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Updates and Exhortation

 





On September 10th I shared with you that Sarah Sundae likes cupcakes to help spread the word that she was raising money to buy a wheelchair-accessible van for her son. Guess what? Purely because of community support, this Ellicott City mom has reached her fundraising goal. 

Her son suffered brain damage due to the flu. The Howard County community rallied to help. Ellicott City mother uses social media to raise money for a wheelchair van, Kiersten Hacker, Baltimore Sun

This is such wonderful news. It’s also true that having to go on social media to get neccesary care for her disabled son says something deeply unsettling about how our society handles healthcare and disability. What happens in a similar situation when the surrounding community is not affluent and/or does not have access to the internet?

Food for thought.

*****

In July I made yet another impassioned plea for why arts education gives students A Reason For Living. My reason for writing is still on the table: a state-approved requirement for sixty minutes of math instruction per day at the middle school level. When you add minutes in one place, it stands to reason that they have to come from somewhere else.

I’m sharing the following information from Howard County Parents for School Music to boost their signal:



VIRTUAL HCSM MEETING THURSDAY. 10/22 7PM

GOOGLE MEET: HTTPS:L/MEET.GOOGLE.COM/E29-GQKR-YRQ.

MORE MATH. LESS MUSIC & ARTS?

Could Maryland's new math requirement put other middle school subjects at risk?

A state-approved requirement for 60 minutes of math instruction per day could require schools to make difficult decisions about instructional time for music, the arts, world languages, and other subjects.

Our students deserve both strong math Instruction AND a well-rounded education. They shouldn't have to sacrifice one for the other.

Join Howard County Parent for School Music (HCPSM) for a virtual meeting on Thursday, October 22 at 7 PM to learn what's at stake and how YOU can help make a difference.Get informed. Get involved. Make your voice heard!

This virtual meeting is this evening. 

We keep saying how concerned we are about teens. There’s a mental health crisis among young people. We worry that they are using alcohol and drugs. They spend so much time on their phones, sucked into social media. We wonder if they have enough real life experiences and one-on-one interactions. We see our kids’ social skills crumbling.

And then we do things that will reduce arts education programs which provide all of those healthy opportunities that our kids so desperately need. On top of that it’s educationally unsound to reduce arts education in an attempt to increase so- called “academic” competence. As I said in July:

We can’t simply pour content onto children and young people. They need to have the ability to absorb it. Reducing time spent in areas like Arts Education, Science, Social Studies, and World Language will eleminate vital nutrients that enable the brain to process and connect what is learned in Math and Reading/English/Language Arts. 

Removing the catalyst to deep learning is a recipe for failure. 

*****

Oh, and one more thing: vote.



You can even vote today. 


Here’s where you can vote. 


How fortunate we are to live in a state and county that make it easy to vote. 



Village Green/Town² Comments 

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  1. Julia A. McCreadyOctober 22, 2026 at 4:31 AM

    Please do not submit comments here. This function will be disabled shortly. Use the link above instead. Thanks!

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