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Last week in Baltimore, a second-grader got suspended from elementary school for shaping his Pop Tart into something that resembled a mountain. At least, that’s what the 7-year-old claimed he was trying for.

A teacher thought the nibbled-on pastry looked like a pistol — and in the wake of the Sandy Hook school massacre in Connecticut, folks are apparently extra-sensitive about images like that.

Something similar, though not as ridiculous, is playing out here in Roanoke at Patrick Henry High School. Rehearsals are underway for a theater production of Les Miserables.

The story is set amid the Paris Uprising of 1832. As you might expect, the script calls for some muskets. But you won’t see those in the Patrick Henry High production.

The play opens March 15 — sans any guns. Not even fake guns, or nonfiring theatrical prop guns.

How do you portray a revolution without those?

Actors and actresses will instead throw black-painted foam balls that are shaped like rocks. It sounds more like something from “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” than the Paris Uprising.

READ THE REST OF THIS COLUMN HERE.

Correction: This blog post (and the column it links to) have been updated to reflect my error in originally writing that the show was set during the French Revolution. It’s a red face day . . . a correction will be published in the newspaper tomorrow.

Daniel Case | Wikimedia Commons | Altered by Dan

Two years ago this month, the city’s leaders gazed into a crystal ball and decided it was advisable for Roanoke to raise its meals tax from 5 cents to 7 cents per dollar.

They also devoted the new revenue to public schools. At the same time, they deemed that the 2-cent surtax would expire this upcoming June 30.

Critics reacted with shrill and dire predictions: Patrons would shift their food-and-beverage spending to outside the city, rather than pay the extra 2 cents per dollar, some cried.

Restaurateurs would move their operations to Roanoke County or Salem to escape the onerous new levy, others said.

A few slammed the tax hike as a “40 percent increase,” which was literally true, but highly deceptive (because of a statistical quirk known as the tyranny of small numbers). Out of patrons’ pockets, it was 2 percent more.

The silliest used anti-tax dogma to forecast an overall decline in meals tax revenues because of the increase.

None of that happened. What did?

To see the surprising results, READ THE REST OF THIS COLUMN HERE.

There’s a parent of five in Prince George’s County, Maryland who’s my new hero.

His name is Aaron Titus, and last winter he was fed up with 4:30 a.m. robocalls from schools notifying parents of snow-related delays and closings.

So he got the home phone numbers of school board members and hired his own robo-calling company to call them with a message that their calls were unwanted.

Titus programmed those calls to happen at 4 a.m. And you bet that school board got the message. I’m thinking about doing the same thing.

Because while those annoying mechanical calls from telemarketers selling worthless car warranties are on the wane, the ones from public schools seem on the rise.

“Good evening Woodrow Wilson parents, faculty, students, and staff. This is Mr.  . . .”

That call came Wednesday, and I hung up before listening to what it was about.

In Roanoke, Wednesday was the third day of the 2011-12 school year, and that call was the third we’ve received from the school this year. Read more »

Wikimedia Commons

Wells Fargo CEO’s pay was cut 20 percent last year — to $17 million

Dear Editor,

Just a couple of comments stimulated by Dan Casey’s Sunday column.

Isn’t it amazing that Roanoke’s own tiny little Hometown Bank can figure out how to provide overdraft protection to the school system for only $2,500 without breaking any laws or running afoul of any banking regulations when a behemoth like Wells Fargo can’t.

Wells Fargo’s answer to the $35,000 fee for the Roanoke School System’s overdraft protection is typical corporate bull poop!

Casey is correct when he says it is all about the money.  John Stumpf, Chairman and CEO of Wells Fargo had to endure a pay cut of almost 20% in 2010; his compensation went from $21.34 million in 2009, according to the 2010 Wells Fargo Proxy Statement, to  $17.10 million for 2010, as reported in the 2011 Wells Fargo Proxy Statement.  Poor fellow. Read more »

Coolcaesar | Wikimedia Commons

Perhaps you have overdraft protection for your checking account. I do. The Roanoke City Public Schools have had it since 2008.

They arranged for $10 million worth with Wachovia Bank, and they’ve renewed it each year since then, though like me they’ve hardly ever used it.

The first year, the “administrative fee” to have the account was $1,000, not counting the interest the schools agreed to pay if  they used it.

