Our community forum
It was cold and foggy and ugly Thursday night, but that didn't stop about 250 people from coming out to our community forum on school discipline at Greensboro College. We have someone transcribing the tape of the session right now and hope to have it online this afternoon. A video of the forum will air on a community access channel later.
Our one regret is that we ran out of time before all the speakers from the audience could address the panel. For that, we apologize.
Two panelists expressed concern that the newspaper didn't spend enough time writing about the good things happening at schools. This complaint comes up whenever we publish articles like those we've publishing this week.
Education has been a major focus of the newspaper for many years. We have three reporters assigned to write about our public schools. As a newspaper, we must write about the issues that divide us, and fights, arrests and so-called hit lists are news stories worth telling the community. So are the good things.
While we do have a story in this morning's paper about more hit lists, we also have an article on students featured in People for battling against cancer. Much of the sports section today features successful high school athletes. Yesterday's paper had a large spread on Kernodle Middle School students learning unique skills in an exploring technology class. Wednesday's paper featured an equally prominent story about the technology lab at Andrews High School.
We know you want to have an accurate appraisal of what's happening within the school walls. That includes the good and the bad.
Update: We couldn't get the transcript completed today. We'll post it Monday.
