senior next year. And due to the cleansing going on he had to pickup and start over his final year!

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We're also still getting a large number of questions about the recent sex trafficking case involving at least one Florence attorney. We're making a list of questions and attempting to get answers. Look for a new blog on this extremely interesting case soon.

170 Hispanic Students Boycott Russellville City Schools

A source with Russellville City Schools has stated 108 Hispanic students were absent from high school classes on Wednesday. The educator further stated that if the parents of these children really cared for their offspring, as well as wanting to obey U.S. laws, the children would have been in attendance. "They're the ones who suffer. They're the ones who really needed to be here," said the source. A total of 170 were reported absent from the entire system.

We agree totally. Sadly, these children were used as pawns; that doesn't speak well of the parents or of their goals.

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The Russellville Fire Department was called to the A.W. Todd Centre yesterday to remove Hispanics from the premises. There were conflicting reports of the exact number who were asked to leave the meeting where further protests of Alabama's new immigration law were being planned, but the Fire Marshal stated the number in attendance exceeded the meeting room's capacity.

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What did the Hispanic boycott accomplish? Probably nothing its originators intended. Those who didn't purchase or sell goods on the day of the boycott purchased more the day before or the day after. Employees who failed to show up for work now have a black mark against them. Students who were kept home from school have missed a day of learning and are now that much further behind those who did attend.

We're going to guess that logic isn't a strong point with those who framed this protest...



Shoalanda