Some want later school start STAFF & AP REPORTS
From an educational standpoint, John Belt finds little value in a proposed later start to the school year. Michele Edwards, on the other hand, is like other Kentuckians in the tourism industry, supporting the measure to prolong the start of the school year until later in August. She was among tourism professionals in Frankfort Tuesday discussing a bill with legislators that will keep students from returning to the classroom until late August.
Edwards, Crittenden County's Tourism Director, said up to 60 groups of people pass through the Marion Tourism and Welcome Center each day throughout the summer. However, that number drops to just four or five when school starts.
"It lengthens the season," said Edwards, who recognizes the fact that school would not be released for the summer until late May or June if the proposal passes.
"In early June boating and outdoor activities aren't in their prime because of cold waters," she notes. "June has never been an outdoor recreation month, not like August is."
State Sen. Joey Pendleton, D-Hopkinsville, introduced the bill in the Kentucky legislature that would force schools to hold off until at least the third week of August before they could start classes. Similar mandates are already in place in 11 other states.
This school year, Crittenden County started on Aug. 6.
Pendleton said the legislation faces an uncertain future in Kentucky where leading lawmakers have refused even to consider the measure in past years. They contend that local education officials, not lawmakers, should decide when to start classes.
Belt, the Crittenden County superintendent, says the start and end date of the school calendar is and should remain a local board decision.
"It is one of the few responsibilities (the board) has left," he said.
"I understand the economic issue that those people are advocating... but it would take away from the freedom of local people," Belt said.
Monica Froedge, spokeswoman for the group Save Kentucky Summers, said children need longer summer breaks.
"They're not ready to go back to school" in early August, said Froedge, who has sons aged 12 and 14 in the Glasgow school district. "It's still brutally hot out. We don't want our kids in triple-digit temperatures on school buses."
Belt disagrees.
"If you start later, you get out later," he said. "The biggest argument for (starting later) is to get away from the triple digit heat in August, but they would have the same triple digit heat in July."
The traditional late August or early September start dates for most Kentucky schools have been forsaken. Froedge said local officials are opting instead to restart classes the first week of August in a push to raise scores on government-required achievement tests.
Education officials, Pendleton said, want more instructional days early in the school year so that students are better prepared when the tests are administered. Performing poorly, he said, can lead to sanctions.
Belt said he would like to see an equal number of days in the fall and spring semesters but actually teachers and students need more time in the first semester to prepare for the spring tests.
"Not one school district will risk starting later than their neighboring district because they're too afraid of losing those instructional days," Froedge said. "If everyone had a uniform start date, it would solve this problem."
Pendleton's bill would prohibit school districts from starting classes any earlier than the third Monday in August. School districts that routinely have to cancel seven or more instruction days because of inclement weather could request a waiver to start earlier from the Department of Education.
Tina Bruno, executive director of the Texas-based Coalition For A Traditional School Year, said Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin already have similar laws that require either late August or early September start dates.
At least six other school districts are considering similar legislation this year, Bruno said.
Lisa Gross, spokeswoman for the Kentucky Department of Education, said her agency hasn't taken a formal position on Pendleton's proposal.
"This is a complex issue," Gross said. "There is no clear black and white, one side right, one side wrong, solution to this."
Gross said state education officials have traditionally preferred to give local school districts flexibility in choosing start dates.
"We believe that those kinds of decisions are best made by people at that level," she said.
Pendleton said he's not sure local education officials are taking the concerns raised by parents like Froedge seriously enough. He said the earlier start dates interfere with family vacations and force some students to quit summer jobs much sooner than counterparts in districts that start school later.
Even with widespread support for the proposal among parents, Pendleton said lawmakers may be unwilling to take the decision on when to start school away from local education officials.
"It will have a tough time," he said. "But I've asked to at least give it a hearing. Let's get it out there to discuss the positives and negatives."
Read more at www.savekentuckysummers.com.
Myers will be honored in Washington;
he died chasing an escapee 35 years ago
Thirty-five years following his death in the line of duty, Marion Police Officer Louis Myers will be honored this spring by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Myers had been a city patrolman only about six years when he received a call just before midnight on Aug. 29, 1973. The call came over his short-wave radio that a suspected prison escapee was on foot near Curve-In on Sturgis Road in Marion.
Another escapee had been found at a home south of town earlier that day and police here were on the lookout for the second convict believed still at large in the community.
The two men had escaped from the Kentucky State Prison's dairy farm near Eddyville a couple of days earlier. One was a convicted murderer.
Myers responded to the call and reported seeing the suspect, believed to have been William Howard Newton, flee from the loading dock area of the Potter and Brumfield warehouse. Myers called for backup and began pursing the suspect on foot through a field across the road from the 88 Dip.
