A few random things...

''This is on par with the Crucifixion of Christ''

I don’t know if I would go that far... but I love the fact that someone said it!

Remember... there will be a PEACEFUL demonstration after school tomorrow... please come.

to quote Mario Savio of Students for a Democratic Society "There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick to heart that... you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop"

I truly believe that Mrs. Wolowiec is the one making all of us sick to heart. We must fight the "machine" and try to enact change within the School District.

In my last two blog entries I talked about supporting Mr. Howard. I would now like to talk about the way we, the students, are being portrayed in the media. I write this in response to the numerous comments made today about the way news outlets such as Channel 5 News portrayed us. I am happy to say that Channel 5 News no longer has a statement that says we threw rocks. I gave the writer of the news article on newsnet5.com a call yesterday and talked to her about the slant she put on her story. I reminded her that a huge part of journalism is objectivity and I pointed out that on the very same news station they said the superintendent issued a statement saying we threw rocks. However on newsnet5 they did not say the superintendent was the one who issued this statement. In fact the original article reads as follows.

"UPDATED: 12:45 pm EST March 8, 2005

HUDSON, Ohio -- About 600 students at Hudson High School walked out of school to show their support for their principal at about 10 a.m. Tuesday morning. They returned to class about 11 a.m.

Principal Howard
 
The walkout was in protest of the school board's vote not to renew Roger Howard's contract, citing "needs improvement" rating on his last evaluation.

What Happened?

Reports indicate that one student was sprayed with pepper spray. Students were reportedly pelting officers with bottles of water, snowballs and rocks.

WEWS reports that six other police departments were called in to keep the peace.

According to sources at the superintendent's office, one student was arrested.

On Monday night, parents and students attended the school board meeting to protest as well.

Many of the students at Hudson say Howard is a good person who really cares about his students.

"(The evaluations) are performance-based ... things that have to go on, based on the job description of what an administrator in the building does," said Hudson Schools communication manager Sheryl Sheatzley.

Howard has been an educator for 20 years. He said in his rebuttal letter that in all of those years he has never received a formal evaluation approaching any level of dissatisfaction or concern."

The story said "reports indicate" however it failed to mention that the source of those reports is most likely biased. I couldn’t believe that a professional journalist would use a source such as Maryann Wolowiec and pass it off as fact.

I am happy to say they did make a change to that part of the article not more than five minutes after I called.

The media is a tool that we can use to our advantage. And we need to take advantage of it. I know many of you were pleased that the media got footage of the Hudson police being a little trigger happy with their pepper-spray. I urge all of you to remind reporters of their duty to report the stories objectively.

Well, I wasn’t able to call in tonight. I keep getting a busy signal. The radio show is amazing! It just makes me love Mr. Howard even more and makes me want to fight even harder to save him. and makes me want to work even harder to get rid of Maryann Wolowiec.

Please. If you are hesitating AT ALL from speaking up and supporting Howard I urge you to brake out of your shell and give your opinions. Don’t worry... the rest of us have nothing but respect for those who are supporting Howard. No matter how great or poor of a public speaker you are. So please help use support Howard!

Speak! Share your opinions! And fight for Howard (although don’t do anything that would hurt Howard’s career)

The past few days have truly been sad ones in Hudson. It’s sad to see our beloved principal Mr. Roger Howard loose his job. It’s sad to see the superintendent and the school board loose the confidence of the community. And its sad to see the kind of force used to break up major protests with thousands of people be called in on 700 high school students. (In case you didn’t hear they were assembling a larger force of police officers, including a SWAT team and fire trucks in the Acme parking lot).

To address the first thing I mentioned, the non-renewal of Mr. Howard’s contract, I am very sad about this. I think there were things the school board and the superintendent could have done to prevent this. I think they could have reached some sort of agreement. The problems the school board listed were nothing but minor, and I feel they were just excuses for Mrs. Wolowiec's personal vendetta against Mr. Howard.

Second of all I am very sad about what took place at the school board meeting Monday night. I found it deeply disturbing that the school board didn’t even listen to the communities comments. Oh sure, they sat through it but the school board president's comment about how it isn’t a popularity contest pretty much summed it up... they weren’t going to listen. In fact I felt the comment made by the school board president was a BIG slap in the face to all of those who attended the meeting to show their support and an even bigger slap in the face to all of those who got up and spoke. I certainly hope Mr. Duff's comments at that meeting will be taken into account when community members vote next November.

Its also very sad to see a community that is so involved in their children's education and that usually is so supportive of each other be ripped apart by this decision. Mrs. Wolowiec's decision did just that though. There is now a huge gap between the community and the administration of this school district. A gap that I feel could be devastating to the schools. If people are this outraged what is going to happen the next time the school district wants to pass a levy? I think some people will stand up and use that to let the school board know their dissatisfaction.

you can find their addresses and phone numbers here (http://www.hudson.edu/hcsd/index.php?school=hcsd&parent=boe)

I would like to ask all of the students and parents of Hudson high school students to voice your dissatisfaction with the decisions made by the school board and Mrs. Wolowiec. No I’m not telling you to do another walk out (In fact that would only hurt Mr. Howard). What I am asking you to write a letter or get your parents to write letters to every member of the school board asking for the immediate resignation of Superintendent Maryann Wolowiec. There is no way our community and our school district can heal if she is still in office.

My final note is that I was nothing short of being appalled at the amount of force that was used that that was waiting to be used at yesterdays walk out. There was no reason for this, no reason at all. I was there and only saw a few students throwing anything. And it’s sad that the students who got pepper-sprayed were most likely the ones who didn’t throw anything.

In closing I would like to say that it is sad that in a school district that is so supportive of their children's education that we have a superintendent who obviously is not.