customers served (give or take a few hundred thousand) since September 2004!
Comments and opinions expressed on THE KNIGHT SHIFT are those of Christopher Knight and not necessarily those of subjects discussed in this blog, of advertisers appearing on it or of any reasonable human being. Any correspondence/irate letters/lawsuit threats/Nigerian e-mail scams can be sent to theknightshift@gmail.com.
You have to be dead to the things of Christ to approve of this filtly liscensious movie. The teen starlet was dressed as a whore . Every move, every direction, every word on her account was conformed to the gutteral nature of a Godless culture. You areyond believabilty to deny that lust was the drawing card for much of the film. Pornographic techniques were used to the max here. The lanquage in both subject and vanacular was Godless. It transformed eveyone who watched it to a place farther from Christ's standard.
Only blind and naked Christians could possibly support this film . It was a shame to see such a great idea waisted in the dump of filth that it was wrapped around. If you made such a film and showed to your neighborhood children, you would be arrested for child sexual abuse.
Hollywood usesthe law to corporately produce and legally protect artistic work that we know is wrong on every level.
You are still very much a babe in Christ, if you really believe that scripturally this film can past muster. It just can't be done. I come from a family who really love action films and this clearly shamelessly crossed the line of acceptable for those claiming the name of Christ. Take some time to examine if you in fact have been transformed by the world or by the renewing of your mind to things of God.
I am strong believer too. And the more I grow , the more the Lord reveals of His wisdom and the foolish deciept of the world's. This film harms children by exposing them to sexual content in the light of entertainment, writen from a Godless point of view. As far back as the Old Testiment, believers are told to guard our children's hearts. I would guess you have no children, because before I did, I rationalized much like you do. There is no way I could see the real harm until the Lord gave me a life to hand back to Him. I want to be very careful in the servant I raise for His glory.
Blessings, Shirley
This is one of the most ridiculous things to have ever landed in my in-box... and I was the one who possibly most took the brunt of the silly season that happened during the 'N Sync/Attack of the Clones fiasco, mind ya.
Shirley's letter is rife with the kind of hysteria that Christians are known way too much for. It's the kind of spiritual mentality that supposes that we are to cower in fear of this world. As if it has power over us that we cannot resist.
That's a pretty sad way to cheapen the power of Christ within us, if you ask me.
Here's what I want to know: Did Shirley actually watchTransformers on her own? Or is she only relying on what Focus on the Family and others have told her to think and believe about Transformers? Because unless Frenzy transformed into a vibrator and we missed it, I didn't see anything that qualifies Transformers as "pornographic".
I watched Transformers with two of the people who are closest to me: my wife, and one of my best friends of almost thirty years. However shallow Shirley believes my own spirit is, I can vouch that each of these two have a very deep and profound faith in God. And I can't speak for them, but I do know that they have high standards and that if Transformers was anything remotely like what Shirley is describing here, I believe without a doubt that they would have walked out of the theater. As it so happened, when we left the theater after watching Transformers (read my review here) we were talking about how terrific the effects were and how great it was to finally see a live-action Transformers movie: something Chad and I as kids used to dream of seeing one day.
The charge that Megan Fox's character was "being dressed as" and acted like "a whore" is, not to put too fine a point on it, loony. As for "pornographic techniques were used to the max here" goes: did we get to see Starscream being "serviced" by a Boeing 777? Did Ironhide have a leather-clad dominatrix beating his steering wheel with a whip to "drive faster, drive FASTER!"?
No, we didn't. We saw giant robots hashing it out and beating the snot out of each other. That's what most of us were looking at the screen to see, and not some slight against morality that may or may not even really be there.
All my life, I've seen some Christians act like this. There is a certain variety of my creed that is not happy unless there is some "evil" in the world that must be demonized and stamped-out. Anyone remember the original Dungeons & Dragons game? I actually played that some when I was younger. That was at the same time that some Christians were declaring it to be "Satan's game". Then years after that it was the card game Magic: The Gathering that was "evil". Not long after that it was Pokemon that was the bugaboo to be avoided.
And I can't imagine these same Christians doing anything but salivating at the prospects that are coming with the release of the final Harry Potter novel this week. For ten years now, Harry Potter has been these Christians' favorite whipping-boy. They're actually secretly happy that there is something like Harry Potter out there, that gives them the opportunity to show off how much they can hate something. Trust me: they aren't going to let this final opportunity simply go by without raising a fuss of some kind or another.
And really, that's what all of this is about. This is how groups like Focus on the Family stay so powerful: because they're adept at playing on how eager most people are to hate something, anything, and exploiting that for gain. It's the Two-Minutes Hate from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four put into active practice. It's only been recently that I've realized how often that process is used in real life. It's quite scary when you think about it, about how easily we let others manipulate our emotions so that we are turned into something pliable for their own means.
If this bothers Shirley Skidmore so much, then I would suggest that she spend more time studying the Bible for her own spiritual edification, instead of trying to tear down others who are stronger than her in the faith. That some of us have already moved on to meat while she's too timid to try anything but milk shouldn't be cause for jealousy among fellow believers.
Other than the use of that one word, there wasn't anything about Transformers that I would be intimidated against watching with an appropriately-aged child. And if he or she asked questions, I wouldn't shy away from talking about what that word means, either. That's what parents are supposed to do with their children, isn't it? It's what they do when they love and care for their children... or I thought so, anyway. We can't be a shield for them against the world for every moment of their young lives, but we can do our darndest to give them the wisdom and insight that they will need to confront it, so that they might change it and it not change them.
And so far as this goes...
"If you made such a film and showed to your neighborhood children, you would be arrested for child sexual abuse"
I've probably spent more than enough time than a person who would make such a statement deserves.
I've seen Transformers twice now, have examined it with the conscience that God gave me, and have yet to find anything about it that would present a threat against that conscience. If some people fear it would be a bane to their spirituality, then they should avoid it if they feel led to do so. But I still like it and I'm going to keep recommending it to others. I hope to see it at least once more in the theaters. When the DVD comes out I will gladly add it to my collection.
And if Shirley Skidmore thinks she can make a better movie, then as a film-maker myself, I gladly invite her to do so. In the meantime, she and other Christians with this mindset should do the rest of us a favor and stop making our faith come across as one full of nothing but busybodies looking for hobgoblins.
