No TV on weekdays?

Laptops at WCS?

Laptops at WCS?




Should we have laptops at WCS? No, I actually don't think that we really need them. It would be nice to have them, but we already have the net books, and we also have some macs too. I would not mind getting those for free, but if we had to pay half cost, i would pass on getting one. I feel this way because, like I said before, we already have computers at WCS except that they are not our own. Plus I am one of the few students in my class that has my own hp mini net book. So I do not really feel that i need to pay extra for another computer that (1 we already have at WCS and (2 I already have one at home to work on.

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The state that was first to provide laptops to every seventh and eighth grader in its public schools is taking its campaign to the high schools, and Maine's top education official vowed Thursday that every high school student will have a laptop computer within two years.

The 67,000 computers currently being distributed at more than half of the high schools will give students the skills they'll need to compete in the workplace, said Don Siviski, superintendent of Regional School Unit 2.

"The competitive world that these students are going to be engaged in — it isn't only the United States, the Northeast or Maine. Their competitors are going to be all over the world. They need to be savvy," he said. "Schools need to join the 21st century to prepare these kids for that world."

Under a four-year, $64 million lease, Apple Inc. will provide each student with an Apple MacBook with a 13-inch screen, 160-gigabyte hard drive, built-in camera and a full slate of software, as well as wireless routers, tech support and warranty repairs. The cost is $240 per year per computer.

Maine Education Commissioner Sue Gendron wanted to expand the program into all of the state's 119 public high schools, but had to settle with participation from only 64 this fall. The narrow window for high schools to sign onto the program over the summer and the nation's economic turmoil prevented full participation, she said.

Still, Gendron said, Maine's program — the first statewide program to provide laptops to students — is also the nation's largest. The students are allowed to take the computers home, but don't own them. The laptops have to be returned to the school in the spring.

"Our young people really are digital natives," she said. "We don't want them to unplug when they come to school."

On Thursday, 10 students at Hall-Dale High School looked over some of the laptops that will be handed out over the coming weeks. They quickly began putting the laptops through the paces, creating comic strips and Andy Warhol-style photos with the built-in camera.

Unlike most high schools, Hall-Dale already issued laptops to its students. So the Apple MacBooks will replace the older laptops at the school.

Michael Reinhard, a 17-year-old high school senior, said he used to type reports in the sixth grade and it is hard to imagine going back to a typewriter. By contrast, he was asked as a high school sophomore to produce a podcast on German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.

"Everyone tells me that education is supposed to be creative. I've never seen more creative projects for education than with these MacBooks," he said.

The laptop program began under Gov. Angus King, who wanted to eliminate the so-called "digital divide" between wealthy and poor kids.

Maine started the first-in-the-nation program by distributing more than 30,000 computers to every seventh- and eighth-grader in the state's public schools in 2002 and 2003.

The state still pays for the laptops for middle schoolers, but school districts were asked to share the cost for high school laptops.

The state provides each district with $289 per student for technology, but some districts were already using the money in other ways. Superintendents, then, were able to use federal stimulus funding, grants, bonds and other means of funding the program.

Summer Vacation Shortage?

Is school too short?



Is school too short? No, i do not think that this is true, school time is definitely not too short, I think that it is just right. I think this because if we add 3 more hours to school, then there would be no time for after school activities. That means that we would go to school, come home, eat dinner, do homework and then go straight to bed. We might not have enough time to do homework without staying up late. Then do that all over again for 5 days a week. Plus, if we started summer school, there would be no time to do summer camps, and that is learning too. Petra Cliffs summer camp teaches you how to rock-climb. Sleep away camps like Camp Billings lets you hang with friends and try all sorts of activities. I think that it wouldn't be right to add 3 more hours of school, or do summer school because that is just subtracting our experience of trying new things.



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Students beware: The summer vacation you just enjoyed could be sharply curtailed if President Barack Obama gets his way. Obama says American kids spend too little time in school, putting them at a disadvantage with other students around the globe.

"Now, I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas," the president said earlier this year. "Not with Malia and Sasha, not in my family, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom."

The president, who has a sixth-grader and a third-grader, wants schools to add time to classes, to stay open late and to let kids in on weekends so they have a safe place to go.

"Our school calendar is based upon the agrarian economy and not too many of our kids are working the fields today," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

Fifth-grader Nakany Camara is of two minds. She likes the four-week summer program at her school, Brookhaven Elementary School in Rockville, Md. Nakany enjoys seeing her friends there and thinks summer school helped boost her grades from two Cs to the honor roll.

