Best Father's Day Gift Ideas

Ok, it's time to give equal time to the dads out there. After polling a total of four dads, here are the most requested items I was able to pry out of them.

• A new Grill and Grilling Tools
• New Golf Clubs
• Nintendo Wii Game Console
• Backyard Hammock
• Laptops and Notebooks
• New Cell Phone with Internet Connection
• A Digital Camera
• A New Watch

I also think most Dad's appreciate just a whole day to do whatever they want. At least, that's what I like about Mother's Day. My family takes me out to dinner, and generally I don't have much that I have to do that day. Nice homemade cards are wonderful too.

Next week we are not terribly busy, but the week after we'll be in Panama City. I can hardly wait to just hang out on the beach. I'm finally starting to relax after school being out. Have a good day, and keep living the dream!

Mehlville School District Budget Cuts

Last week, many of our high school teachers had a meeting with the superintendent of the Mehlville School District, Mr. Terry Noble, in an attempt to help our teachers understand why we once again had a frozen pay scale. I say "again" because in the last 10 years pay has been frozen multiple times, and teachers have lost their yearly step sometimes more than one in a given year. This "step" is a small pay increase intended to recognize years of service and help with cost of living. Interestingly, several of our teachers spoke out about how it could be possible to be a teacher in the district for 29 to 30 years and never reach the end of the step schedule (about 16 - 17 years depending upon how the board decides to mess with our salary schedule for that year). This should have put these teachers at what is called a longevity step L1 or L2 and would include a 500 dollar pay increase every year. Mr. Noble was surprised to find out that since these teachers had lost a total of 9 years in steps and pay, that they had yet to reach longevity. One of our teachers mentioned she's have to probably work until she died to reach longevity in this school district. We'll see what the fall-out is from this. I hope we can trust Mr. Noble to do something about this unfair practice of messing with our years of service on our pay scale.

We are all bothered that when the time came to cut budgets, cuts were first made to academic programs like tutoring and textbooks, as well as freezing teacher salaries. I asked why we don't cut freshman sports and other non-academic programs, as well as transportation since we clearly cannot afford to transport kids, especially since the price of gas has gone through the roof. In my opinion, cutting academics first is a terrible policy, and I'm still trying to understand why it is better to have little Johnny have his freshman football paid for instead of a great teacher and a new textbook, along with the tutoring he'll need to be successful in school. The response is somewhat understandable, given the history (or histrionics) of the past actions of our school district. The idea is that the district threatened to remove busing and multiple programs several years ago, and then stupidly reinstated them. Now the community doesn't trust us when we say we are out of money, and this time we are truly in a budget crisis. This threat and don't deliver angered the community, and so the idea now is to not do anything to anger the community, like taking away things to balance the budget. So instead, the district has decided to anger the teachers and lower moral by freezing salaries. I guess we are viewing this as the lesser of two evils? The cuts are actually things that the public really doesn't see. They don't see that I'm teaching with a book that is so old, that I have to write extra material to have my students be able to learn how to understand and work in the field of biotechnology (pretty common now, not 15 years ago). They don't see my cabinets falling apart, and the student desk tops cracking and not being replaced year after year. They don't see my room so full at the start of the year that I literally have no place to sit students. According to the state, my room size is inadequate for doing labs, and this applies to most of our science rooms. They don't see our teachers struggling to make bills and having to take second jobs to do so. They don't see the mass exodus of teachers who are just tired of waiting for a decent raise. But they do come for football games, and they do rely on busses to get their kids to school. Still, it's hard to continue to see the district balancing the budget on the backs of its teachers once again.
This is the only district I've known that bases it's future teacher pay on how many teachers are retiring. It is an ignorant practice, since you cannot predict how many teachers in any given year will retire, and therefore have no idea how you are going to continue to give your professional staff even small cost of living increases to keep them happy and on the job. Hopefully Mr. Noble will work with Mr. Bell to find a more acceptable method of funding our salaries. He seemed very concerned about this and I hope this also changes soon.
I'd love to hear from you as to what you think of this and in particular, what you think the district should cut back on to balance it's budget at this time. It's really important for our community to decide where these cuts will come from in the future, as we will be going for a ballot initiative in November to extend the debt on our district bonds, and free up money for salaries, textbook and tutoring for the next year. If this doesn't happen, and other ballot initiatives don't pass, then get ready for huge cuts. Please leave a comment with your ideas. This helps me when I meet with people in the NEA and CO. Thanks!