This has to be the biggest coup in the history of this blog. Yes, ladies and gentlemen it is true: this evening the absolute very last page of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was sent to The Knight Shift. This is it! This is how the entire saga ends for good. This is the most absolute toppest-top secret that J.K. Rowling has been sitting on for over ten years now.
If you DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED, you are advised to TURN BACK NOW!
I mean it!
You sure you want to know?
Okay, let it be on your own head. Don't say that I didn't warn you.
Here it is, the final page from the very last chapter of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:
"Is there anything you would like from the menu?" Rosmerta asked.
"Three bottles of butterbear and an order of onion rings, please" replied Ron.
Rosmerta said "coming right up" and left for the kitchen. Harry looked around the pub: a family was laughing at a table close to the window. At the bar, a wizard was nursing a mug of meade.
Hermione turned to Ron. "You told her we would be here, right?"
"Ginny said she was going to come right after Apparation practice," Ron told her.
A trio of tough-looking Slytherins walked through the door. Harry watched them sit down. At the bar, a wizard in a Member's Only jacket was getting up and headed to the restroom.
Without warning, the scar on Harry's head began to tingle madly in pain.
The front door of the Three Broomsticks opened.
Harry looked up.
There you go folks: the conclusion of the Harry Potter saga. Discuss!
It was on the night of June 25th that I started re-reading ALL of the Harry Potter books in what was then just less than a month before the release of the seventh and final novel in the series: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It gets published everywhere at 12:01 a.m. next Saturday. Our copy is already pre-ordered and waiting for us.
And now, on July 14th, I'm ready for it. I think re-reading all the subsequent books made going through Half-Blood Prince much more enjoyable and worthwhile in preparation for the final novel.
And you know what? I'm just as undecided as the first time I read this book two years ago about which side Severus Snape is really on. I've tried figuring him out so much that I've had to give up out of frustration. However this turns out for him, it's going to pack a wallop of a surprise for me.
So, here it is. This war that has spanned two generations is about to enter the final stretch. After six books covering just as many years, we've arrived at the endgame. The authoress has said that all the pieces have been put on the board. After a decade of debate and speculation, one week remains to wonder about how this is going to finally play out.
The only prediction that I'm brave enough to make: at 12:01 a.m. on July 31st, Number 4 Privet Drive in Little Whinging is going to become one helluva smoking crater.
In the meantime, I'm happy for re-reading all six of the previous novels in way less than a month!
(So Jenna and Darth Larry, where are you guys at now? :-)
Just got the score report today. I scored above average on both content knowledge and pedagogy. And my score on content knowledge was high enough that it qualified for "ETS Recognition of Excellence".
So ummmm... anybody wanna hire a history/social studies teacher who is guaranteed to make the classroom learning experience an interesting one?
What a great way to cap off an already good week. Funny how just about all of it involved education one way or another...
Here's the report that I filed a few days ago about the meeting of the Rockingham County Board of Education this past Monday night, during which the board voted 7-3 (with 2 abstaining) to rescind their vote in April that would have mandated school uniforms at Reidsville Middle and Reidsville High schools. Richard Moore has posted some audio clips - including one that encompasses ALL of the public comments - on his site. Here are the links to the clips, in Windows Media format...
A short while ago, and a few days after seeing the movie version, I finished reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. That's now five Harry Potter novels out of the six released so far and I'm trying to read them all before the final chapter, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, comes out next Saturday.
Ever since I first read this four years ago, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has been my favorite of the series and I found myself enjoying it even more this time. As well as catching things that seemed totally innocuous on the first reading or two but now seem to have major significance. Of course everyone by now knows about the locket that can't be opened, that was found while cleaning up 12 Grimmauld Place. But I couldn't help think about some other things too... like how now, more than ever, the idea that Harry himself could be a Horcrux seems more possible than ever. I say that in light of what happens with Harry and his visions, and thinking about the words of the prophecy.
I think one of the bigger themes that J.K. Rowling is playing with in these books is that government, especially one as bureaucratic as the Ministry of Magic, is more of a hindrance than a help and that it always, always winds up hopelessly corrupt. Now more than ever, I'm hoping that Arthur Weasley winds up as the new Minister before the series is out. There's also the thing about how education is ruined when there's too much government interference.
Let's put it this way: I think that every teacher and school administrator in the country should read the Harry Potter books, just so they can read and understand Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, because it is a very scathing indictment against a lot of things that go on so far as public education is concerned.
When Harry, Ron, Hermione and the rest of the "rescue team" infiltrate the Department of Mysteries, they find a series of rooms with various natures. These contain the subjects that the Unspeakables (wizards who work in the Department) are studying. One room, the "Brain Room", I believe deals with the mysteries of the mind. Another one is devoted to the mysteries of time. Then there is the "Death Chamber": the amphitheater-like room looking down on the crumbling stone archway with the veil. This is the place alluded to when Nearly-Headless Nick tells Harry that death is one of the subjects studied in the Department of Mysteries.
And then there is one other room that we know of: the one with the locked door that can't be opened despite Harry and the gang's best efforts. The one we can assume Dumbledore is speaking of when he tells Harry that there is a room in the Department of Mysteries "that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there."
Wanna hear my theory - that I've had ever since reading the book four years ago - about what's inside the ever-locked room? My belief on this is stronger than ever.
Here goes: behind the door of the always-locked room in the Department of Mysteries that contains something unimaginably powerful and beyond the scope of natural forces or human understanding... is God.
Think about it: God is the biggest mystery of all. In 1st Corinthians it talks about how the wisdom of man is the foolishness of God. No one can understand God. But we never cease in trying to understand God.
And the fact that Harry and his friends come to the inaccessible room that contains this force, right after finding the Death Chamber... I believe that is significant too, because it is God that is stronger than death itself. The Death Chamber beckoned and tempted. The room that can't be entered may be interesting but it doesn't yield itself to discovery.
That's what I think is behind the door: God. If that's what it is, then I can't begin to imagine the theological metaphors that have been at play in the Harry Potter series that we aren't even aware of yet.
That's a lot of the things that I wound up thinking about this time in reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but it's so dense a book that there's no doubt that a lot of other things in it are going to be factors before the final installment of the story. Only after reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will I probably notice them, then.