But she doesn't want a longer school day. "I would walk straight out the door," she said.

Domonique Toombs felt the same way when she learned she would stay for an extra three hours each day in sixth grade at Boston's Clarence R. Edwards Middle School.

"I was like, 'Wow, are you serious?'" she said. "That's three more hours I won't be able to chill with my friends after school."

Her school is part of a 3-year-old state initiative to add 300 hours of school time in nearly two dozen schools. Early results are positive. Even reluctant Domonique, who just started ninth grade, feels differently now. "I've learned a lot," she said.

Does Obama want every kid to do these things? School until dinnertime? Summer school? And what about the idea that kids today are overscheduled and need more time to play?

Holloween costumes too scary?




Are holloween costumes too scary? Well, that depends. Yes, I think that some holloween costumes can be a little frightening, even for me, but others are perfectly fine. Also, people should know that it is holloween is a time where people dress up, and the creatures that seem to be real, are not, they are just people dressed up to be creatures. On the other hand, some costumes can be scary, even for me, so I am wondering how scary it would be to see that if you were a toddler. maybe the costumes could have a hat that could be scary, and maybe a glove of something, but have everything else be scary. Then when a toddler comes into sight, you could just take those things off so that the toddler wouldn't see them. Or the other option is to make the costumes a little less scary. I think that they shouldn't stop making the scary costumes though, because it is holloween.


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Halloween has morphed into a gore fest that has kids as young as 6 unleashing their inner monsters in ultra-violent costumes — blood-smeared chain saws and spiked killing gloves sold separately. Options include Leatherface from "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," Jason ("Friday the 13th"), Freddy ("A Nightmare on Elm Street") and Michael ("Halloween"). Costume sizes can run so small that many wearers might be too young to have seen the slasher movies under film industry guidelines.

Fanged creatures feasting on brain stems. Possessed babies chomping on arms. Not all parents think it's OK for the holiday second only to Christmas in the minds of many kids to be more a celebration of the most deranged characters pop culture has to offer.

"Bloody, sadistic, nightmare-inducing Halloween costumes are indeed being made and marketed for kids, and no one seems to care," said Joel Schwartzberg, a parenting writer and Montclair, N.J., dad of a 10-year-old boy and twin 7-year-old girls.

Schwartzberg is fighting back at tooscarycostumes.com, which he hopes will raise awareness about how Halloween has strayed from "sickly sweet to just plain sick." No puritan, he said he loves a good horror flick and has even written some himself, but what's the point of all the realistic gore — for the very young, anyway?

"I think wearing these costumes and being exposed to human depravity, even in a 'fun' context, doesn't scar kids so much as desensitize them to brutal violence," Schwartzberg said. "Kids are less able to distinguish between real world and fictional brutality than grown-ups."

Some schools are also concerned, toning down Halloween celebrations or banning them altogether because of complaints about the gore factor, along with religious objections and concerns about too much candy and potentially dangerous props like pointy toy swords and vision-impairing masks.

But it's Halloweeeeeeeeeen, costume companies and other parents argue, urging the bothered among them to exercise the privilege of saying "No" to violent, realistic gore.

"It's one night a year — let them have fun as long as it's something that's not dangerous or putting their life in jeopardy," said Big Lake, Minn., mom Cindy Chapman, who has a 9-year-old daughter. "I also have a rule: No store bought outfits, so that truly forces my daughter to be creative AND it cuts down on a lot of the commercial gore."

Marilynn A. Wick, founder and CEO for one of the largest costume distributors, Costume World, said the company relies on customers to "use their best discretion in selecting costumes and makeup for young people." She added that children are inspired by films and video games and that "Costume World has a responsibility and a mission to supply our clients with the most up-to-date costumes and accessories, many of which are inspired by these visual stimuli."

Many "too scary" costumes are elaborate affairs, including a child Doctor Zombie available in size small with a "highly crafted" mask of a rotting face, a blood-splattered lab coat and "fully detailed" exposed and rotted rib cage, intestines and protruding knee bone.

Other costumes chase a "brand," like the tattered, shredded "Freddy Krueger Child Sweater" available in extra small (sizes 4-6) at Costume World's online store right next to "Flannel Curious George."

