Summer Heat Means Multiple Stories with Pepper Spray – Yes, Really.

Welcome to REVERB – The Sound’s recap of the top stories (and some not-so-top) involving Annapolis and Anne Arundel County that we found interesting enough to send your way… with a complimentary side of… well, sarcasm.

Coming soon:  One room schoolhouses and some serious regression

A recent Hometown Annapolis article announced that plans for Annapolis High School to mix students of varying achievement levels in all freshman and sophomore classes would be delayed for one year.

Does this seem like a giant Hulk-step backward to anyone else?  Separating students based on achievement and ability is the reason advanced placement classes were created in the first place.  What are we, tired with the status quo, so we’ve decided to shake things up via “heterogenous grouping”?

Hey Annapolis High, giving it a fancy, pseudo-scientific name doesn’t magically make a heinous plan seem like a good one.

Prinicpal Don Lilley, who is clearly under the influence of some kind of nefarious Jedi mind tricks, seems to think that said plan would “increase rigor for students at all levels.”

If by “increase rigor,” he is referring to the heightened self-control it will take to keep some students from strangling the kid who has kept the entire class stalled on derivatives for two weeks, then I suppose it makes sense.  Although in reality, I sense it’s got something to do with making classes more challenging for all students involved, which we all know is a total crock since such a process will make classes impossibly frustrating for some while others will spend large chunks of their time making paper footballs.

Sidenote:  Do students still make paper footballs?

What is clearly a not-so-cleverly disguised attempt to pull off budget-cut-induced layoffs has been met with resistance from many parents who are rightfully concerned how this regression to the days of the one room schoolhouse will affect their children’s education.

Preparations are being made to ready the Conestoga wagons for next year because if we’re going to go all Little House on the Prairie, we’re going to go full-throttle baby.

At this juncture, I couldn’t reach Michael Landon for comment….he’s a little outside my roaming service.

Zero tolerance for zero tolerance

While we’re on a crazy-things-school-administrators-do-because-they’re-obviously-bored-with-their-lives kick, let’s talk about a Baltimore Sun report that a girl from Severna Park High School was suspended for six days because she was found in possession of pepper spray.  She evidently was given the pepper spray by her mother for safety on her walk to and from school, but a “former friend” ratted her out.

Besides this being a wonderful example of the backstabbing, petty nature of teenage girls, I just have to wonder – six day suspension for freaking pepper spray?

Incidents like this have led to people challenging schools’ “zero tolerance” policies and subsequent suspensions.

Let’s think about this rationally for a minute here and ask ourselves who multi-day suspensions are really punishing.  It’s certainly not the majority of the students who are suspended.  A good portion of suspendees are repeat offenders who don’t want to be in school in the first place.  A suspension is like a vacation for them.  And the most seasoned rule-violators know what the “permanent record” administrators ominously threaten them with is a big joke.  The real victims in these cases are the parents who must now figure out what to do with their delinquent child at home alone all day.

If the schools were serious about punishing students, they would make them pack an overnight bag and force them to sleep at the school for a week, doing calculus until midnight and spending the early morning hours cleaning the classrooms while the janitors get a break.

There is of course a small portion of students whose worlds fall apart when they are suspended for seemingly accidental and innocuous “crimes,” but because of a lot of regulations, they are not even permitted to contact teachers so they may keep up with school work.  How is this conducive to running a school when you are literally forbidding students to participate?

I used to be a big proponent of zero tolerance policies.  I was the kid in school who followed all the rules.  As far as I was concerned, the rules were there for a reason, and if people couldn’t control themselves for the eight hours a day they spent in school, then they deserved the full weight of whatever punishment was levied.  I think my haughty view was mostly because I laughed like Dr. Evil whenever I got wind that some punk I couldn’t stand wouldn’t be in school for a few days.

Now though, I think zero tolerance policies are nothing but laziness designed to allow for the smallest possible amount of work for administrators.  No respect is paid to varying degrees of “crimes” which leads to similar punishments for something as horrific as students bringing guns to school and those who have pepper spray in their backpacks.

I don’t mind heavy disciplinary action for the gun-toting morons – they should be kicked out, never to return as far as I’m concerned (although as a graduate of a public high school, I know that expulsion from public school is all but impossible), but let’s cut the girl with the pepper spray some slack before we have another incident like the 15-year-old who hanged himself after he was given a three-day suspension “when his cell phone beeped in class because his battery was going dead.”

Here we go again…

If I had a nickel for every stupid thing I read about the Market House, I would have enough money to buy the damn building and give it the fate it deserves: A final resting place in a junkyard.

That said, Historic Annapolis Patch has outlined the latest in the never-ending saga.  The plan is for the building to re-open (temporarily) in early July and until June 10, applications for these 11 temporary vendor spots are being accepted.  The city wants “locally owned businesses (no chains or franchises) that provide fresh foods, produce and market goods at reasonable cost.”

If interested, you may pick up an application at 145 Fantasy of the Terminally Insane Street or send an email to nevergonnahappen@annapolis.gov.

Make no mistake though, the long term plan is still underway, and “the firm BBP LLC will present its findings to the city council next month on the economic viability of the Market House.”  As I have learned, the economic viability of the Market House is zero.  Nothing.  It is and has always been a colossal failure of a building.

I don’t know the people involved in gauging the economic viability, but I do know that if they find that it has any worth whatsoever, I will find those names as well as their home phone numbers, and I will hand out those phone numbers to every telemarketing agency in the country because these people will deserve to have the pants annoyed off of them on a daily basis for allowing the Market House to continue to exist.

I realize that the city would lose money if it were to simply get rid of the Market House, but at what point does anyone with a functioning cholinergic system decide it is time to cut our losses?  At what point does the fact that no matter where the building is located, it inevitably fails play into decisions regarding the future of the building?  At what point does someone say “Y’know, unless we make the Market House a brothel, it’s eventually going to suck.”?

Hopefully that point is soon.  Otherwise there are a bunch of people who will need to develop a very sophisticated screening process.

World’s least talented criminals

“Criminals Are Stupid” is going to be the title of my as-yet unfinished (and at this point, as-yet-unstarted) book.  A tiny little feature in Eye on Annapolis succinctly summarized my views towards the halfwit who neglected to fully read through the bank heist manual, mainly the part where it’s kind of important to conceal one’s identity if one has any desire to remain at large.

“Thanks for leaving your face un-obscured and for giving the cameras a nice, clean shot,” the feature read.

Seriously dude?  Seriously?

That’s just shamefully sloppy work.

How not to behave around other humans

The Maryland Gazette reported Wednesday that when one woman on the MTA light rail starting snapping pictures of a pregnant woman without her permission, the pregnant woman threw a drink at her which then prompted the photog to spray the pregnant woman with pepper spray.  Both women were taken into custody with charges pending.

Let’s review:

• Unsolicited photography
• Drink throwing
• Pepper spraying

Okay kids, these are all things you don’t do while on a train.  Scratch that, these are things civilized people don’t do in life in general.

Cards on the table:  I’m sure we’ve all done the sneaky picture taking thing because we just absolutely had to document the absurdly fashion-challenged girl in class (my best friend did this) or use the zoom to see if the beautiful man playing in a fountain with his adorable son was wearing a wedding band (this was me, and he was not), but a train is really not the best place to do any kind of stealthy shuttering.

Seriously though, how obvious must this woman have been for the pregnant lady to notice?

And what happened to calmly asking the asylum escapee to cease and desist with the photo shoot thankyouverymuch?

I mean, how trashy can we possibly get?

And why does crazy crap like this always happen on the train?

This is why the rest of the world hates Americans.