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Sep

4

DigCleveland blog from Channel 3, WKYC

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I just pick ‘em up from Technorati.

I guess I’m two for two in the MSM borrows from the blogs category today.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:03 pm September 4th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off 

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Sep

4

It’s a beautiful, busy, secular day in the neighborhood

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In my nine years of patronizing the Orange City Schools district, I’ve had very, very few complaints related to religion in the schools. I wasn’t happy last year, and I wrote about it, regarding how a waiver day was moved to coincide with Easter, whereas, the week before, the Jewish residents had to pull their kids from school because of Passover starting the very day after Spring Break.

Luckily, this year, Spring Break and Easter coincide because Easter is so early. And Passover happens to be very late this year and starts on a weekend. So all is good in the world with the calendar.

And I’m never thrilled with all the party hoo-hah over St. Patrick’s Day and Valentine’s Day and all the decorations that go up. But in general, my attitude about them is, Whatever. They’re points of discussion, that’s it.

But this morning, I became aware of a flyer that my daughter brought home and it caused me to call the superintendent’s office.

I love my school district, but I know, because of my work with a parent networking group, that any paper that is to be distributed to the students must go through a very specific vetting procedure.

Additionally, because I’m an active member of a religious institution in town, I’ve been involved in conversations about whether or not to send an announcement about an event through the public schools. In my six or seven years at my synagogue, we’ve never done that.

What was it that came home?

A flyer for Garfield Memorial Church’s Back to School Jam.

What could be wrong with that?

Well, even the administrator in charge of vetting flyers etc. for distribution said, in his own words, that he was disappointed about the existence of the flyer in my daughter’s backpack. The reasons for his disappointement:

1. The item did not go through him as it should have, and
2. He is a member of Garfield and recounted to me how, when the flyer came to him last fall, 2006, it had to be modified in order to remove some content that the district felt was not appropriate.

I want to make it absolutely clear: Never before have I ever seen anything come home with any of my three kids, in three different grades, over the last nine years that was remotely questionable as far as having content that I would feel should disqualify that flyer or communication from being distributed by my public school.

That means to me that the district does an excellent job of vetting materials that do not belong in our kids’ backpacks, regardless of whether the issue is violence, obscenity, indecency, religion or any other material that public schools should not be asked to distribute and should not distribute.

What bothered me about this particular flyer was that it was for an event that was being hosted on the grounds of a church and that it described itself this way:

“back to school jam
sunday august 26 2:00-9:00pm
Come and celebrate outdoors with three exciting Christian bands”

How weird! I thought. Especially when everything after that phrase? Totally secular – 100% secular. See for yourself:

The name of one of the Christian bands, whose picture, the largest of the three promo photos, is in the middle of the oversized postcard flyer was The Divine Soldiers:


Admission to the event? Free – so long as you brought new school supplies. It doesn’t say that if you don’t bring the supplies, you pay. I don’t know about what would happen in that case.

So, ostensibly, this is a good thing to have happen – an event to help furnish school supplies to, according to the flyer, “low-income children and youth in the City of Cleveland.” No mention of whether it’s going to the muni schools, charter schools, parochial etc. And also, the Orange PTA runs such a program at least once at the end of the school year but also, during the school year, there’s a toiletries and supplies collection done by the PTA.

But still, sounds secular enough.

And so, although I was, literally, shocked when I saw the postcard, I didn’t want to do it – call and question it. Even the administrative assistant who helped me reach the right person at the school district had to tell me that it was okay to bring this to their attention.

Why would I be reluctant? Because this district does care and they do want to know and they have never tried to intimidate me out of asking questions and pushing to get answers. It’s one of the reasons I like this district so much – I’ve always found it to be responsive. And I press parents all the time to assert themselves as well, until they get answers.

But my initial reaction told me that I had to make the call. And, to be brutally honest, completely separate from any church/state issues? We parents get SO MUCH PAPER SENT HOME. Duplicates and triplicates sometimes. It is overwhelming and a huge waste. So there was the practical side of the situation as well:

There have to be, at a minimum, 15-20 religious institutions within the Orange school district boundaries. Can you imagine the flood of flyers that would come to them to vet if such material was allowed, just so they could review whether something was okay or not? And all the time that would have to be spent, essentially to be a free mail service?

No way.

In the end, the points I made to the administrator were:

Either someone had circumvented Orange’s system for vetting flyers in which case I wanted the district to figure out where the problem was and re-educate about the rules, or someone had decided that such material was okay to be distributed. In which case, I would have wanted to, in writing and in a public forum, such as through the school board, hear more about how this flyer is deemed permissible.

