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SCHOOL NEWS FOR
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2002
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Elementary School News |
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By Mary Nethaway and Max
Batchelor |
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McKenzie Elementary kindergarten registration was held
Friday, April 12. Eighty-eight new students were
registered for the 2002-2003 school year. We would like
to welcome these students to our school. The McKenzie
Elementary School PTO held a meeting on Monday, April
15. The third grade students showed parents math
stations. The stations included estimation, geometry,
tangrams, place value, multiplication bingo, and word
problems.
Coach Ridley will be starting an after school
basketball program for third and fourth grade girls each
Tuesday afternoon. He spoke at the PTO meeting and
passed out information for girls to sign up to
participate.
The recent Penny Harvest sponsored by the PTO brought
in $1,182.33. This money will be spent on students to
help pay for field trips and materials used in the
classroom.
Fourth grade students recently attended a Diamond Jaxx
ballgame in Jackson. They picnicked at a local state
park before attending the game. Students cheered the
players, shopped for souvenirs at the gift shop and
enjoyed concessions from the stands.
Mrs. Betsy Campbell's class had a special visitor last
Friday. Mary Nethaway brought her pet guinea pig,
Brownie to visit.
Rocio Mejorado from Mrs. Charlotte Verner's class was
the announcer last week and did a great job!
Until next week......
Compiled by Max Batchelor |
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Middle School News |
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No Middle School News This Week. |
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Notes from the High School |
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By McKenzie High School Principal, Terry Howell |
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Progress reports for the 131/2 week of the semester will
be issued on Thursday, April 18. Students should receive
a progress report for each academic class taken. This
means that we only have approximately twenty-two (22)
days remaining in the semester. Students should make
every attempt to do their best to earn the four credits
possible this semester. Also, seniors are reminded that
they must earn all twenty-eight (28) of their credits,
satisfy their pathway requirements, meet attendance
standards, and pass three (3) of four (4) classes this
semester to participate in graduation exercises.
Because of inclement weather, the softball team had one
game cancelled last week. They did play at Waverly last
Tuesday losing by a 2-1 margin. The Lady Rebels
continued to exhibit strong defense and pitching,
narrowly losing to this Middle Tennessee powerhouse. On
Thursday, the Lady Rebels defeated Humboldt in a
doubleheader at City Park. Summer Poff and Brittany
Carpenter both pitched shut-outs and sophomore Whitney
Townes doubled and homered in the two games. On
Saturday, the team traveled to Covington to play in the
Covington Invitational Tournament. In the tournament,
they had a 4-1 record, defeating Union City (9-0), Halls
(6-1), Humboldt (7-2), and Jackson Central Merry (3-2).
They lost to Munford (6-2) to be eliminated from the
competition. Out of 21 teams, the Lady Rebels reached
the quarterfinals. They improved their record to 16-5.
This week, the team plays at Westview on Monday, at
Riverside on Tuesday for a doubleheader, and at home
against Camden on Thursday (April 18).
The tennis team traveled to Camden last Tuesday to do
battle with the Lady Lions and Lions. Both the girls'
and boys' teams won with scores of 4-3 and 3-1
respectively. Seniors Robyn Winkler and Jadrea Allen won
in singles and doubles to secure the girls' victory.
Junior Jessica Johnson picked up another win in her
singles match. Seniors Andrew Bateman, Matt Lewis, and
Jesse King defeated their opponents in singles matches.
The Rebel tennis team's next match will be on Monday,
April 15, against Gibson County and on Tuesday, April
16, against Huntingdon. Both matches will be played at
home.
The baseball team played one game last week at home
against Union City. The Rebels struggled in this
non-district game losing 12-4. They saw their record dip
to 5-7 for the season, but a competitive 2-2 in the
district. This week the Rebels play at home against
Milan on Monday, at Henry County on Tuesday, and at
Riverside on Wednesday. The Milan and Riverside games
are big district contests that will determine our
placement in the district tournament at the end of the
season.
Last week several of our students had their artwork
placed in the Congressional Art Competition sponsored by
the office of John Tanner for Carroll County. As usual,
our students fared well in this contest. Matt Lewis
placed second overall for his study using oil paints.
Chris Hinton received an honorable mention for his work
in the medium of acrylic paints. Congratulations to
these students and Ms. Corbin, our art teacher, for
their success in this competition.
This week the Drama Department will present its annual
spring production. Tumbleweeds, based on the comic strip
of the same name, will debut on Saturday at 7:30 P.M. at
the McKenzie High School Theater. The troupe will have a
Sunday Matinee at 2:30 P.M. Ms. Corbin and her cast have
worked long hours to produce a quality program.
Admission is $5.00 in advance and $7.00 at the door.
Tickets are available in the high school office during
school hours.
A topic that should be of great concern for anyone
interested in the future of public education K-college
in the State of Tennessee is the on-going discussion
about the 2002-03 budget. The state already foresees an
enormous revenue shortfall this year and without
additional revenue sources faces an even greater deficit
next year, if services remain the same. Sales tax
increases, income tax proposals, and lotteries have all
received limited debate with no definitive solution
emerging. Some legislators have even proposed that
everyone in the state should vote on the method of
taxation to be used to remedy this problem. I suppose
the irritating part of this is that this is not a new
problem. It is many years running and received enough
recognition last year that the legislators went into
special session to address the problem. The band-aid
solution was to spend the non-recurring tobacco money
settlement to fund state government for this year.
Without this resource and with few reserve funds left,
the legislators have difficult decisions. One solution
is to submit viable tax reform that will provide a
predictable and reliable means to fund a government. The
second solution -- one that I am adamantly against -- is
to cut government services to the bare bones to allow
our governmental institutions to limp along at less than
full capacity. A proposal along these lines is the
so-called D.O.G. Proposal (Downsize Ongoing Government).
The D.O.G. proposal would seriously limit the McKenzie
Special School Districts and all school districts in our
state. On the local level, we would lose around $600,000
in BEP funding and $61,000 in extended contract money
for teachers. The total loss could reach as high as
$675,000 in McKenzie alone. The D.O.G. Proposal would
rescind the BEP resulting in higher student-teacher
ratios for the elementary level on up to high school. It
would jeopardize the equivalent of about 12 teaching
positions in our system. It would remove any progress
made since the BEP was passed and finally fully funded.
We are in a very tenuous position now. Public education
is in the balance. I encourage you to write or call your
state representative to let him/her that you do not want
to see public education decimated by a bare bones budget
that will have to be repaired in the near future anyway.
The talk is that the legislators will resume budget
talks in May. You have an opportunity to be heard in
determining the future of the young people of our state. |
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Phone (731) 352-3323 or
Fax (731) 352-3322
washburn@mckenziebanner.com
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