And so the Race to the Deathly Hallows enters its final stretch: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Book 6, is the last one to read before Deathly Hallows is published next Saturday. To the best of my understanding, this puts Darth Larry, Jenna and myself at roughly the same benchmark. Can we get them all in by next Friday night? We'll see! :-)
It was good, but too much of the book was missing for me to be completely satisfied.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is my favorite book of them all in the series (so far). It's also the one that I happen to be in the middle of reading as part of my quest to read all of the Harry Potter books before the release of the final one next Saturday. So maybe those things factored into how much I liked it. I've no doubt that if I had never read the Harry Potter books, I would have a whole different feeling about it's movie adaptation.
Tonally, they got this movie right so far as how it captures the spirit of the book. Especially with how corrupt the Ministry of Magic has become and how the realms of the magical and the Muggle (non-magic for those with no knowledge of the Potter lexicon) are beginning to overlap as Lord Voldemort's power increases. I thought Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge - my all-time most hated literary character ever - and Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood were great. And the special effects were terrific!
The thing is, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the most dense book of the series, and to cram the essence of the novel into a two-some hour movie required sacrifice. A lot of sacrifice. I understand that the producers didn't want to include Kreacher the house elf until J.K. Rowling herself made them put him in the movie (she said it would make things much harder later when they made the movie of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final chapter of the Potter saga). There is nothing about Ron and Hermione becoming prefects and the side-story about how Percy has completely abandoned his family and is now siding fully with the Ministry is completely absent.
The scene where Fred and George flee Hogwarts: a lot of people consider this the single most thrilling moment in all the Harry Potter books. Well, Fred and George's mayhem is in this movie ... but it's changed significantly from how it is in the book. I think the book's scene is much better (the movies erred bigtime by not including Peeves the Poltergeist at all, and when the twins tell Peeves to "Give her hell from us", that would have been a great line to hear in the movie!).
But my biggest disappointment with the movie of Order of the Phoenix has to do with a scene toward the end of the book. In the next-to-last chapter of the novel, after the battle in the Department of Mysteries, Professor Dumbledore sends Harry to wait in his office at Hogwarts. When Dumbledore gets there, Harry ... loses it. He starts ranting at Dumbledore and proceeds to tear the office apart with his bare hands. "I WANT OUT!" Harry screams at Dumbledore, overwhelmed with grief at what just happened in the Department of Mysteries. Harry's tantrum, and then the dialogue between him and Professor Dumbledore ... that's probably the most heartbreaking scene of the Harry Potter books to date. It's definitely the most human, with its raw emotion.
That scene isn't in the movie. Oh sure, we see Harry and Dumbledore talking in Dumbledore's office, but there is no "wrathful Harry" and it's quite subdued. I was sure that this scene would have been in the movie. It would have been one that elevated the Harry Potter movies into a whole higher level of seriousness. And they didn't choose to use it. I'm really let-down that we didn't get to see this.
On the other hand, there were some nice touches that showed considerable thought: like the huge portrait of Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, that glowers down on everyone from the ceiling at the Ministry of Magic: that spoke volumes about what the Minister has now become. And the use of the zoom-ins on the Daily Prophet to convey the sense of what was going on in the magic world outside of Hogwarts) was an awesome idea!
I guess I have to say that I did enjoy the movie, but I thought that it didn't quite live up to what I was expecting and hoping for. There really needs to be a 3-4 hour long film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to do the story the justice it deserves. Or better: someday there should be a complete re-doing of the Harry Potter movies, after the book series has been complete and there's a full understanding of the scope of the story and all its necessary details. I've noticed for the past few movies now that with each new film, there are problems because of details from the books that were ignored completely in the movie version. With Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix the movie, those small cuts are now threatening to become vile open wounds.
I'll say that I liked this movie. And maybe it will grow on me more as the last two movies did (it took me awhile to really like Prisoner of Azkaban's movie: didn't enjoy it too well at first but now I think it's the best of the series) with subsequent viewings. As it stands right now though, my favorite movie of this summer is still Transformers, which I want to see at least once more while it's in theaters.
As was reported here a few days ago, the Rockingham County Board of Education voted to rescind its vote in April to implement mandatory school uniforms at Reidsville Middle and Reidsville High schools beginning this coming year. Members of P.O.T.S.M.O.D. (People Opposed To Standard Mode Of Dress) fought hard and with heart to get the board to overturn its decision ever since the April vote that initially required it.
I got something in my e-mail and I'm gonna post it here, because I think this is one of the bigger reasons why school uniforms in Rockingham County is a bad idea. This is from Nashville, Tennessee, from an organization called Safe Haven Family Shelter...
Safe Haven and Metro Nashville Public School Children Need Our Help
We need school uniform clothing donations to help our kids! As many of you know, Metro Nashville Public Schools have implemented a school uniform dress code. All of our children will be in need of school uniform clothing. Safe Haven understands the plight of families that cannot afford brand new uniform clothing. Therefore, we be allowing Metro Davidson County families to purchase uniform clothing from our thrift store, Family Thrift, for as little as .99 up to a maximum price of $3.99 for new and gently used clothing.
"I would much rather have families save one or two hundred dollars on clothing and be able to use it for food or rent," stated Safe Haven Executive Director Bruce Newport. "Our mission at Safe Haven is to provide programs for homeless families and to prevent homelessness."
All proceeds from the thrift store will be used to help continue to serve homeless families and provide community outreach programs. The Family Thrift store is located in the Priest Lake Plaza shopping center, at the intersection of Bell Road and Murfreesboro Road, and is open to the public.
Per the Metro Nashville Public Schools website, the following are acceptable uniforms:
Given how this is already a difficulty for families to cope with in a major metropolitan area, I can't begin to imagine how much more grief it would be to have imposed a similar policy here in rural Rockingham County.
And I'm not just saying that either because it's author, Jenna Olwin, is such a dear friend of ours. I mean, if she had written crap, I would not be mentioning it here even though she is a wonderful person. But the fact of the matter is, Jenna is a very good writer and she doesn't write crap, at all. That would be fully counter to her nature. She's too much an inherently awesome authoress, because she writes well and she's never failed to make me think about whatever the subject is in some new and fascinating way.
Well, for her contribution this time to Silhouette, the Christian blog that she collaborates on along with several others who are way out there on the upper-left corner of the Lower 48, Jenna writes about Harry Potter and Christianity. And the whole piece is just plain golden. Here's a snip from it...
I was one of the original cave-dwellers who never even heard of Harry Potter until the release of #4, and one of the suspicious types (ashamedly) who attended a church showing of Jeremiah Films' Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged. When I picked up that first book, I fully expected to be bothered by dark thoughts and horrified by pagan ideas. Instead, I found a kinship to Harry and companions that took me through the story in less than two days, kept me reading and re-reading sections all week and made me hardly willing to return it to the library even to get the sequel.