After Wachovia failed in the 2008 financial crash, it was taken over by Wells Fargo, one of the largest banks in the country.

The next year the overdraft fee also was $1,000. Then last year it doubled, to $2,000. In June, when school officials sought to renew it again, Wells Fargo demanded $35,000, exclusive of interest.

This raises a number of questions including “Why?” but first let’s back up a little. Read more »

Roanoke school system yanks back bonuses from a few ex-teachers.

Seems there were some strings attached to $1,500 bonuses the city is paying its teachers (who haven’t had a raise in three years): If you’re not coming back for the 2011-12 school year, no bonus. And if ex-teachers have already received part of the bonus, the schools are going to take it back out of their bank accounts.

Here’s the story by my colleague Courtney Cutright.

It’s unclear how many teachers are going to affected by this. So far it only appears to be three.

What I don’t understand is, why didn’t they make the bonus payable upon a teacher signing a contract for the 2011-12 contract year? That might have a) helped retain personnel in the school system and b) would have completely avoided having to raid ex-teachers’ bank accounts to get the partial bonus payments back.

Wikimedia Commons

Mayor David Bowers can’t count on her vote next spring

by snail mail

Dear Mr. Casey,

After reading your column I do agree the “Meals tax” (Eat for Education) should be continued as long as our city schools need the help.

I feel there is nothing more important than giving the children in this city the best start in their life with the best education they need to succeed in life.

As for Mr. Mayor David Bowers, with his attitude, he will not be getting my vote next spring. Hopefully, David Bowers will not be the only candidate for mayor.

Sincerely,

M.A. Grubb
ROANOKE

P S: Why in the world would anyone want to stop a successful program? I am a retiree with no children in public schools now but I do want to help those who are.

Roanoke city mayor David Bowers tosses a football during a tour the new football stadium at William Fleming High School Monday morning. Members of Roanoke City council and the school board toured the newly finished stadium. Jared Soares| The Roanoke Times

Gather with me, readers, as we gaze into a budgetary crystal ball. We’ll focus on Roanoke schools in the fall of 2012. The picture is clouded by questions.

The big ones are, “How many schools shall we close? And which ones? Or shall we increase the real estate tax rate by a dime, or more?”

These are not at all unrealistic questions, in light of the hullaballoo earlier this month over Roanoke’s meals tax increase and Eat for Education, a related though separate program supported by some Roanoke restaurants.

Critics had predicted that the temporary tax would spell doom for restaurants in Roanoke. That turned out to be hogwash: It’s been a big success.

By the end of this month, the surtax will have added more than $4 million to the schools budget in the past 12 months. Restaurant business in the city increased slightly over the same time period, despite the shuttering of the Roanoke City Market Building shortly after the tax went in to effect.

The tax will likely add more than $4 million in the coming budget year, too. But in July 2012, the surtax is slated to end, because the Roanoke City Council unwisely made it a temporary, two-year deal when it was enacted in April 2010.

Any discussion of extending it has already been colored by politics, because next spring is a city council campaign season. Mayor David Bowers, who is running for re-election, already has vowed he’ll vote against an extension.

“A deal is a deal,” he proclaimed to WDBJ (Channel 7). Read more »

Dedicated to my darling graduate-daughter, Anna Banana. . .

“School’s Out” by Alice Cooper

Coach James Earl Jones on the football field in the 1980s | The Roanoke Times | File

It can be hard these days to find a parking space outside a certain brick and tan split-level home on Grayson Avenue in Northwest Roanoke.

By the hundreds, young and middle-aged men and women have been parking their cars and walking somberly inside. From far away, others are phoning in.

Wednesday morning, former Miss Virginia Tai Collins called from Mexico. There were earlier calls from an international businessman in Russia and his brother in California. And an overnight letter from a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel in Pakistan.

They’re paying last respects to a man who influenced them deeply back when they were young, and who’s much on their minds today.

His name is James Earl Jones, 65, and he’s dying of cancer. Hospice workers are trying keep him as comfortable as possible. He can’t talk much, but he can listen to goodbyes.

He’s better known as Coach Jones, the guy who took young students, some with troubled lives, and turned them into star athletes and successful adults.

Among them are former NBA player George Lynch. And former NCAA champion sprinter Jamie Price. A third is All-American sprinter Arminta Crosby. And there is Shannon Taylor, who went on to play football at UVa and in the NFL. There are many, many more. Read more »