Upsetting thing #1 was that in my last column regarding our California schools losing their promised allocation of performance award money, I mentioned that our own school’s Title I specialist may have been “canned”. Poor word choice to say the very least. Poor reporting as well as I did nothing to check this before I ran with it. Thinking that stating it was a reported “rumor” was enough. Well, I was wrong, and am very upset about it.
To set the record straight my principal has enlightened me that our Title I specialist “chose to take a classroom position this year – a change in assignment that was not a demotion in any way and was not in any way a negative reflection of their work with the Title I program.” With that said let me only add that I am truly sorry that I have hurt someone’s feelings by my lack of professionalism. I had the opportunity to meet our Title I specialist on two occasions prior to this where I was impressed with the knowledge, aptitude and skills they had shown. I have only heard positive reports, including from where I had heard the rumor, of this person’s intelligence and dedication to Title I. I only hope that the person that fills this vacant position will be just as dedicated to our children and the position.
Secondly, I can no longer shop at supermarkets that also house banks. My formerly favorite market was robbed recently for the second time. Although, I should clarify, that it was the bank inside of the market that was robbed. I read about both robberies in our very own Mighty Signal.
The first was less than two years ago (I know because it was around then that we had moved into our new home.) and the other occurred just a few weeks back. Both involved gunmen. And both occurred minutes from when my daughter and I had just finished shopping.
My seven-year-old tells me that we can go back, that the gunmen were not going to use their guns on anybody. So I tried to explain to her, right on the heels of Samantha Runnion’s kidnapping and murder, that strangers, with or without guns, should be avoided. For the umpteenth time lately!
Which leads me to Upset #3. Why can’t Runner’s idea of utilizing our emergency broadcast system to notify the public immediately following the abduction of a child be immediately begun? On the front page of today’s Signal Runner said that this bill got lost on Davis’s desk the last time it was brought up. And now Davis promises to get it handled by September 1st? When kid’s playing outdoors for the summer will have ended for most school-aged kids?
I made a big boo-boo in my last column; it didn’t take me more than two days to come up with another column to apologize, as I offered, in writing to Signal readers. It won’t take a third robbery for me to find a market that doesn’t have a bank in it. (Thank you sweet checker at my new market for the map I can use next time.) So why in hell do we have to wait until September to use our emergency broadcast system?
My childless, sixty-five year old co-worker didn’t sleep at all this past Thursday night. She had nightmares about the murderer on the lose. She came in on her day off that Friday to let us know that the police were 100% sure that they had got him. I read it this morning in The Signal, along with another column stating our newspaper’s willingness to run any pictures and/or information, God help us all, immediately and if necessary for our own community.
Again? We apologize when we hurt people. We protect our love ones from potentially harmful surroundings. But we can’t use a system, one that I don’t have to remind any Californians that we never use, today? Are we waiting for something even more tragic to happen first?
And tragic would be the repeat of something that we had in our sights to stop.