My week with the first book proved to me that the Harry Potter stories are not about witchcraft. Nor does the backdrop of magical imagery bear any real connection with actuality. Harry Potter is to wizardry what Tim Allen's Galaxy Quest is to space travel: fiction based on fiction. The forms of Harry's magic—wands, brooms, cauldrons, spells, charms, etc.—may be traced to a wide selection of pagan spiritualities, but the use of those items is drawn from magical fantasy and fairy tale, and J.K. Rowling obviously took care to keep religion out of it. Rowling also pokes sly fun at some of it, having her characters use things like leech juice and beetle eyes in potions, and she openly mocks the "imprecise" art of Divination ...
There's much more at the link, including some stuff that I don't dare quote here 'cuz I don't want to steal Jenna's well-earned thunder from this one. It really is one of the clearest and succinct article discussing Christianity and Harry Potter that I've found anywhere, anywhen.
A few days ago was when I first heard that Web Junk 2.0 on VH1, in an episode titled "Animals & Other Crap", had a segment featuring my first school board commercial. Here's the clip, which includes some pretty hilarious commentary by Web Junk 2.0 host Aries Spears (I was literally in the floor laughing while watching and listening to his witty remarks) ...
The ad has been featured on VH1's Web Junk 2.0 and in The New York Times, Raleigh News & Observer, and The Charlotte Observer. Knight deserves kudos for promoting a fiscally conservative message to a diverse audience in a novel and entertaining way. Judging by the almost 60,000 views and overwhelmingly positive comments, it's possible that Knight has done more for his cause with a cheesy one-minute clip than he could have done by serving on the school board.
Y'know, if given the choice between winning a seat and being able to reach possibly a lot of people about why stuff like No Child Left Behind should be fought hard against, I would take doing my best to get the message out over the win any day. In the long run, it's going to be things like that, that make the biggest difference for the best. Anyways, thanks for the kind words Tom! And thanks for the good laugh Aries :-)
Last night the Rockingham County Board of Education, after months of outright frustration on the part of parents, students and other citizens, voted 7 to 3 – and with 2 abstentions – to rescind its April vote to implement Standard Mode Of Dress (the euphemism for school uniforms) at Reidsville Middle and Reidsville High schools starting with this upcoming academic year.
Now for the full skinny on what went down, at least from the vantage point of one of the members of P.O.T.S.M.O.D. (People Opposed To Standard Mode Of Dress) ...
After last month's meeting, when members of the board refused to acknowledge citizens' concerns about the uniforms and the legitimacy of the initial vote, I had vowed to show up at the July meeting dressed in my Jedi Knight costume: admittedly, and I even said this last night, as an "attention-getting device". And that's exactly what I did. I put on the outfit early yesterday afternoon and wore it when Tracey McCain from WFMY News 2 came by to do a quick interview. Earlier she went to the house of Samantha Fettig – who deserves bigtime props for her leadership of P.O.T.S.M.O.D. these past several months – and covered the students there who were working on picket signs to carry outside the schools' Central Office yesterday afternoon. A little after 4 p.m. I left home and headed to the office. Vehicles from WFMY News 2 and WXII Channel 12 were already there, and a short while later a huge "mobile studio" from WXII rolled into the parking lot.
A few minutes after that Samantha Fettig, Susan Imus, Wendy Inman and the high school students who've been part of P.O.T.S.M.O.D. arrived with their signs. Samantha's son Chris Fettig also showed up… dressed as a prison-striped convict! WXII's Melissa Marsh interviewed us for a quick story to run during the 6 o'clock news. Here’s the clip ...
And here are the students and several of the adult members of P.O.T.S.M.O.D. protesting the uniforms on the other side of Harrington Highway across from the Central Office ...
And just for the record: wearing a Jedi costume – which includes two layers of shirts, a tabard, a waist sash (all muslin), thick belt and heavy cloak over all of that, in 90-plus degree hot July sun ... tends to make one a little sweaty, to put it mildly. But, it was way too much fun to have done that, especially for a good cause :-)
I went back up into the office at about 5:30 'cuz by that point the heat in that outfit really had become somewhat overwhelming. Going in I saw board chairwoman Elaine McCollum (who was also my old high school homeroom teacher), board members Lorie McKinney and John Smith and Nell Rose, and school superintendent Rodney Shotwell. Ummmm I think "amused" would be a good way of putting their reaction to my attire ... but in a good way, not the "oh Lord this guy's a nutball he's not going to try to do the Jedi mind trick on us is he?" sort of way.
I went downstairs to the board meeting room and it wasn't long before there was a considerable media presence getting ready to cover the meeting: Melissa Marsh's crew from WXII, Erich Spivey and his team from WFMY, and Kira Mathis from News 14 Carolina. Also on hand were Heather Smith from the Reidsville Review and Jonelle Davis from the News & Record.
The meeting convened and after the traditional Pledge of Allegiance, then approval of the agenda and with no intervening business, Elaine McCollum declared the public comments portion of the meeting to be open.
Now, I must confess here that I didn't take good notes during public comments about who exactly said what. By this point I was really struggling to stay cool (in the thermal energy sense) and focused, and all the stuff that I had in my hands didn't allow for much dexterity in taking notes. But the following will give you a pretty strong idea of what happened during comments. Here are some photos (thanks to Erinn Murphy for taking these!) ...
Here are the news stories covering the meeting ...
At around 8 o'clock, during the Consent items on the Agenda, a brief recess was called for. After the meeting resumed, the board went through the Action items and spent considerable time discussing issues pertaining to year-round schools. This went on until around 9:20, when the meeting arrived at Reports/Discussion items and after Dr. Shotwell gave a series of reports, the evening finally arrived at item 7.3: the superintendent's report on Standard Mode of Dress implementation for the next school year.
Dr. Shotwell absolutely must be commended for following through with another survey – this one giving the parents the option of choosing NOT to be in favor of the school uniforms – in light of how much confusion and accusation and appearances of impropriety that surrounded the earlier survey. According to the figures from this new survey, which was taken around June 23rd, combining the results of polling parents of students at both schools yielded a strong 57 percent opposed to Standard Mode Of Dress, compared to 42 percent who said that they were in favor of the uniforms: a marked reversal from the stats of the initial survey.