My Favorite Books

My friend Mary Kay emails me now and then about books she's read that she thinks are great. I was thinking that since I read constantly that it might be fun to make a short list of my favorite books and why I like them. I've just started by including three favorites here, along with the author's names so you can also look at other books by these authors.

1. My favorite author over the past few years is Dean Koontz and the whole Odd Thomas series of books. Odd Thomas is the name of the first book, and is actually the name of the main character. Odd has some psychic abilities that lead him on some awesome adventures and murder mysteries. He is a short order cook because he needed to have a job that would give him a simple life as his internal life is anything but. The characters are real and engaging, and the suspense makes it hard to put any of these down. The four books are Odd Thomas, Forever Odd , Brother Odd , and the latest installment which was just published : Odd Hours. This series is really hard to put down, so don't read it right before bed or you'll be missing sleep later.
2. Reading any book by Stephen King has to be a fun time, especially for summer reading. Dave Meador, a colleague at OHS told me about an older book called BLAZE that King wrote when he was still writing as Richard Bachman. The title also refers to it's main character, a very sympathetic young man who has lost his best friend, yet is still controlled by him. It is somewhat allegorical to Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, and he as always achieves the realism that I love King and Steinbeck for. This would be a great summer read.
3. My favorite book that I read this school year I have shared with multiple people, like Kathy Hayes our librarian at OHS. We all loved this book, The Spellman Files, by Lisa Lutz. This book is one of those rare reads that will make you laugh out loud as well as keep you reading to follow the main character as she deals with her weird family, all of whom are private investigators, including her. My favorite part involved the summer camp chapter where her little sister goes to camp against her will. I was in tears laughing. There is a sequel that I will be reading this summer called Curse of the Spellmans: A Novel. I'll let you all know what I think, but it is actually rated a bit higher on Amazon than the first, which is amazing.
   I hope you all try these and enjoy your summer reading. School's out, and this is all I want to do now.
   

Ricky's Book of Poetry

In Ricky's language class, the kids each had to write their own book of poetry as a project. They were to write using different styles of poetry. I just had to share some of his poems.

Tacos

Tacos, they taste so good

Some taste like wood

But really, I don't care

I'm glad they're not underwear.

Oil

I hate oil so much

It gets us in such a fuss

We'll get out of this scare

If our cars ran on air.

My dog

My dog is way too fat

He can actually wear a hat.

It makes me really sad to say,

I think he gains ten pounds a day.

Danny DiVito does his dirty laundry during doomsday.

During doomsday Danny drove Danielle to Don's.

Don asked Danielle "did Dave die of diarrhea?"

Danielle described Dave a just disoriented.

There are more, but you get the idea. I wonder what his teacher thought while grading these?

Motivation for Teachers: Part 2 of a Series

What motivates teachers? Teachers in general tend to be individuals who care deeply about kids. For a good working environment, teachers need a community that supports them in the hard work that goes into producing educated students ready for success in the real world. Teachers also need supportive administration willing to help them work through any difficult issues that arise. Our salaries are a motivating factor also, and in the real world a very important one. Teachers are professionals who deserve to be treated as such, and that includes pay.

This is a second email I received at work from another teacher concerning the financial state of the Mehlville School District. For those of you who are unaware, our district is facing a serious financial crisis. The district has chosen to make cuts and balance the budget by freezing teacher salaries. Obviously, moral is now low, and teachers are questioning whether or not the community supports us at all. Here is an email response of one OHS teacher to his union president who urged us to vote for having our salaries frozen.

"Thank you Christine for keeping us informed.

Of the many things in the email that struck me, I only wanted to comment on one. XXX(union president) stated, " The majority has learned something from the threats Dr. Ricker made which got us nowhere except farther behind. " As a teacher and a parent, I have learned that threats are a useless tool if they are not followed with action. If I tell my child that if he jumps on the bed one more time, he will have to sit in the corner, and then if he jumps, and I do not make him sit, he will lose respect for me, and more importantly, he will learn that he can get away with anything. As a parent in this district, I have learned not to believe what the district states it will cut because of its idle threats made in the past. As a teacher in the district, I have learned not to believe the promise that better packages may come along in the future because after over seven years teaching in the district, my salary is still one of the lowest in the county. The 6 percent raise I received last year did not make up the dropped step a few years ago. If this package is accepted, is the district going to make sure that I will get my lost step in the future?

My children go to school in the district, and I want the best for them, and I am tired of great staff leaving because of better pay and benefits in another district. We have a great staff, and I want them to stay here and not have the exodus like we had when I first arrived where we lost seven English teachers to different districts in three years.