Myers, alone at the time, suffered a massive heart attack and collapsed on his way back toward his vehicle. Some witnesses who saw what happened helped Myers get back to his squad car and were getting ready to drive him to the hospital when Police Chief W.O. Brown arrived. Brown loaded Myers into his cruiser and took him to the Crittenden County Hospital and summoned a doctor. Myers died less than three hours later at 2:45 a.m.
Just 49 years old, Myers left a wife, Verna, and five children, Eddie Jack, Carolyn, Jerry, Ronnie and Tony.
Today, the family is proud to know that their husband and father will be honored as part of the nation's memorial to fallen policemen.
"My youngest brother, Tony and his wife, and me and my wife plan on going to the ceremony," said Eddie Jack Myers, the former policeman's his son, who himself is a special deputy and former county constable.
"My mother is physically unable to go and some others in the family are not sure if they will be able to attend the ceremony," Eddie Jack Myers said.
Patrolman Myers' name will be formally dedicated May 13 during the 20th annual candlelight vigil at the memorial during National Police Week.
"I think they are going to video it and take pictures for me," said Myers' widow, Verna. "It's a nice thing they're doing."
The Marion Police Department received a letter a few weeks ago confirming that Myers' name would be added to the memorial in Washington. Police Chief Ray O'Neal and members of Myers' family said that former Marion Police Chief Kenneth Winn was instrumental in making sure Myers received his due recognition.
"This is something Kenneth Winn worked hard on during his last few months as chief," O'Neal said.
An honor guard made up of Marion police officers is invited to attend the ceremony in Washington.
The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial was dedicated in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush. It honors all of America's federal, state and local law enforcers. Inscribed on the memorial's blue-gray marble walls are the names of more than 17,500 officers who have been killed or died in the line of duty, dating back to the first known death in 1792.
The Memorial sits on three acres of federal park land called Judiciary Square. The site has served for over 200 years as the seat of the nation's judicial branch of government. A glance around the space finds plush carpets of grass, nearly 60,000 plants and 128 trees decorating the memorial grounds. Each year, around the first of April, some 14,000 daffodils make the Memorial one of Washington's most spectacular attractions.
The man Myers was chasing, when he was felled by the heart attack, was arrested two days later less than mile from where he'd fled on foot from the city policeman. The two prison escapees had taken one hostage and a prison van when they escaped, then later beat a man near Dycusburg and stole his car.
Myers' wife and children say they are proud their loved one's memory will be etched forever in the stone memorial, but it wasn't something they really expected.
"It was kind of a shock really," said Ronnie Myers, who still gets emotional recalling the events that led to his father's premature death.
Eddie Jack Myers said that his father died in the line of duty 18 years prior to the officers memorial being built. Back then, in the early '70s, the City of Marion created a memorial which hangs in the police department to this day, but there was nothing of national scope honoring fallen officers.
"A lot of time had elapsed and we never thought anything about it until Kenneth Winn started working on it," Eddie Jack Myers said of the national memorial in Washington.
Family members say they appreciate Winn's initiative and the Marion Police Department's role in memorializing Louis Myers.
County going back to paper ballots
Crittenden County voters will see a new voting system by then next countywide election in 2010.
As part of the Help America Vote Act, Crittenden and other Kentucky counties will be required to provide a voting system that will produce a permanent paper record with an audit capacity that can be manually recounted. Every county has two years to install such a system.
Cost to implement the new voting procedure will be about $60,000. A federal grant will help defray the costs of implementing the new system, said Crittenden County Clerk Carolyn Byford. However, there will be additional expenses that the the county will have to cover such as for paper ballots, privacy booths and tables for each precinct, training and two extra scanners for backup.
The $54,000 grant will pay for a dozen scanners, one for each precinct, Byford said.
Balloting for the spring primary and fall general elections this year will be just as others in the past. Ballots will be cast on the common touch-screen, closed curtain machines. However, beginning in in the spring of 2010, local voters will start marking paper ballots then having those ballots scanned by a computer. The device will read the ballot, tabulate it automatically then save the paper ballot in case of a recount.
Each of the 12 voting county voting precincts recently got new fully accessible touch-screen voting machines as part of the same federal act passed in 2000.
HAVA was passed by Congress after problems surfaced during the 2000 presidential election. Handicap accessibility, elimination of punch cards, uniform voter databases and easily audited paper backup systems are all part of the new requirements. Funds to implement the changes have largely been provided through federal grants, Byford said.
The small touch-screen, fully accessible voting machines will remain at each precinct along with the new paper balloting system.