The Hudson City School District will begin on-line payment of student fees in the fall of 2011. The original plan included piloting the program this year with “General Fees” only; however, additional development work and training is needed to ensure success. The district will instead begin a pilot program in the second semester of this year with a small number of fee-based programs. It is anticipated that starting in the fall of 2011 most student fees will be payable on-line.
I just got back from UCLA football Media Day, where UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel addressed his team’s plan to jump-start the Bruins running attack. You can find out more in the Red Zone
Marc Freeman
Stephen Cochran says he did his homework before deciding to teach in Palm Beach County this year: The 20-year veteran math teacher from the San Francisco Bay area scoured websites to read articles about the curriculum controversy that disrupted the school system.
“I feel like I’m coming in right after the hurricane has been cleared up,” said Cochran, who relocated to South Florida and was recently hired to teach at Spanish River High in Boca Raton. “I imagine if I started last year I would have been questioning myself the whole way. Now the storm has passed.”
For about 400 new county teachers, upbeat orientation activities on Monday included suggestions from recent award-winning teachers, and talk of “new beginnings” both for these educators and the district. Classes start on Aug. 17.
Yet the recruits arrive at a time when the county Classroom Teachers Association is at war with the school district over money for salaries – there have been no raises for two years. In additions, educators and parents remain bitter over last year’s botched academic initiatives that forced teachers to follow scripted lessons and testing schedules.
But in a cheery address in the auditorium of Santaluces High School, union President Robert Dow – appearing robust from his recent cancer recovery – declared, “teaching is the best job in the world.”
Schools Superintendent Art Johnson used a video graphic to show the new teachers that the district has received an A rating from the state for the past six years.
“You are joining a very successful team,” he said . He praised the system’s more than 12,000 teachers for the ranking that is the best for urban districts in Florida.
I came to U.S. News in 2008 as a wide-eyed intern working on the copy desk. Whenever I was editing, I always jumped at the chance to read Paper Trail posts from my predecessor, Alison Go. When I was asked in early 2009 if I wanted to take over the blog, I was excited. I’d heard how much fun it was to write Paper Trail and how crazy both college news and college kids were.
What I’d heard was true.
Over the next year, the college news circuit took me on a wild ride. There were horrible lows and some nice highs, with a lot of weird stuff in between. And I still can’t believe that a short little post about Climategate got so many comments and page views.
But if there’s one thing that I can take away from this experience, it’s that no one has more enthusiasm, more pizzazz, and more drive than college journalists. In many ways, the collegiate reporters I followed on a daily basis inspired me. There’s something to be said about the youthful exuberance that college media provide—it breathes some much-needed life into a beaten-down journalism industry.
So, now that I’m off my soapbox, I just want to say thanks: to the college journalists who gave me so much fodder to blog in the past year, to the other college news bloggers who always found great stuff and kept us laughing, and to the readers who never missed a beat.
All the best,
Jeff