BREAKING NEWS: Incident at Andrews this morning

More stupidity…the News & Record is reporting that nooses were found on the Andrews H.S. campus this morning. A total of four of them were found about 8:30 this morning, right around the time school was starting. Two were found on a flagpole, one was hung from a tree and another found in an old bus parking lot, district officials say. The incident is under investigation, according to police and GCS.

I’ve got plenty of readers from Andrews. If someone there would write in (you can be anonymous) and tell us what happened and what you saw, it would be helpful.

Why do I feel like this is going to be another long school year, folks?

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UPDATE, 9/21/07, 3:53PM: FOX-8 has the story up on its website, click here. This is outrageous. If this is a prank, it’s not funny. If this is trying to send a sick, sadistic message, who did it, and what’s the message? And of all places, Andrews.

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UPDATE, 9/21/07, 5:14PM: Here’s the letter Andrews principal Monique Brooks-Wallace sent home with students today. News & Record is blogging the story.

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UPDATE, 9/21/07, 6:09PM: NBC-12 has the story on their website, click here. CBS-2 has their version of the events, click here.

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UPDATE, 9/22/07, 10:02AM: Link to today’s News & Record story here. Link to High Point Enterprise story here.

An excerpt from the N&R version:

Dot Kearns, an at-large school board member, said she agreed that Andrews has had to overcome racial and social stereotypes.

“Andrews has had its problems, but I’ve always thought that it was a prototype of what an urban school should be,” Kearns said. “Finding nooses there, that kind of thing is so sad, so disappointing.”

Maybe Andrews’ challenges would have been averted if that school wouldn’t have been redistricted so much by you Board members. Maybe its challenges would have been averted if you all would have given Andrews the adequate supplies it needed to succeed to educate these children. Quit making excuses and start finding solutions.

Typical Monday morning quarterbacking…

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UPDATE, 9/22/07, 9:27PM: Thanks to my wife for reminding me that Andrews has surveillance cameras…a lot of them. Pretty sophisticated too. So hopefully, HP PD and GCS are reviewing the tapes to see if they can ID any of those responsible. I remember the time I spent there as a teacher and I think that one of the cameras is pointed in the direction of that flagpole where one of the nooses was found. Let’s hope.

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UPDATE, 9/23/07, 11:26AM: Link to News-14 Carolina story with video here.

More updates as we get them.

E.C. 🙂

New school year…New round of stupidity

Apparently, it didn’t take long for the stupidity in some of our schools to begin.

My friend Doug Clark at the News & Record blogs today about an incident in Charlotte where a student at Char-Meck’s Olympic High School was arrested for carrying a loaded, concealed handgun, along with verbally assaulting a teacher.  See this Charlotte Observer story for more.

Add insult to injury, on the same day, being this past Wednesday, a student was arrested for assaulting a principal of Char-Meck’s Garinger High School.  All this, on top of the incident at Wiley Middle School in Winston-Salem where an 11-year old student brought a gun to school.

And one of our board members wants school resource officers (SROs) out of our schools…mind you, this is not an agenda item for tomorrow’s GCS Board retreat.

Stupidity or disgust?

E.C. 🙂

Eastern Guilford Money Starts to trickle in

Both today’s News & Record and High Point Enterprise report that money to rebuild Eastern Guilford H.S. are trickling in very slowly.

County commissioners approved yesterday moving $6 million in insurance proceeds to help cover construction costs for the new school. The CoCos hinted at possibly moving more money around between other projects to continue financing the project. Both the CoCos and the school meet again jointly next month.

E.C. 🙂