I voted no because I don't feel that teachers salaries should be the first thing cut in a financial crisis. Not only does that hurt in the short term with staff moral, but also in the long term as staff leave, and as a single parent and a teacher, I want the best for my kids and the best for my students. I was told that we have the board and the administration on our side. Is my union? "

As you can see, there is much frustration in our teaching staff. We love working here, but the pay is so horrible, people leave after they learn the ropes, and so our investment into young teachers is lost as they move to other districts with higher pay (9 -10,000 dollars more on average). I'll post another issue tomorrow.
Fortunately, summer is almost here. I've started listening to audiobooks when working. If you have an ipod, check out the audiobooks site:

Summer Listening. Audiobooks for your iPod. Download now on iTunes.

Mehlville Teacher Stories Part 1

Readers,

Teachers at my school have had a long email thread going this week communicating with each other concerning our dismal state of financial affairs. I think it is important that that the community be made aware of some of these stories to be able to understand our situation with the most information and data possible. The post below is from a teacher who has been at Oakville High School for many years. I have removed names from these emails to make sure that our colleagues privacy is protected. Please read and pass on.

You are probably surprised to hear from me since I rarely join in the brouhaha through email, but I have to agree with xxxxx and the others when it comes to the issue of the lack of follow-through in our district. How many times can you cry wolf? Threats are not effective unless they are carried out. And are they really threats? Aren't they simply statements of fact? We do not have the money to transport every child in the district. We cannot fund all sports. We cannot fund EDEP contracts for clubs and organizations. If that is true, then follow through and show the community that we will make the cuts necessary to make ends meet.

There is a reason that I live in the Lindbergh district. As a community, we support our schools and teachers. When my two sons were in middle school and high school, a tax levy was presented with the warning that specific cuts would be made if the levy did not pass. Sure enough, the levy failed. As a result, there was no bus transportation for students living within a two mile radius of school. All sports teams for freshmen were cut. Teachers did not stay after school to help students, working to contract only. (Some of us remember when we worked to contract here. I almost died having to wait til 7:00 to walk in the front door! Yes, I'm here at 6:00!) When the tax levy reappeared on the ballot in the spring.....GOLLY GEE! It passed with flying colors!!! All services were reinstated, and Lindbergh continued on its merry way.

I have been in this district a looooong time, and nothing ever changes. We present a happy face to the community, and the community says, "See? They don't need any money. They make do with what they have. Teachers got 6% last year. Why do they deserve more?" Have they seen how many years my salary has been frozen? Have they paid attention when steps have been added, making me work longer to reach the top? Do they know we have no cost-of-living increase? What about the year I got a raise of a whole $100 for the year and administrators got 3-6%? I don't want to mention how many years my take-home pay has been less than the year before. There are those of you in the building (and district) who have experienced the same thing.

Those of us who voted "no" Monday afternoon are aware that our vote doesn't matter in the long run. However, we needed to have a voice. The offer is not acceptable. We are tired of taking the brunt of every cut. Start making the other cuts we have threatened repeatedly, and maybe the community will notice. Putting on a happy face and carrying the load on our shoulders every year certainly hasn't worked.

Oakville Senior High School


I'll be posting more of these day by day...Keep reading and pass on the link to the blog to your friends.

My Favorite Music

I've put together a widget below from Amazon that contains my favorite music. Some of it will date me, but I don't care, I love this stuff and I've downloaded them onto my MP3 player. Amazon let me pick each one and you can click through and listen. You can also download any you like for 93 cents each (or something like that). Let me know if these are favorites too, or if you'd like me to add a song you like. :-)

Student Use of the English Language

It is the end of the school year again, and as usual, I've about had it with the horrendous spelling and inability to properly use the English language. There are days when I am grading papers where I cannot read most of what has been written because penmanship is so terrible. There are some particular pet peeves of mine that I see every year with student use of the English language. Here is a list:
1. Sixty percent of my students misspell the word "separate" as "seperate". I correct this on their lab reports, homework and tests multiple times in the year, and a few learn, but most simply ignore it.
2. The phrase "could have" or "should have" or "might have" are written as "could of", "should of" and "might of". This makes no sense, but totally escapes the notice of my students, no matter how many times I correct this.
3. Can you tell why this one is irritating? "Dr. Mehigh, can I axe you somethin?"
4. Student writing: "There was alot of liquid in the beaker." "A lot" is two words.
5. Student lab report: "There weren't no equiptment in my drawer so I slept." (God help us all.)
6. Interchange one of these for any other no matter what is being written and you will understand why I have a headache after school. "Their, There, They're". The most frequent problem is to write "there" for "they're".
7. Mixing singulars and plurals. "The largest problems, which we all had, was that...".
8. The use of a general pronoun to describe a specific item. "It was hot, but they were not properly stored." What is "it"? What is "they"? I mark more answers wrong for this than any other reason.
9. "The cell swole up and became heightened". Cells do swell up, but they don't grow taller, they grow larger.
10. Interchange one of these for any other: "Two, to, too". "My lab partner got the same result to." To where? To what? Huh?
Some days I sit and dream about throwing all of the student papers I am grading into the trash, and picking up a nice novel. I wonder, do the students who routinely write and speak this way have parents guilty of the same? What have you noticed?