Dr. Shotwell, for the purpose of relaying to the board his report on feasibility of implementing SMOD at Reidsville Middle and Reidsville High schools this coming year, talked about his research and discussion with administrators at schools that do have uniforms, particularly talking about the experience that one middle school in neighboring Guilford County is having with the uniforms. Which on the surface seems to be a rousing success there. The thing that makes SMOD a fairly feasible thing in Guilford County and that is lacking in Rockingham County, Shotwell noted and what was discussed at length in the ensuing dialogue, was that many lower-income students with SMOD in Guilford can be accommodated with the required attire out of the generosity of local contributors, be they individuals or corporate and other larger interests. And the fact is, there is no comparable "charitable infrastructure" in Rockingham County that could likewise help lower-income families acquire enough needed uniforms if SMOD were enacted. Because of this, Shotwell made the recommendation to wait at least a year before implementing SMOD at the two schools.
What happened after that was easily the liveliest – some might even say chaotic – discussion among the board members that I've seen in a year of regular attendance. Whether the schools were the least bit prepared to enact SMOD was an issue immediately pounced-upon. At-large member Lorie McKinney asked if the board was ready to decree which items of clothing that students could wear, and noted that some students are allergic to certain fabrics: was that matter being taken into consideration? The issue of discipline for those students who refuse to adhere to SMOD was addressed: Dr. Shotwell said that schools would try to be prepared to assist students if they needed it (i.e. the teachers at the schools he studied had 3 belts per classroom, to lend to students who did not have belts of their own to wear). Chronic violation of the uniforms mandate would result in calls to parents, then in-school suspension and then corrective action at the principal's discretion.
Celeste DePriest – one of the four who voted in April to not implement SMOD – said that she still did not believe in enacting this policy. Reida Drum – one of the nine who voted for the uniforms – expressed that it was a good policy that should be followed-through on. Dr. Jim Austin, who also voted for the uniforms, then asked if there was an "escape clause" available as an opt-out for those parents who did not want or could not otherwise participate in school uniforms for their children. I overheard a number of people in the audience note that there were a lot of reasons why parents would not want their children to wear uniforms … which could possibly even include religious reasons (I've known some Christian families who maintain a strict dress code among their own for their children: SMOD as was voted upon in April would even violate many of these families' beliefs on modest dress).
Then Dr. Austin started talking about the support in the community for Standard Mode of Dress. He stated that he believed the numbers from both surveys could be considered accurate: "People change their minds," he noted, and that there had obviously been a "valid change of statistics." Austin said that he was now very much troubled about the prospect of putting in place a policy that there was no longer support for, and that he had to question how he could go on supporting it.
Dr. Austin made the motion to put the matter up for a vote to rescind the April vote of approval for SMOD. "The time has not come in Rockingham County for uniforms," he said, adding that this would be an unwise policy without gradual adjustment to the idea beginning with earlier grades, and that without an escape clause out of SMOD that the system would be wide-open to legal challenges.
Board chairwoman Elaine McCollum seconded the motion.
And then Ron Price – honest folks I am not out to "get" this guy, he does it all on his own to demand the ridicule – had to weigh in. Price said that he agreed with Dr. Austin that there had been a change in public opinion, but he said that the earlier decision to implement the uniforms was sound and should be upheld. Then Price totally lost it: he outright blamed a "small group in the community" that was making "loud noise" for "changing public opinion". Yes, Ron Price said that ladies and gentlemen: that people had changed their minds and that he did not like it. He did everything short of calling out names of individuals for their "activities" in spreading the word about the uniforms. But when he expressly called out Reidsville television station WGSR for giving P.O.T.S.M.O.D. an outlet for its views and blatantly said that WGSR was "bad for the community" ... well, not for the first time in a school board meeting, I saw and heard members of the audience chuckling and laughing at Ron Price.
The guy has lost it. I hate to say this, but when an elected official lets a tiny teevee station get stuck up his craw and that he has to lash out like this ... well, it doesn't exactly inspire confidence in that official, does it? I heard one person say that Price sounded like "a whiney teenager". Which is ironic 'cuz I've watched and listened to a lot of real teenagers get up to speak since this all started, and none of them ever acted like how Ron Price did last night.
(Look when something sticks out like a gangrenous thumb, the tendency is to point to it, ya know?)
Elaine McCollum then said that she had been thinking a lot about this matter in the past month and that she had especially "been listening to children really closely". And, McCollum said she had come to realize, the SMOD issue had become something that it had been thought it would avoid: dividing the community. "We need to cancel out that vote," McCollum proclaimed, "and start over only if there is real interest."
Reida Drum then brought up a survey that had been conducted in April: one that it was said did give parents a clear option of voting "no" to the Standard Mode Of Dress. That survey, Drum announced, was 53.1 percent in favor of the uniforms and 46.9 percent opposed: practically the opposite again of the June survey figures. Lorie McKinney quickly noted that some people who were contacted for the April survey were parents of students who were no longer students at Reidsville High School: "I see definite questions about this survey," McKinney said, adding that she knew of one person whose child was already well out of the schools and thus she should have no say in the matter. "She's a taxpayer," Drum responded. Some in the audience very quickly pointed out that if this was the case, then all the taxpayers in Reidsville should have been polled about whether they supported the uniforms.
And now, Herman Hines chimed in, with what had to be the most colorful and impassioned spiel coming out of the board during the entire night. Once more, Hines indicated that he was going to abstain from a vote to rescind, on the same grounds for his abstention from the April vote: that unless this was something affecting students county-wide, he wasn't going to have anything to do with it. But he said some things that I believe haven't been stated very much in these proceedings: that the matter of clothing is something that ultimately is the responsibility of the child's parents. "It starts at home," Hines said. That unless the mother and father take an interest in their children and lay down the boundaries of what their children can and cannot do, then anything the schools tried to do was really a moot thing. Hines did heavily imply that the schools absolutely do have a say-so in how the students come dressed, and that when he was an educator he had a policy of confiscating hats and caps from students who already knew that those were not allowed: "When I retired in 1985 I had a lot of hats and caps," he quipped, to considerable chuckling from the audience.
Personally, I thought that Herman Hines had a lot of good things to say. Maybe not necessarily about Standard Mode Of Dress directly as an issue, but he is right: unless the parents do involve themselves with their children, beginning in the home, then there's really very little that the schools can do for those children.
