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We couldn't just sit by and let our co-workers have all the fun.

So Jennifer Fernandez and I, with the help of those wonderful folks in our IT department, have started "The Chalkboard," the News & Record's latest blog devoted to K-12 education issues.

What will we talk about here on the blog? Well, a lot of that depends on what you, the readers, want. For starters, we plan to do for education what our counterparts at "The Inside Scoop" do for local government. We'll let you know about the upcoming school board meetings and talk about what's going on in the central office.

But we also want to tell you about the interesting things going on in our schools - and there are plenty of them. We get lots of requests for feature stories and while we try to write as many of them as possible, there are plenty that we just don't have time to do.

This is where "The Chalkboard" can help. We don't want it to become a community calendar, but if a school has something unique going on, we probably will be able to feature it on the blog.

So if you have anything for us, you can e-mail us at bbuchanan@news-record.com or jfernandez@news-record.com

Class is now in session.

On Monday, we had a short item about a new series of political ads created by Harold Parker, who helped found ABC of Guilford County. The ads satirize Guilford County Board of Education incumbents Kris Cooke and Dot Kearns as being "Stepford Wives" and cheerleaders for Superintendent Terry Grier.

S.O.S., a new political action committee formed by a small group of ex-ABCers, paid for the ads.

But ABC member Terrina Picarello says Parker hasn't been in ABC for months. Besides, she said she and many other ABC members are troubled by the negative tone of the ads. Picarello said ABC turned down an offer to sponsor the cheerleader/Stepford Wives ads.

"We personally felt like this wasn't something we wanted to do," she said.

ABC spokesman Michael Murphree confirmed that the group had nothing to do with the controversial ads. ABC members are campaigning for Jim Kirkpatrick and Bill Davidson, but Murphree said ABC will not run ads bashing school board candidates.

"I don't want ABC associated with S.O.S.," Murphree said.

Parker said he still wishes ABC well, but he wanted to try some different tactics to defeat Kearns and Cooke.

Who says you need to be 18 to vote in this year's tight presidential election?

Kids Voting, a local non-partisan group that teaches children about voting, set up electronic voting booths Monday at the Teen Summit where about 200 middle and high school students from Guilford County Schools had gathered to talk about everything from government to domestic violence. For more on the summit, read the story by Bruce Buchanan here .

Just more than half of the students voted. But Pat Vreeland, executive director of Kids Voting Guilford County, said more students likely would have cast ballots if the lines had not been so long.
So who do students want to lead the country?

All of the polls showing President Bush and Sen. John Kerry running neck and neck or Bush with a slight lead apparently didn't include the nation's youngest voters.

If these students had their say on Election Day, Sen. John Kerry would easily be the next president.

Nearly 85 percent chose Kerry with about 12 percent picking Bush. Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik received four votes for 3.41 percent. There were no votes for Independent candidate Ralph Nader, whose name is not included on the Tar Heel ballot although voters can write in his name.

For more on Kids Voting, check out www.greensboro.com/kidsvote/.

For what it's worth, here's my two cents on what I'd like to see on the Chalkboard. I hope this will become a forum for readers who want to discuss local education issues. This is where we want to see readers talking about their schools, students, teachers. And we want to know what issues are important to you.

So, dear reader, what's on your mind? Let's talk.

Want to meet the Guilford County Board of Education candidates? Then come out to UNCG's Elliott University Center Thursday night. A reception starts at 7 p.m., with the candidate forum at 7:30.

ABC of Guilford County originally was co-sponsoring this event, but stepped down at the request of UNCG officials.

And on Wednesday night, Irving Park Elementary - right in the heart of District 7 - will host a forum for that district's school board and county commissioner candidates. At-large school board candidates Dot Kearns and Jim Kirkpatrick are scheduled to appear, too.

I know we said this wouldn't be a calendar of events, but Western High School music teacher Jancie Reinbold was so excited when she called about the annual all-county high school chorus festival that I had to share it.
The concert is at 3 p.m. Saturday at Page High School. Nearly 200 students from across the county will blend their voices, tackling everything from Beethoven to a piece arranged by guest conductor Tom Shelton.
Here's the kicker about this musical collaboration: they do their practicing in the hours before the performance. They'll start about 9 a.m. and go to about 1:30 p.m., then take a break before coming back for the real performance.
Check out the group's repertoire and who's singing here and here.