Prayers for Maria Garcia, senior OHS, who was in a bad car accident going home from the Monday night band concert. She was hit by a truck and broke her hip. She's pretty banged up and needed surgery today. I heard she is at St. John's but I am not certain. Poor kid won't even get to go to her own graduation.

Great Mother's Day Gift and More!

Friday, I had to go to the school nurse, Pam Frederich, who is awesome by the way so I could get some throat lozenges. She told me that many people were feeling the way I was starting to feel. Tired, sore throat, headache. During 7th block, I actually started to fall, caught myself on the desk and sat down. Like an idiot, I kept teaching. I think now I already had a fever, but was not realizing it. I couldn't figure out I needed to go home. Yesterday, I went to the Walgreen's clinic, found out I had a fever and a sinus infection. I pretty much slept the rest of the day. I'm feeling a bit better today, so I think we can go out for mother's day.
Rick was very thoughtful and bought me a gift certificate for a 90 minute Swedish massage package at Scandals. I know I was keeping him around for something. Ha.

I hope everyone read the St. Louis Post Dispatch article on the Mehlville School District finances. It is on the front page of the Metro section today. They got everything right except for two things. One, Brent Bell was not the only official who messed up on our finances. Another individual who is a superintendent seems to also have been responsible. It is unclear how involved he was in the financial decisions, but somehow since Chambers was only half time, it seems like he may have had a hand in this. Also, our teachers have not had the raises stated in the paper the last few years. Check out the department of elementary and secondary education website for the State of Missouri for the real stats.



Visit my website http://thednafiles.org. I've been asked to be a guest science writer for the Dog DNA company website. I'm so excited. I sure need a second job. I'll be making a post sometime in the next few days on Doggie DNA testing, so keep a lookout. Everyone who knows us knows how fond we are of doggies. :-)

High School Teachers

Our high school teachers are some of the best people I know, who as a group work very hard to teach our kids so they will gain the knowledge and strategies to be successful in their lives.
That said, there are some things that are producing some low moral for our high school teachers at this time. Obviously, we are being asked to again take no raise, and in fact, we will have less take-home pay since our retirement system is taking another half percent out of our paychecks (not that we have a choice). Factoring in the cost of living, some of our business teachers have discovered that our Oakville high school teachers are actually making $3000 dollars less now than we were in 1976. Yesterday, we received an email from our superintendent about how this is teacher appreciation week and how much he appreciates us. Then we go and hear at our NEA negotiations package presentation meeting that we are not getting anything for next year. What a disconnect. Of course, this doesn't mean our administrators are not getting a raise. Our NEA president at yesterday's meeting made it clear that our super will be getting a nice raise for each of the next two years, since it is in his contract. It might be a show of good faith for him not to take the raise, but he hasn't said anything.
People keep writing into the Call about how overpaid we are, and how we got this huge six percent raise last year. There is no understanding that last year's raise doesn't even begin to make up for having little to no raises for the five years prior. With this year added in, it's around one percent a year, but since we didn't get the money till last year, it is actually less since we were not able to save or invest. We are all sick of this. It is hard to keep dealing in a fair way with kids who refuse to behave, call you names, throw things at you, threaten you, and then to realize that your community doesn't care about how hard you are trying to help these kids. High School Teachers are professionals, and deserve to be treated this way. I hope it happens in this district soon.

Mother's Day Gift Ideas

Mother's Day is this Sunday, May 11, and if you are like most people, you have a hard time thinking of the perfect gift for your mom.

Here's a list mother's day gift ideas of what I want.
1. A clean house
2. A toilet that flushes without help
3. A dog who doesn't scratch himself constantly
4. A hot air balloon so my son will stop bugging me about it
5. A visit from my family but not for too long, and I don't wanna hafta clean beforehand
6. A hug and a kiss from each kid
7. Dinner without having to cook, preferably go out
8. A nice day that my family can spend together outside having fun
9. Laundry that magically does itself
10. My dogs to eat all the homework I'm supposed to grade.