Throughout this entire discussion by the board, it was becoming creepingly obvious – and eventually blame was laid directly on this – that the administrators at the two schools had, intentionally or not, encouraged the belief that there was widespread support for Standard Mode Of Dress ... and that this led to a lot of mis-information. By this point it was being widely agreed by most that the entire process that had led to the April vote to approve the uniforms had been "sloppy" and with little real thought or consideration. Tim Scales was especially emphatic in registering his disgust with the process: "I will never support SMOD in Rockingham County again because of how this was handled."
Wayne Kirkman had some of the final remarks of the discussion, protesting that "we didn't just make up the SMOD dress code. We thought we had the information." He then said that "we've taken a lot of heat for the past four months" about the uniforms. Earlier during the public comments portion of the meeting, Kirkman – while never mentioned by name – was referenced in derision by many speakers (including Yours Truly) for his comments in Sunday's Reidsville Review that "School is about learning, not about individuality. It's about how to find a job."
Finally, the vote was called for.
Voting "yes" to rescind the April vote to implement Standard Mode Of Dress at the two Reidsville schools: Celeste DePriest, Lorie McKinney, Amanda Bell, Elaine McCollum, Nell Rose, Jim Austin, and Reida Drum.
Voting "no" to rescind the April vote to implement Standard Mode Of Dress at the two Reidsville Schools: Wayne Kirkman, Ron Price, and John Smith.
Abstaining from the vote were Herman Hines and Tim Scales. Scales announced his abstention by saying aloud that "I've had enough of this!"
Standard Mode Of Dress was rescinded – not postponed or otherwise delayed, but completely done away with – with 7 votes out of 12 that could have possibly been cast.
The rejoicing from P.O.T.S.M.O.D. was politely delayed until the board members finished with two additional items, after which it was announced that the board would have to go into closed session for discussion of personnel items. But before they closed the doors, there were several minutes of reaction and outright jubilation on the part of the SMOD opponents, and the members were thanked for their vote to rescind the policy. After all these months of tension and frustration, it was finally over.
And, a lot of people didn't hesitate to let their hair down a bit in the spirit of the moment. While I was at the front of the room meeting with several of the board members, Dr. Shotwell produced something out from under his place at the table, that he had made it a point to go looking through storage for this just so he could have it at this meeting ...
Here he is, Dr. Rodney Shotwell, Superintendent of Rockingham County Schools, with a full Darth Vader mask sitting on his desk:
And here are "the Two Chrises" - Fettig and Knight - in their costumes:
By the way, all while this was going on, I might have just been seeing things but I could have sworn that Ron Price, while sitting at his place at the table, was using a small flash camera to snap at least two photos of me after the meeting. Curious, that ...
After the meeting went into closed session, the P.O.T.S.M.O.D. people congregated in the parking lot. There was a lot of hugging and high-fiving and chest-thumping and plain-out celebration! We hung out for about a half-hour, then went home. But from the looks of all the e-mails that have been flying among the members, this was definitely a binding experience that, I really can't help but think that brought us together in a very unique and powerful way and that's something that will always last.
The people of P.O.T.S.M.O.D., I can't say enough how much of an honor and privilege it has been to work with Samantha and David and Chris and Wendy and Eddie and Susan and Bob and Terri and Cliff and Sherion and Judy and Rebekah and Erinn and Angela and Tina and Melanie and Jill ... and anyone else that I might have momentarily slipped my mind (not kidding folks: I sorta did get some heat exhaustion from that crazy lil' Jedi stunt yesterday, so my brains are a bit frazzled at the moment).
Sometimes, the good guys do win.
Thank you to everyone in P.O.T.S.M.O.D. who worked so long and hard, and sacrificed so much, to see this happen last night.
And to the members of the Rockingham County Board of Education who voted to rescind the vote and remove the uniforms policy: from the bottom of my heart, thank you. I've said twice now that if you would admit to having made this mistake and would make amends for it, that you would win our respect. Last night, you definitely did that. The stock that I have put in you has gone up tremendously because of this.
The right thing was done last night. Time to move forward. But always remember: this moment has been won ... but P.O.T.S.M.O.D. will still always be out there, somewhere, if there's ever a need to call for them again. We're like Batman: we lurk and we watch and when we have to we come out. And like Batman, we don't tire easily either.
Am still working on getting the full report about last night's meeting up. It's written, but it's taking a bit to encode the video of the news clips that I want to include with the report. That should be done in the next hour or so.
In the meantime, here is the full text of the remarks that I made - while wearing my full Jedi Knight costume - before the Rockingham County Board of Education last night.
Good evening. My name is Chris Knight, I reside at 1516 Sherwood Drive in Reidsville, and since most of us came here to discuss uniforms, tonight I've chosen to wear my own.
Your purpose, as part of this democratically elected republic, is to present a bulwark against the citizenry becoming overwhelmed by its own appetites. That your particular task involves the education of the next generation gives your charge considerably more crucial import than that of most functions of this government.
But when you fail to heed not only the legitimate concerns of the voting public, but also what absolutely should be among the dictates of your good conscience, then you have failed utterly in the carrying-out of your duties and are become something that is quite alien to the vision of the Founding Fathers.
Indeed, in the past few months, regarding the Standard Mode of Dress issue, I have seen this board act less as our public representatives and more as if it was a sovereign lord that believes itself beyond reproach.
I wear this costume to symbolize the frustration that most of us had during the previous meeting of this board. For well over two hours we addressed this board about why we are opposed to the Standard Mode of Dress. Not only because we believe that the uniforms are an inherently wrong idea, but also because in light of how the uniforms policy was implemented, our own good conscience has led us to demand that the vote to mandate the Standard Mode of Dress be completely rescinded. Not postponed, nor put off any longer, but taken fully and immediately off the table.
The vote to implement the Standard Mode of Dress was based on fraudulent data, and it remains an open question as to whether or not this was done intentionally. That this board is apparently determined to see it enacted despite the dubious procedure that led to the vote, does nothing to increase our faith in the board and in fact is drawing us to disrespect it that much more. I said last time and I will say it again: if you do the right thing by rescinding this vote, we will respect you. But if you insist on perpetrating this fraud, how much reason do you give us to trust you at all?
And the example that this board is setting for the young people of this county is that it is perfectly acceptable to in effect lie if that's what it takes to achieve one's goals. By refusing to acknowledge our protests in this regard, the board compounds this grievous sin by demonstrating that it is not only okay to lie ... but that it should be exercised without apology.
