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Observations
August 15, 2019 |
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 Wingate Lassiter |
First school week at Neuse Charter;
JC Public Schools 2 weeks behind
School was back in session this week at Smithfield's Neuse Charter School, which is granted administrative flexibility by the state.
School can't start till August 26 at Johnston's traditional public schools --- because the North Carolina General Assembly won't give local school boards the flexibility they desire in setting their calendars.
As a result, Neuse Charter has a sensible schedule that finishes the first semester a week before Christmas, and finishes the second by the middle of May.
Johnston County Public Schools, meanwhile, will once again operate with a first semester shortened by a couple of weeks in order to finish before the year-end holidays. That's not good for students and their teachers, and the Johnston County Board of Education doesn't like it either.
But that's the way it is because leaders in the N.C. Senate won't allow that body to vote on a calendar-flexibility bill that passed the N.C. House by near-unanimous votes earlier this year.
Got to "save our summers" for the tourism folks down at the coast, so they say....
Here are links to the 2019-20 local school calendars:
Neuse Charter School Calendar>
Johnston County Public Schools Calendar>
Which street spellings are correct?
If you're confused about the spelling of a couple of Smithfield's streets, it's no wonder. The town's street signs make it so:
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When US 301 was given a single name all the way through town some years ago, the adopted name was Bright Leaf Boulevard. Signage erected since then combined the first two words (a common practice for many names nowadays).
Smithfield's Buffalo Road is not the same as Wake County's "Buffaloe Road," but the different spellings continue to confuse the street-sign makers.
Getting names correctly spelled is Rule No. 1 for us editors....
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