Not your idea of mother's day gift ideas? Here are some others that I and my friends would like. Click on the pics for more info.

1. Comfy stuff, this is my favorite idea.


2. A Unique Bouquet is always welcome.


3. ANY and I mean ANY Jewelry is always a hit with me.


4. This one is a sure winner for me or anyone. When in doubt, go for comfort!


5. For a Mother's Day Gift Idea for a Sister, Mom or Friend, you can get these personalized with your names.


6. The best mother's day gift idea of all. Peace and quiet.


I hope your mother's day is wonderful and PEACEFUL. Rick actually thought ahead and made a reservation for us to go to the Lemp mansion for dinner (my favorite place).

Another Student Killed

I'm very sad today. A former student of mine, Ashley Wilson, was killed in a car crash yesterday. Her two passengers are in critical contition, and are both from High Ridge, so I didn't know them. Ashley was a sweet, quiet girl in chemistry class. She was in my class two years ago as a junior, and graduated last year. Her parents, family and friends are devastated, and there is a memorial page set up on facebook. There was also an article in the Post-Dispatch today about this.

Another former student graduate Matt Mariani, whose brother still attends OHS, is still in a coma from the accident during spring break in Panama City beach wher he was struck by a car crossing the road between the beach and residential area. The family is having trouble paying for the hospital care, and our super students decided to donate the most of the money from the "Mr. OHS" event Friday night to the family. I hope he recovers, but I hear it doesn't look good since the coma has gone on since Spring Break.

I hope to have happier things to report in the future. God Bless.

My Favorite Things

OK, I'm an Oprah fan. I was thinking the other day about her favorite things show, and decided it would be fun to post about some things that I have found, or used over the last few months. Each of these things has been fun and awesome to have, use or read. I hope you enjoy the list, I've included a link to click on below the name of each so you can look at my favorite things. My friends at work turned me on to most of these so check them out.

Top Ten Favorite Things

1. Amazon Kindle eBook Reader
Kindle
As someone who reads constantly, the savings I have in paying a low fee to download books, manuals, cookbooks, etc. instead of paying full price for a hardback will more than pay for itself within about 6 months. It is easy to mark pages where you left off, just like any other book, and you can easily download onto the kindle from any computer with a USB.

2. Wii Fit
Wii Fit
I've pre-ordered this on a recommendation from a website that reviewed the soon - to -be released game. This is an actual interactive fitness game and comes with a floor board to track your movements and integrate them into the display, while using the nunchucks or controller. In other words, you see a cartoon version of yourself following along with the fitness leader or playing sports games. Aerobics, tennis, dancing, kick-boxing and many other interactive exercise games are included. This "game" was developed for the over 30 female who wants to exercise and tone up. I'm really excited about getting this one.

3. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose. Oprah's Book Club
A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
An awsome bestseller for a reason. I loved this book, and it was a joy to read and learn from.

4. %100 Kona Gold Coffee
Kona Gold Coffee
This is the best coffee I've ever had. Rick and I were turned onto this during our honeymoon in Hawaii. Smooth and rich tasting. We order this frequently.

5. Audiovox 8610 Vox Prepaid Virgin Wireless Phone
Audiovox Virgin Mobile Pre-paid Phone
We've switched to Virgin Mobile Pre-paid and are saving about $45 dollars a month from our previous family plan. Great service and the cost is the same if you are long distance or home.

Garbage is Like Porn

Some thoughts on garbage, the proposed trash transfer station and the new recycling bins in St. Louis South County

1. Garbage is like porn, for some it is dirty and for others it is a living. Both are hard to define. Most don’t want to see it, others look for it.

2. A trash man/woman makes as much in salary as a high school teacher.

3. The new recycling bins are really causing us to recycle far more than ever before. Actually, we now have more volume in recyclables than garbage for the landfill. I’m finding I can recycle most of everything that comes into our house. Usually, the brown bin is overflowing at the once a week pickup.

4. Paper is the largest single item in landfills. What a waste of trees, money and power.

5. Many diseases come from the waste bacteria found on garbage. So does this mean that Fred Weber will have a transfer station where this can leech into the ground water and into the Meramec? What about the toxic fumes and chemicals known to be produced in piles of trash?

6. In the middle ages, the bubonic plague was passed along by rats, who met up and bred in garbage dumps all over Europe.

7. An American citizen throws away 5x more trash than the average person in India.

8. Trash that deteriorates underground forms methane gas that can be harvested to use as fuel.

9. Recycling ramped up during World War II to make many army supplies.

10. In 1934 the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed dumping in harbors and oceans.