Please tell me: is the cause of mandatory school uniforms enough to justify setting this kind of moral example to our children?
You haven't addressed our concerns. You have instead attempted to use the assignment of a new principal at Reidsville High School as political cover away from us. Now we've returned, once again forcing consideration of an issue that you should have felt led to confront on your own, for sake of good conscience. You have failed to do that. You have further failed to demonstrate that you are sincerely listening to your constituents. Because of this and in the spirit of many students who have gone before, we have been compelled to employ an attention-getting device. The result is that now the world is watching this board and is bearing witness to what it is doing.
I doubt it is perceiving this board's actions on the uniforms issue as earnest leadership. Real leadership entails having the courage to admit that you were wrong. Running away from the matter and being disingenuous with those who have elected you is not leadership. That's the furthest thing from real leadership there can be.
Here, tonight, you once again have the opportunity to show leadership quality by making this right, for all of the reasons that I, and many others have brought up not only regarding the morality, but the very legality of the vote to implement the uniforms. But since the last meeting other concerns regarding this matter have crossed my mind.
If implemented, the uniforms will be an expense far above and beyond that of necessary personal cost. I know of no comparable expenditure that parents are called to make for their children's education. And in fact, I have been told by a number of people who have better minds than my own on the subject that it could be argued that in requiring parents to subsidize a government policy out of their own savings, that this is tantamount to levying an indirect form of taxation. I need not remind you that under current North Carolina law, no school system is authorized to levy taxes.
Is this school board willing, or could it afford, to see this premise tested in the courts?
Is there an ample stock of uniforms in the area to accommodate the students at both schools throughout the year? Or will some parents have no choice but to drive all the way to Greensboro or Burlington or Danville to purchase these uniforms. Once again, this would obligate travel costs that would in any other situation be needlessly exorbitant for some families of limited income. Has this also been taken into consideration?
For sake of time and because there are many others wishing to comment about this tonight, I will attempt to keep my remarks as brief as possible.
But now, there is one more reason why this board should rescind the uniforms policy. It was one that I was prepared to touch upon but the argument did not truly achieve its substance until yesterday morning's edition of The Reidsville Review.
One of the members of this board stated the following, and I quote from the paper ...
"I voted for what's best for our children and what will make the schools safer," this member said. "School is about learning, not about individuality. It's about how to find a job."
Members of this board: this is wrong. And it cannot possibly be more wrong. I would even dare to say that any member of this board who holds to this belief about the role of education has so little understanding of what education is supposed to be, that he or she should be voted off of this board at the earliest possible opportunity.
There is little doubt about why public education was started in America. One of the provisions of the Northwest Ordinance was for the establishment of public schools. Why? Because Thomas Jefferson, among others, wisely understood that the strength and vitality of America depended on her citizens being fully capable of reading and critical thinking. For America to survive, Jefferson and the other Founders knew, her people must be educated and enlightened, and as fully much the individuals that God created them to be. For there to be a government of the people, by the people and for the people, it is first necessary for the people to be masters of their own fate. So it was that part of the Northwest Ordinance was a plan for public schools ... for the express purpose of educating the people to be something more than what the world around them expected and defined them to be. Free government was dependent upon a free people ... and it still is.
This is why our public schools are the most coveted and lusted-after institutions for political control. Too many who claim interest in education do not see our children as individuals. They see them as a collection of assets to be exploited for selfish gain. To them our children, and we who are of age, are nothing more than bags of meat to be tagged. We are numbers in a system and to these people, our only purpose is to breathe and to eat and to consume and to spend and to watch television and to do as we are told and then to die. That is the totality of our existence to those who consider our children as nothing more than interchangeable parts of a machine.
That is not what our children are. They have a name. They have a soul. What they make of their lives is between they and their Creator. It falls unto us to do everything in our power to make sure that they go into life as equipped and enlightened as they can possibly be so as to meet its challenges and wildly surpass them. Anything less than this, is tantamount to putting our children in intellectual and spiritual bondage.
They should not be reduced to being mere factors to be plugged into an equation in order to achieve an expected outcome. Education is not supposed to be a precise science. Education, however, is a fine art. It is the art upon which all others are founded. This county isn't nearly thankful enough that it's managed to have and maintain the teachers – each of them a gifted artist in his or her own right – who are willing to share their love of their chosen subject matter with their pupils. They want to be free to practice their art.
But we – and by that I mean systems of education across this country, even many that are private – have turned this highest of arts into an industrial machine. We've allowed the soul to be taken out of the art of education. And now it seems, in reflecting upon this member's words, that this is all that our education is supposed to do: stamp out soulless automatons with a fixed designation that is beyond their ability to alter.
I see this board continually take measures that whittle down our teachers' passions and stifle their creativity and drive. It's no wonder that many of our children cannot learn: they do want to learn. I don't know of any child who did not on the deepest level desire to learn. But public education has become a system that frustrates our teachers and frustrates our children in turn. And by implementing the Standard Mode Of Dress, this board would heap on yet another unnecessary thing for our teachers to have to accommodate. I've spoken with a lot of teachers across many schools in this county. They want their freedom. They want to be trusted again by this administration to do what they were trained to do and have spent their lives longing to do. You aren't doing them any favors by forcing this ham-fisted measure on them.
This statement by the board member speaks volumes about why the Standard Mode Of Dress should not only be off the table, but something that should never have been considered in the first place.
If you want to improve the education of this county, indeed in this country, then do what you can to make the students WANT to learn. They really do want that, as much as the teachers want to teach and to teach HERE. But you are driving them away from both this area and their interest in learning out of this lust for more heavy-handed control.
Perhaps this is where we who are out here and some of you on the board differ. I wonder if it's something that's even reconcilable.
You would have our children shackled to a desk. We would see them fly as the eagles.
You would have them conform. We would have them dare to question and if need be, to defy.
You would have them be under control. We would have them control themselves.
We want them to be as much as possible the individuals that God has purposed for them to be. They are not here to do nothing more than to help pay for your Social Security.
There are some educational institutions that do mandate uniforms, but most of these can afford to do so because they already fully understand the true mission of education. This school system is not one of them.
I am here to demand three things:
First, that the Rockingham County Board of Education immediately vote to rescind the April vote to implement the Standard Mode of Dress, out of regard for the morality of the situation.