The carpet at Florence Elementary is safe, according to experts at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA.

Earlier this year, parents and students at the north High Point elementary school complained about fumes in a third-grade classroom. Parents worried the fumes could be dangerous for children with allergies and asthma. Specifically, they worried that the carpet glue may contain unsafe levels of formaldehyde.

District maintenance workers replaced the carpet. But they also had OSHA test the original carpet. All tests came back negative for high or harmful levels of chemicals, including formaldehyde, district officials said Thursday.

"We took (the complaints)seriously," Superintendent Terry Grier said. "We didn't want to take any chances."

The Guilford County Board of Education will get together Tuesday to talk about student discipline, alternative schools and dropout recovery efforts.

Thankfully, the board is getting the meeting out of the way early, since game three of the World Series is set for Tuesday night. The meeting is scheduled for noon to 2 p.m. at the SCALE facility, 116 Pisgah Church Road in Greensboro.

No such luck on Thursday - if the Cardinals can extend the series to a game five. The school board will hold its regularly scheduled meeting at 6:45 p.m. The meeting takes place at the usual meeting spot, 712 N. Eugene St. in Greensboro, and you can check out the agenda by clicking here.

So if you see a sad-looking fellow with a reporter's notebook at Thursday's meeting, you'll know I'm thinking about the baseball game I'm missing.

Here's an interesting twist on the old school play. Irving Park Elementary will present "Snow White and the Dwarves in Black" tonight at 6:30.

Only the actors will be teachers, not students. More than 35 teachers will be showing off their acting chops and principal Bob Strong will host the event. Kindergarten teacher Karen Hopkins will play the title role, while music teacher Charles Simpson will be Prince Charming.

Money from the event will reward the teachers with an end-of-year celebration or retreat. The school sold more than 200 advance tickets.

Buried somewhere in the comments on one of the posts ( I believe it was in the ABCs of Advertising post) someone mentioned mobile units, or classroom trailers. I did some digging and here is some information that might be useful on that topic.

In 1998-99, two years before the $200 million school construction bond was passed, the district had 61,089 students in 93 schools with 443 mobiles. The number of mobile units comes from a Sept. 9, 1998 "mobile classroom inventory" report.

This year the district has 67,099 students in 106 schools with 525 mobiles.

District officials updated the tally from the 484 reported in July, when Commissioner Trudy Wade requested information on mobiles.
If you'll remember, commissioners were debating at that time whether to release money originally leftover from that $200 million bond.

Guilford County Schools officials wanted to use the money for the High Point reassignment plan to renovate Andrews and Southwest high schools. Some of the money had already been earmarked for a proposed technology high school at the old GTCC building across from Weaver. Parents opposed to the reassignment plan protested the release of the money, and commissioners began asking questions about why it was needed and what had been done to alleviate space concerns since the bond was passed. Commissioners eventually agreed to release the money.

Guilford County Board of Education members take a lot of heat for the decisions they make. But here's one decision everyone can get behind.

At Thursday night's meeting, the school board was recognized for supporting school district employees who also serve in the National Guard or military Reserves. The board received a plaque from North Carolina chapter of the National Committee for Employer Support for the Guard and Reserve, as well as a letter of thanks from the U.S. Department of Defense.

If a school district employee makes less in the military than they would in their civilian job, the district makes up the difference in pay while the employee is on active duty. Also, employees serving in the military are guaranteed a job when they return.

Guilford County Schools currently has five employees on active duty. Nearly 300,000 Guardsmen and Reservists have been called up nation-wide since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

On a personal note, I've always been grateful for the freedoms we enjoy in America, including freedom of the press. But those liberties wouldn't be possible without the service and sacrifice of our brave men and women in uniform.

So here's a sincere "Thank you" from The Chalkboard to citizen-soldiers everywhere.