..........finally, the weekend approaches!

Yes, it's the weekend is near at Beware of the Elephant in Tall Grass. As a blessing to begin the weekend, there is no Friday night football today for the mighty, mighty, Huskies! We have an open date this week. The coaches have informed me that they will travel to North Surry tonight to scout what they feel is our greatest opposition in the conference. I'm glad they're on it. For me, I plan to spend an evening with my family. Tomorrow at 8:30 AM I will meet the marching band for rehearsal and then we are off to Lenoir-Rhyne University (my alma mater) to perform at their football game. It's a night game; so, we won't be back home until after midnight. As a result of the beneficial rainfall of the past week, we've only been on the field to march once this week, hence the AM rehearsal tomorrow. This should be a pretty laid-back trip and performance. The thing that I like best about the whole thing is that my weakest marchers/musicians/human beings are going on a field trip today! Perfect! They're going to Blowing Rock to run a ropes course. You see, these kids haven't done well in school, couldn't organize their own breakfast, and they need this course to help them succeed. In other words, let's take some of the weakest students in the school (their attendance is horrible anyway), take them out of all their classes for a full day, and have them go on a fun day. Now this is education! Knowing some of the kids from the band going on this thing - they will take three to four days to run the course. Just as soon as it becomes a challenge, out comes the whining and false injuries. This is going to be such a waste of time! Oh well, mine is not to question why. Speaking of school stuff, we were informed at the beginning of the week that our school was in the top ten schools in the state for graduation. We had an 80% graduation rate last school year. Outstanding! We've graduated 8 out of every 10 kids that were in the senior class. Would you feel comfortable having a surgeon or dentist work on you that got it right 80% of the time? Am I too harsh on the North Carolina Public Schools? Do you really know how easy it is to get a basic diploma from the NC Public School System? It would be difficult to name all the available programs out there sponsored by the state to get students a basic diploma (all sponsored with tax payer money). The scary thing is that there are many, many schools that are way below the 80% mark! Our 80% sounds great when you attach the statistic to the sliding scale of comparison statewide. The lawyers should rejoice at this graduation rate. They need the 20% that didn't make the mark to keep them in business. I guarantee you that the 20% who didn't graduate will rise to being the 95% of those who are constantly working within the court system. We have an attendance policy to keep kids in school more often. My attendance policy slept in the bedroom beside mine when I lived at home! Now, we allow the state to do the dirty work for the parents. The only problem - policies don't really work for the individuals they are designed for without parent support at home. One part of our attendance policy states that after three unexcused tardies to a class, the student will be removed from all classes and put into in-school-suspension (ISS) for a full day. If it happens again, the student will get three days of ISS; and again, the student will be sent home for OSS (you figure it out). So, for poor attendance, the student gets a vacation from the daily grind of class. The real punishment is for the student's teacher who gets to come-up with extra assignments to do in ISS/OSS. You see, the student's grade can't be penalized (state regulation proven in court) for not being in class due to school assigned punishment, and the reflection of that student's test scores at the end of the semester will fall upon his teachers performance rating. What a great system to deal with parents not making their kids go to school! Alright, back to the original point - IT IS FRIDAY!!!!! FULL STEAM AHEAD AND DAMN THE TORPEDOES!