Second, that if it is yet believed that the students would benefit from having a standard mode of dress, that a serious attempt be made to determine how agreeable the parents and students are to the idea. This would mean bringing in an outside agency that is unattached to the school system in any way to conduct the survey. Much of the problem that has brought us here again tonight results from the fact that this school board failed to act in a way that would avert the semblance of impropriety, by letting the school system carry out the survey. If the parents and students honestly want the uniforms, then fine. I've no problem with that. But that requires an honest determination of fact: something that has been entirely absent in these proceedings.
Third: I want to sincerely ask that the members of this board of education take a few steps back, and introspectively consider what its goals are for the children of Rockingham County. And I want you to ask this among yourselves: is it your intended mission to stamp out replacement parts for the mad machine that is our society? Or are you doing your absolute darndest to nurture and encourage the growth of individual minds, equipping them with ability and the wisdom to use it, so that they will be capable of making the choices that will guide this nation and this world when it is time to pass the torch to them. I sincerely hope and pray that your mission is the latter. But the very notion of imposing school uniforms in the present context flies fully in the face of this noble goal. For that reason alone, I ask you to abandon the Standard Mode Of Dress completely and without condition.
If nothing else that I have said tonight has persuaded you to desist from pursuing the Standard Mode of Dress, I have a few more words to share, and they are most assuredly not my own. Some have asked that if I'm dressed as a Jedi, where is my lightsaber. Well, I didn't bring my lightsaber tonight ... but I did bring the surest Sword of all ...
(holding up Bible)
The words of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 10, verses 1 through 3:
"Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people. What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches?"
The uniforms policy is unjust, because it is based on a falsehood. It will definitely be oppressive in the sense that it will hit many people hard in the pocketbook. And how many single-parent families is this going to affect?
What will you tell them?
James, the brother of our Lord, asks this also: "Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, 'Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,' but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?"
The Standard Mode of Dress will make very many of the students, in the words of James, "without clothes". And the board has made it quite clear that it cannot provide adequate clothing for all, instead effectively telling them nothing more than "I wish you well."
If you can not respond to we among your constituents about these concerns, then how can you respond to the words of these great and noble men?
I just got home. I am feeling quite rank after wearing a full Jedi Knight costume since 4 this afternoon.
Here's the quick tally: with 7 "yes" votes, 3 "no" votes and 2 abstaining, the Rockingham County Board of Education rescinded the Standard Mode Of Dress - the euphemism for mandatory uniforms - at Reidsville Middle School and Reidsville High School this coming school year.
Sometimes, the good guys do win one.
More later. First I've got to eat and shower and probably go to Wal-Mart to pick up some Gatorade so I can restore some electrolytes :-)
Full report, including lots of pics, real real soon!
EDIT 07-10-2007 4:30 a.m. EST: The report isn't quite finished. Part of it is capturing/encoding video of the news coverage that this got, so it can be embedded as YouTube clips. I'm going to get a few hours sleep, and then come back and finish this up. Expect a complete report, maybe around 10 or so this morning.
I'm making this post to convey the following information: that in the past day or so this blog has received a heavy amount of traffic. It's much more than usual. And looking at the logs, right now the vast majority of it is from searches for "transformers" along with "score" and usually "jablonsky" or "cd" or "soundtrack", and that's taking them to this post that I made yesterday about how much I'd love to buy a CD of the movie's score.
I can only assume that many, many people out there are wanting a soundtrack CD of Steve Jablonsky's orchestral work from Transformers. At least four people have told me personally that they want to see this happen. That they would gladly buy this as soon as it came out.
If anyone responsible for the marketing of Transformers happens to read this, I sincerely hope they understand that there is a massive demand for this soundtrack. Not the one that is out now, with the songs... which I'm sure is nice and all. But it's Jablonsky's original score for the movie that we are most aching for a chance to get our hands on.
I would love to see this come out before the summer is over. It would most assuredly be a hot seller. In the meantime, while it's available use the above link to download the menacing music of the Decepticons.
Here's the story that'll be running in tomorrow's Reidsville Review about the meeting this coming Monday night of the Rockingham County Board of Education. It's widely expected that the public comments portion of the night will be dominated by P.O.T.S.M.O.D.: People Opposed To Standard Mode Of Dress, the group that's fighting the mandatory uniforms at Reidsville Middle and Reidsville High schools this coming school year.
Here's part of the story...
Monday, POTSMOD plans to attend wearing costumes and black armbands to show its opposition to school uniforms. Former school board candidate Chris Knight said he will attend the meeting dressed as a Jedi knight to get the board's attention.
"It's a result of this past meeting where the public comments section was dominated by opposition to uniforms," Knight said. "But the board ignored our concerns."
Samantha Fettig, a parent involved with POTSMOD, said she felt the board scoffed at people's concerns. It seemed to some parents that board members considered the new principal problem a better reason to dismiss the policy than the public opposition.
"How can you pass something when you're in a room full of people who oppose it?" said Fettig.
Fettig argues the decision to implement mandatory uniforms in a Title I school is unfair. Sixty-nine percent of Reidsville Middle school students and 52 percent of Reidsville High students receive free or reduced lunches.
"It seems they're picking on the poorest people in the county," Fettig said. She said uniforms seem good on paper, but students change out of uniforms as soon as possible when arriving home. They need a second wardrobe to wear outside class. For parents who can barely afford a child's lunch, uniforms for one student or more are too expensive.
Edward Inman, another parent involved in POTSMOD, said even if the school board provided uniforms for free, some believe the issue has gone far beyond clothing. To upset parents, the board has been dishonest and has violated the First Amendment rights of the students.
Inman said he has never been fond of public speaking. But on behalf of his two children, who will be students at Reidsville High School in the fall, he has driven from Reidsville to Eden and spoken before the board.
"My children are going to know I tried everything I could to stop this," Inman said.
As was first announced on this blog early last month, I have every intention of coming to Monday night's meeting and addressing the board while garbed as a Jedi Knight from the Star Wars movies. I've been working on my remarks for a few weeks now, and the pitch is pretty much finished. One slight change in plans is that originally I said that I would not be wearing a lightsaber with my costume. My custom-made "metal tube" lightsaber will remain at home for sake of any safety concerns. But since the lightsaber is so much a part of the Jedi "look", I am building a lightweight cardboard tube replica that will hang from my belt.
It is very much my understanding that there will be quite a few others who will make a prominently visible show of disapproval of the uniforms at Monday night's meeting.
There may be some more items related to this story in the next day or so. I will post them as they become available.
