Village Green/Town²

Just fooling with you. I'm going to try another week of gratitude, actually. This week's reasons to be grateful: 1. We seem to have acquired all the needed school supplies and signed all the correct forms. So far. 2. The date for this year's Oakland Mills Cultural Arts Festival has been set--October 8th--it's one of my favorite days of the year. 3. Candidate forums aplenty for the HoCoBOE race! 4. First meeting of the Citizens Review Committee of the HCPSS Budget occurred yesterday. And here is Bill Woodcock's blog post about it. 5. HoCo PATH-IAF members are out in the community sharing information on Strong Schools, Affordable Homes. If you see the friendly folks in the green shirts while you are out and about, take a minute to listen to their goals--they might be your goals, too.  

I highly recommend this article shared by Just Up the Pike's Dan Reed about generational differences when it comes to housing density. Although written in Canada it could easily have been written in Howard County. It's definitely worth the read. The author takes a look at the differing desires of Millennials and Baby Boomers when it comes to the development of new housing and communities. If, after reading the article, you feel that it has been too hard on Baby Boomers, you might wish to cleanse your palate by reading this piece . I frankly think that Millennials take too much bashing but this one is almost funny. And it makes you think. I am, technically, a Baby Boomer. My older daughter is a Millennial. We have differing opinions about things but those opinions help us learn about each other, rather than condemn. I get tired of seeing articles about what's wrong with her generation. Heck, I get tired of getting lumped in with all the sins of the Baby Boomers. Yes, there ...

Today is the first day of school for many in Howard County. The first day is full of possibility and it can been exciting. Or scary. Or both. Teachers and staff will be working hard to make schools welcoming and to create positive learning environments. Most importantly, they will be building the relationships with students that make that learning possible. Ahead there will be challenge, adventure, good days, bad days, boredom, and breakthrough but above all there will be relationship. Without it, students are nothing but widgets and teachers nothing but robotic "deliverers of content". I am now working in a school where we focus our efforts in the workplace by trying to "bring our best selves" to the task at hand: to teaching, relating with coworkers, students, and parents, and to building community. This is a school where the ultimate goal is to produce students who will make the world a better place. As we work to make our school welcoming and to create positive...

300 500 600 700 800 These are not just random numbers. These are dollar amounts that Howard County teachers were missing out of their paychecks this week because of an accounting error in the HCPSS payroll department. Would you be able to cover a loss this big without adequate warning? Most Howard County teachers don't earn enough to be able to take that kind of a hit. Howard County Times covers this briefly, but read the comments, too, to get a clearer picture of what actually occurred. It is the job of the people who handle HCPSS payroll to manage two different pay schedules: one that pays over ten months, and one that pays over twelve months. Most school systems throughout the country offer both options as a way of responding to teachers' need to have a steady paycheck year round. If you are in the business of making payroll decisions, you should have the ability to work out things like the length of the teacher contract, the dates that the school year begins and ends. This...

This post first appeared on August 27, 2012. It refers to this event. Love for Ellicott City lives on and on. Is No News "Good"? Once upon a time, there were places that everybody knew and loved. You know what I mean, right? Places like The Last Chance Saloon, Michael's, Rocky Run, Produce Galore, Bun Penny. Everybody went there. At least, that's what I've heard. You can probably name some others, equally treasured. But times changed. People changed. The economy changed. And then, one day, they weren't there. Not all at once of course--little by little. Well-known pieces of the community broke away and crumbled. Some people were angry, some were grieving. Some asked, "why?" "Why didn't we know?" "If we had known they were in trouble, we would have made a point of supporting them." "It's not our fault this happened." If someone had just told us, we would never have let this happen." I don't know...

I just want to start by acknowledging that I had no idea of the truly bad pun coming your way when I wrote this post last week, "Ball in Your Court, #HoCoGov". So the following is not intentional. Yes, when it comes to mold in our schools and getting transparency and accountability, we seemed to be at a standstill when the the firm commissioned to investigate by the County Executve's office was basically discredited by a contractor hired by the school system. Top it off with the news that the (independent?) investigators were not permitted to speak publicly without permission of the school system. Ball in your court, #HoCoGov. It turns out that there is indeed a chance to turn this game around because the ball in HoCoGov's court is Calvin Ball, Chair of the County Council. (I know, I know, but stay with me here.) The saga of mold has gotten so complicated that I had forgotten that Dr. Ball authored and got legislation passed to have the Environmental Sustainability B...

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Since 2003 I have worked part time in one way or another and all household chores, grocery shopping, and cooking fell to me by default. And that was fine. I was the one with the most time. Now I'm not. I'm going back to work full time and I have absolutely no clue how dinner is going to happen. So, to those of you who've been parenting and working full time and making dinner happen all this time: I salute you. I bow down before you. Long ago, in another life, I knew how to do this. But I have lost my chops. Educate me. What are the best local options for busy parents to get food on the table fast? What tricks have you learned for juggling everything and staying sane? When my daughter was an infant and I was commuting to Baltimore to work every day, we fell back on take-out and cereal as dinner much more than I would have liked. We survived. But it wasn't pretty. Howard County has plenty of grocery stores, and several grocery delivery option...