Posted on 03/14/2003 12:36:29 PM PST by kattracks
When students at Vermont's Middlebury Union High School staged an antiwar protest last week on school grounds, Middlebury reporters were barred from covering the event - a decision that has at least one local newspaper crying foul.
Middlebury's Addison Eagle News said that a February antiwar assembly at the high school had a decidedly anti-American flavor, with references to President Bush as a "Butcher" and attempts to portray dictators and terrorists as "helpless victims of the U.S. military and industry."
The event apparently had the backing of Middlebury High's administration.
"School officials suspended classes for the duration of the student-coordinated presentation," the Eagle News reported. "According to student sources, attendance was mandatory..... A perceptive student, upset by the performance, told us later that 'freedom of speech should also mean freedom not to listen.'"
Parents learned about the antiwar production only after the local media covered the episode.
Scorched by the negative publicity, school officials took immediate steps to remedy the situation - by putting the kibosh on press coverage of future antiwar activity at the school.
When reporters showed up at Middlebury High last Wednesday to cover yet another antiwar protest, they were turned away by school principal William Lawson.
Lawson told Eagle News reporter Jim Kelly that the press would be barred from school grounds because he, "...didn't want any trouble." He commandeered at least one local police officer to help enforce the media blackout, which included ejecting another reporter from the Addison Independent.
While Principal Lawson denied that the school had sanctioned the student walkout, reporter Kelly said he later observed a Social Studies teacher posing the student protesters in front of the school for a group photograph.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
dep
Well, you got trouble now, fella.
The deeper issue is the school board and the school staff. How an American community can vote for a school board that permits indoctrination and propaganda on school grounds is beyond me. Perhaps the voters went to the same schools.
Seven school budgets fail at the polls
March 6, 2003 By
ANDY KIRKALDY
ADDISON COUNTY - Residents of Addison County and Brandon defeated seven proposed school budgets on Tuesday, including plans proposed for Vergennes and Otter Valley union high schools and for five elementary schools. School officials said there is no mystery to the setbacks, despite what they called reasonable budget proposals - property taxes are rising more quickly than school spending, and the economy is struggling. "You have people with a lesser ability to pay," said Rutland Northeast Supervisory Union Superintendent Bill Mathis, "while the increase in their property values asks them to pay more."
The proposed $6.65 million VUHS budget lost, 986-777, or 56 percent to 44 percent. It would have increased spending by 4.7 percent. The roughly $8 million OVUHS budget failed, 950-889, or 52 percent to 48 percent. It would have increased spending by 4.6 percent.
Also defeated were:
· A$3.97 million budget for the Neshobe Elementary School that would have raised current spending by 0.3 percent. It lost in Brandon, 442-363.
· A $3 million Vergennes Union Elementary School budget that would have hiked spending by 4 percent. It lost in Vergennes, Panton and Waltham, 404-361.
· A $1.25 million Bridport Central School plan that would have raised spending by 5.28 percent. It lost, 147-131.
· A $1.4 million Shoreham Elementary School budget that would have increased by 7.4 percent. It lost, 173-156.
· A Leicester Central School proposal for about $981,000 that would have raised spending by 7.7 percent. It lost, 174-134.
TAX RATES JUMP
Estimated tax rates in some of the communities rose much quicker than proposed spending, according to local school officials' calculations.
Assuming all budgets had passed, that grand list increases were similar to those of a year ago, and that legislators meet their commitments to fund Act 60, local school officials estimated the following tax rate increases:
· In Vergennes, 45 cents, or $450 more taxes on a home assessed at $100,000 if its owners were not eligible for Act 60 tax relief.
· In Shoreham, 41 cents, or a $410 increase on a $100,000 home.
· In Ferrisburgh, 38 cents, or a $380 increase on a $100,000 home.
· In Leicester, 29 cents, or a $290 increase on a $100,000 home.
· In Addison, 15 cents, or a $150 increase on a $100,000 home.
· In Brandon, 12 cents, or a $120 increase on a $100,000 home.
Bridport was an exception, with an expected 63-cent drop in the town's school tax rate. Addison Northwest Superintendent Tom O'Brien said property-value issues lay behind the rising taxes and budget defeats. "I think it was a referendum on the property tax increase as a result of the CLAs (common levels of appraisals)," said O'Brien. "All of the boards worked diligently to make budget proposals that were fair."
Maybe it is time to liberate Vermont from the liberal, Saddam-loving weasels!
Time to start a mailing to this community INFORMING the students and families that the teachers and staff of this school have been silent in the face of Saddam's torture, rape mutilation of the innocent and mass murder. THE TEACHERS ARE CULPABLE. If 100 freepers send 20 letters each, we can have a powerful impact on this UN- american community.
Welcome to Kalifornia!
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