Denver mom Tracy Kinner said her two kids, 5 and 7, were "literally scared of Halloween and trick-or-treaters until last year," adding: "We'd have to find something else to do because they didn't want strange, scary, gory trick-or-treaters coming to our door. I, personally, am OK and somewhat relieved that they saw this as scary and aren't desensitized already."

Lori Liddle, a former executive for American Girl and Lands' End, got a fright of her own at how the costume industry has changed since her three grown children were young when she started wandering trade shows to stock her Wishcraft Halloween line at Chasing-fireflies.com.

"We were really kind of shocked at how scary and gruesome everything was," she said. "There were aisles too scary for me to walk down."

So she set out to "bring the magic back to Halloween" through more th

So she set out to "bring the magic back to Halloween" through more than 150 "kid-friendly" costumes that include dreamy little sultans and genies, smiling spider queens and playful bat capes, along with brave but blood-free medieval knights and gladiators.

Liddle suggests making Halloween a family affair through nonviolent group themes and simplifying the fun through personalized costumes and accessories.

"The fact is there are so many unhappy, scary things in the world," she said. "While Halloween has its roots in scary, it really is about dress-up and imagination. At the end of the day, kids really don't want to be scared."

Micro-Chip Dogs?

Would you micro chip your dog?



Would I micro-chip my dog? No, i would not micro-chip my dog, even if it was being bad. I don't think that this is right because what if that dog were a baby, would you still micro-chip it? I don't think so. I is just wrong to do this because that is making the dog mechanical, which would be wrong, because that is a creature with a heart and feelings. Isn't the dogs mans best friend? Would you want to micro-chip your best friend? That's what I thought. I think instead what they should do is if anyone sees a person with a scary looking dog, they should get the police, and report it. Then, the police would put that person in jail for a couple of months if they were guilty. Going back to the dog, they should train the dog so it becomes obedient and not mean or try to find the owner, or perhaps give it one. That is why i would not micro-chip my dog.

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British dog owners may be forced to microchip their pets and take out insurance, part of a proposed crackdown on the country's dangerous canines.

The government's proposals are aimed at tackling the growing problem of aggressive canines being used to harass people. In a country where guns are tightly controlled and even carrying a kitchen knife can result in a prison sentence, animal rights experts and politicians say street thugs have turned to dangerous-looking dogs to threaten their victims.

Home Office Secretary Alan Johnson said there was "no doubt that some people breed and keep dogs for the sole purpose of intimidating others."

His proposals were largely welcomed by animal welfare groups, including the British SPCA, which said it had long supported chipping — primarily as a means of reuniting lost pets with their owners. The devices are described as "tiny microchips, about the size of a grain of rice, painlessly inserted into the back of the dog."

The chips are easily readable by scanners used by dog wardens and veterinarians.

A host of European countries — including Norway, Switzerland, Austria, Croatia, Italy and Portugal — have introduced mandatory microchipping rules in the past few years, with nary a raised eyebrow. France requires that some breeds either be chipped or tattooed. Even in countries where the practice isn't required, cities such as Berlin and Prague demand that dog owners chip their pets.

Skirts too short?

Skirts too short?










I think that this can be true, skirts can be too short, but that doesnt mean that we can't have skirts that are too short. I am saying this because if the skirt is too short, all the girl has to do is put some leggings on, or change out of the skirt. I think that it is rediculous that she got suspended for having her skirt too short. They should have just warned her the first time or made her change, not suspend her. I think that it is also ridiculous that she had to be escorted by police in her teacher coat. Also, yes schools should enforce dress codes, but, they shouldn't be too harsh about it.

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A Brazilian university has expelled a woman who was heckled by hundreds of fellow students for wearing a short, pink dress to class. Bandeirante University in Sao Bernardo do Campo, outside Sao Paulo, said 20-year-old Geisy Arruda disrespected "ethical principles, academic dignity and morality."

Bandeirante University published newspaper advertisements Sunday accusing Arruda of attending class with "inadequate clothing" and having a provocative attitude that was "incompatible with the university environment."

Arruda made headlines after the Oct. 22 incident, in which she had to be escorted away by police after wearing the mini-dress to class. She put on a professor's white coat and left amid a hail of insults and curses. The university said it was also temporarily suspending some of the students who were seen heckling Arruda in a video of the incident that made the rounds on Youtube. It did not say how many were being suspended or how long they would be kept from attending classes.