[Southsider2k12]

http://www.michigancityin.com/articles/200.../news/news4.txt

No school on holiday

By Deborah Sederberg, The News-Dispatch

Students of Michigan City Area Schools will not be expected to attend school on Memorial Day to make up for one of last winter's foul weather days.

Superintendent Michael Harding told the School Board at its regular meeting Tuesday night, that the administration and the Michigan City Education Association met to discuss the matter in light of community protest against holding school on the holiday to honor the nation's war casualties.

At its last meeting, the board had suggested continuing the conversation about Memorial Day.

Students now will be expected to attend on June 11, the day after the June 10 graduation. Harding said the arrangement will not affect graduation activities. June 12 will be the last day for teachers.

Also Tuesday, two appraisals of the Pine Township property the MCAS board has said it will buy for the construction of the new Pine Elementary School presented wildly differing figures.

One appraisal said the land at the southwest corner of County Line Road and Porter County Road 1675 North was worth $13,000 per acre and the other was lower by more than two-thirds, at $4,000 per acre.

The board had been told the land likely would cost $8,500 per acre. On Feb. 13, on the recommendation of MCAS business manager Theo Boone, the board passed a resolution to buy the property, although board members said an appraisal as well as a legal description would be required.

Attorney William Satterlee, who has been handling the property sale for MCAS, admitted he seldom had seen appraisals as widely separated as these. When questioned by board member Beryle Burgwald, Satterlee stopped short of saying he had never seen such an appraisal.

Board member Jim Kintzele said he received only a one-page cover letter describing the appraisals, but noted the whole document would have been 17 pages.

Satterlee said he had sent the whole report to the school corporation.

“I supplied the cover letter,” Boone said. “But I will be glad to send the other pages, but they will be a bunch of legalese and pictures.”

Burgwald, who has served on both the city and the county council, said, “I don't understand the wide disparity.”

The property is owned the a Catholic order of nuns, the Sisters of the Holy Cross, which sponsors Saint Mary College in South Bend.

Contact reporter Deborah Sederberg at dsederberg@thenewsdispatch.com.

[Southsider2k12]

So apparently the teachers and staff found out about the change in Memorial Day the same way all of us did... throught the newspaper. So much for that whole communications and strategic plan thing. The administration apparently didn't have time to send an email to let anyone else know what was going on.

[JHeath]

So apparently the teachers and staff found out about the change in Memorial Day the same way all of us did... throught the newspaper. So much for that whole communications and strategic plan thing. The administration apparently didn't have time to send an email to let anyone else know what was going on.

Why fix something they don't consider to be broken?

[Roger Kaputnik]

How is the job search going for Harding? We must find him a situation...

[Southsider2k12]

How is the job search going for Harding? We must find him a situation...

When you do an interview from your trip to Hawaii that is too important to cancel... well you usually don't get a call back. I wouldn't let him manage the rocks in front of my house.

[Ang]

Man!! SS you are feeling spunky today! We haven't heard from you in two days and when you come back you're just full of humor. My daughter thinks I'm nuts cause I keep laughing at this blue computer screen.

[Southsider2k12]

Yeah, I forgot that the firm that was buying my firm was bringing me over for training TH, FRI, and MON. No internet for me!

[Southsider2k12]

Solution to holiday issue bad for seniors
Laura Ryba, Michigan City High School

Michigan City Area Schools just announced last week students will not go to school Memorial Day. This sounds like good news, but it's not the ideal situation for most high-school seniors.

Seniors graduate June 10, but since we are not going to school Memorial Day, we now must go to school June 11.

The original plan for seniors was to schedule finals Wednesday and Thursday, June 6-7. Then, our final graduation practice was to be the next day, Friday, June 8, with the senior picnic afterwards.

According to the newly adjusted school calendar, finals are on the same dates, final graduation practice is Friday and graduation stays the same. But our senior picnic isn't on Friday anymore. It's been moved to Monday - the day after we graduate.

It doesn't make sense to me because on Friday, we will have to go to class - when we've already received our grades - and it would be pointless for teachers to offer extra credit or anything of the sort. So, we'll be sitting in our classes with nothing to do after our final graduation practice.

We should keep the senior picnic on Friday because, then, we will have a reason to stay at school. And, our steering committee already paid deposits for things reserved for Friday, not Monday.

It appears the senior picnic was changed to Monday simply so seniors will come to school. We discussed this in my AP English Literature class, and students don't know how attendance could be taken Monday, unless they hold our diplomas, which would be a terrible idea because that's what graduation is all about.

Senior Nicole Koski said, “I think they should give us our diplomas on the day we graduate, not the day after. It would just be a waste of a day.”

This whole thing has turned into a mess. We should have just gone to school on Memorial Day and celebrated the day in our classes. It's not like we were going to do any serious school work anyway. We would honor the day and take part in Memorial Day activities. But now, it's too late.

I talked with some teachers, and they are upset as well. They are upset because the newspaper (where the announcement was made) was told before the teachers were. Michigan City applied for a waiver so it wouldn't have to make up one of the snow days from earlier in the year, but the school hasn't heard whether or not we have received the waiver, so none of this is set in stone.

It's all so confusing. I wish it could be straightened out.

Laura Ryba, a Michigan City High School senior, is a student columnist for The News-Dispatch. Views expressed are the writer's, not the school's nor the newspaper's.

The rumor that I have heard is that the MCEA has repeatedly asked for a copy of the waiver that was filed, and the administration has ignored their request. Most people I talked to believe that the administration never filed the request.

[Max Main]

Miss Ryba writes a very good column.

I am always suspicious of harding's stuff--unless I see a dated waiver request, I don't think they filed one, either.