6th Grade: Elementary School or Middle School?

Question: Do you support or oppose moving sixth grade out of the elementary schools and into a more traditional middle school environment?

Rachel Chumney: I oppose it. Middle school is awful and children need to be in middle school as little as possible.

Source: RichardsonISDVideo
(starting 35:12).

A runoff election for Place 4 on the Richardson ISD Board of Trustees will happen on June 15 (early voting June 3-11 at Richardson Civic Center). The runoff is between incumbent Lanet Greenhaw and Rachel Chumney. I endorsed Lanet Greenhaw in the joint election on May 11. I endorse her again in the runoff. The question above is one reason why.

If you think that someone who thinks middle schools are "awful," whatever that means, might not be a good fit for school board trustee, then you might want to look beyond Rachel Chumney for a better candidate.

Look, Rachel Chumney is a nice enough person. She's just not qualified for school board. Don't rely just on the quote I found telling. Listen to Chumney's whole answer (starting 35:12). Then, compare with Lanet Greenhaw's answer explaining why she opposes moving sixth graders into junior high (starting 37:06). No contest. Vote for Greenhaw.

• The Dallas Morning News VOTER GUIDE
  
• League of Women Voters of Richardson VOTERS GUIDE
  

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See also:

• The Other Election: RISD Place 4
  
• Preparation for School Board
  
• Experience with Racial or Religious Minorities
  
• Technology in our Schools
  
• Attendance at School Board Meetings
  
• Advocacy for Public Schools
  
• Managing RISD's $250 Million Budget
  

Review: 86: A Collection of Poetry

Amazon

From 86: A Collection of Poetry, by William Gordon:

Hart  
I've much too much to ever tell --
My feet have chilled on steps from hell,
My lips are blue and frozen shut --
I now carefully skate when I used to strut,
Working my way out of a very dark place --
Step by step with the wind to my face,
I walk on ice in fear but soundly --
A deep cold frost on those around me,
Trudging onward in spite of my doubt --
A relentless search for the one way out,
In pursuit of the warmth of the setting sun --
Lost on a journey I should have never begun"

Poetry by Richardson's own William Gordon. My review, after the jump.

5 Broken Cameras (2012)

IMDB

5 Broken Cameras (2012): Documentary of Palestinian village resisting Israeli settlements. Important history. Not compelling filmmaking. C+

North Central Expressway: Feed Me

Feed me, Seymour
Feed me all night long.
That's right, boy!
You can do it!
Feed me, Seymour
Feed me all night long.
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Cause if you feed me, Seymour
I can grow up big and strong.

Source: Audrey II, Little Shop of Horrors.

Richardson has its own giant man-eating plant that demands to be fed so it can grow ever bigger: North Central Expressway. Like any good movie monster, it hides in wait before eventually attacking despite all the good intentions of our protagonists.

Recently, in a blog post titled, "Punching Through Central at Palisades," I was encouraged in my quest to tame North Central Expressway for the benefit of neighborhoods on both sides. The vision for development of the Palisades business park was a sight for sore eyes. Besides mixed-use architecture, the developer envisions a pedestrian bridge across North Central Expressway to the Galatyn DART station.

I was further encouraged by talk from Richardson City Council members. They are saying that "East/west, intra-city permeability through the US 75 Corridor must be meaningfully improved by providing for safer, more attractive and comfortable pedestrian and bicycle mobility." And they plan on telling TxDOT that very thing, in no uncertain terms, right?

The City Council on Monday [April 1, 2013] discussed updates to a vision statement draft for the US-75 corridor to present to the Texas Department of Transportation as it conducts a study on the corridor from I-635 to SH 121. The study is expected to be complete in September 2015, with several major milestones in 2014.

Source: City of Richardson.

TxDOT gets it, right? After the jump, a look to our north and what TxDOT is up to there.

S2L77: Golden Temple of Amritsar

From 1977 03 02 India

It is Amritsar that I mark as the start of my route through the lands of troubles to come, troubles that affect the region and the world to this day. Fortunately for me, my travels were in 1977, before there was a hint (at least to this naive Western traveler) that storms were just over the horizon. During my visit to Amritsar, the Golden Temple of the Sikhs, built in 1604, was resplendent, open to all, and peaceful. The peace was not to last.

In 1983, [Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale] and his militant followers headquartered themselves in the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine of the Sikhs, and started accumulating weapons. After several futile negotiations, Indira Gandhi ordered the Indian army to enter the Golden temple in order to subdue Bhindranwale and his followers. In the resulting Operation Blue Star, the shrine was damaged and many civilians were killed. The State of Punjab was closed to international media, its phone and communication lines shut. To this day the events remain controversial with a disputed number of victims; Sikhs seeing the attack as unjustified and Bhindrawale being declared the greatest Sikh martyr of the 20th century.

Source: Wikipedia.

One of a continuing series.
Start: Around the World in 800 Days
Previous: Delhi
Next: Srinigar, Kashmir Valley