The administrator in charge of the process could not have been more amenable to speaking with me, explaining his position to me, listening to me and, I’m hopeful, following up.

P.S. the very very last thing I said?

I have a blog and will be writing about the incident, but don’t worry! NO ONE reads blogs.

What do you think – should anything come home via our kids’ backpacks, from the public schools? Where would you draw the line? What do you think about this particular flyer? What should a district’s policy be? What would you do?

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 8:30 pm September 4th, 2007 in Politics | 6 Comments 

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Sep

4

For the new year? A new blog of course

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Lila – just how long did you think you could go undetected!? Good for you and the Cleveland Jewish News. I’ve got you in my feeder now.

Please visit Lila here at her new blog, LilaTov Cocktail, with the subtitle, “only mildly incendiary.” Very clever! A play on molotov but also on the hebrew phrase that means “goodnight” – “lila tov.”

To learn more about why her blog is even in need (which it is), read her article from 3/20/06 about Jewish blogs in the region.

I’ll be sure to congratulate Michael Bennett (does he know you’re doing this!?).

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:10 pm September 4th, 2007 in Politics | 3 Comments 

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Sep

4

Step right up – get your reasons to VOTE NO ON ISSUE 1 right here

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Starting next Monday, September 10, I will be posting one reason a day as to why Ohioans should Vote No on Issue 1. You can read more about Issue 1 here. We will review the ballot language, the bill itself and the consequences of the ballot issue passing versus failing.

Truth be told, it is because plenty of power will continue to exist, in the hand of local communities, who know their constituencies’ values, to regulate and enforce the regulations over adult entertainment entities that I will vote no on Issue 1: Ohio did not and does not need more regulations related to this “industry.” As much as I may find the industry completely unpalatable, the law that the current legislature passed – primarily because of the actions of one special interest group – is not necessary at this time and was passed because legislators claimed they had no choice, based on the number of signatures the special interest group brought to the legislators in support of the legislation.

And, remember: Governor Strickland never signed this bill. He let it become law without his John Hancock. The reason he gave for not signing, as stated in that Columbus Dispatch link:

“The governor previously had expressed concerns about whether the bill was constitutional and would have vetoed it had he decided that were the case, spokesman Keith Dailey said.

“But ultimately, Strickland decided to respect the wishes of the citizens who signed petitions seeking the law and the legislators who voted for it, and he just didn’t believe the issue was important as other issues facing the state, Dailey said.”

How many signatures was that? About 142,000.

And how many have been turned in now, to repeal SB 16? Oh, something like 380,000, give or take however many may be disqualified but will hopefully still leave the minimum of 241,000 – nearly twice as many as the special interest group needed to tied up the Ohio General Assembly.

So – anyone going to ask Governor Ted Strickland how he’ll vote on Issue 1?

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:10 pm September 4th, 2007 in Politics | 2 Comments 

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Sep

4

Remains of the Day, 9-3-07

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1. In case enough people haven’t shared in my lice experience already, the Plain Dealer’s helping me. You know, they say 10 million kids a year get lice. And in New York City there are businesses that thrive on lice removal. I’m telling you – there is a whole market waiting to be served by people who will take far more pleasure than I in examining every single head on my child’s hair twice a day every day for ten days.

2. Instructions from WikiHow on How to File an Open Records Request. Hattip to State Sunshine and Open Records.

3. I don’t usually get caught up in big box blog discussions, but I’ve been so perplexed and haunted by the drive at Open Left to pit Dems against Dems based on the single issue of Iraq and the tangential issue of Iran that I just did it – I went in there and I asked and asked until I started to get answers that I could at least understand, if not agree with. Thanks to David Potts for rating me. Goodness knows I don’t have a clue about that stuff on those forums.

4. I really like Bill Sloat’s The Daily Bellwether – I’ve written that before. But I wanted to tell him that I like his color changes! (You did do that on purpose, right?) You are going to read stuff there that you won’t find anywhere else, and when it is on a topic covered elsewhere, you’re still going to find a unique view. Bill and I don’t always agree, but I really am glad he blogs.

5. Dave at NixGuy has a good post up about journalism and blogging – it’s a theme that’s going around. ;)

6. Psychohorsey on the Akron mayor and Eric Mansfield links of interviews you can watch of the mayoral candidates.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:57 am September 4th, 2007 in Politics | 2 Comments 

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