www.newrivervalley.com

Two public meetings are planned next week to discuss plans that could mean more students walk or bike to school.

Two schools -- Gilbert Linkous and Blacksburg New School -- are working with town leaders to examine ways to encourage children to walk or ride their bikes to school.  It's part of a national program, called Safe Routes to School.

The meetings on Nov. 20. Either 3 p.m. at Blacksburg New School or 5:30 p.m. at Gilbert Linkous, will be to get feeback on a proposed "travel plan" for getting to school without buses or cars.

The plans include " education, encouragement, enforcement and evaluation of the program in addition to engineering projects proposed for creating safer routes to school," organizers said.

A special session for Montgomery County school board members to discuss personnel issues tonight has been canceled. The meeting was scheduled for 6 p.m.

It has not been rescheduled.

According to research from the University of Chicago (which, as a side note, is well known for its education research), special education teachers are in the top 10 of happiest jobs.

The teachers are No. 5 on a list of jobs in the ""Job Satisfaction in the United States" study that's been smattered in the news today. As far as I can tell, the study is about a year old, though.

Either way, here's what they have to say:

Special education teachers
Job Description: Teach school subjects to educationally and physically handicapped students.

Very happy: 52.6%
Median salary (preschool, kindergarten or elementary school): $41,344
Median salary (secondary school): $43,060

This seems to fly in the face of local concerns that have special education teachers over their workloads and pay.

So, special education teachers, set the record straight.

Are you happy with your jobs? What makes it great, and what leaves something to be desired?

A former Southwest Virginia Governor's School student was charged this week with grand larceny and breaking an entering after he attempted to steal from the school.

Christopher Justin Stump, 19, of Pulaski entered the school through an open window about 6 a.m. on Election Day, said Sgt. Mike Hudson of the Pulaski Police Department.

Police caught up with him shortly after, as he was carrying out a laptop computer. Stump ran back into the school and tried to leave from a back door, but was caught with "several stolen items in his possession," according to a police department news release.

He was held in the New River Valley Regional Jail on a $3,000 secured bond.

Shortly after reading the story in today's paper about Roanoke students discussing what Barack Obama should focus on, I ran across this.

It's a report on at least one school district in Colorado that asked its teachers to stay mum on politics, and steer from supporting candidates' campaigns.

It made me think about all the times I saw Montgomery school board members Penny Franklin and Phyllis Albritton sporting Obama badges and the number of mock elections held at schools across the valley. Teachers I talked to there said the election was, and will continue to be, a teaching tool for them.

And, I suspect,  with the inaguration coming right after the celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday  (as a friend pointed out) and Black History Month the following month, lessons will abound.

What do you think? Teachers, what discussions or lessons are you having in class? Parents, what does the election mean for dinner time topics?

National education reporters, and others in the know, are tossing around names for Barack Obama's pick to head the Department of Education.

Among them is Virginia Board of Education member, and Eduwonk himself, Andy Rotherham.

Here's a list compiled from the Chronicle of Higher Education:

1. Joel Klein, New York Public Schools
2. Linda Darling Hammond, Stanford U professor and teacher quality expert
3. Arne Duncan, Chicago Public Schools
4. Jim Hunt, the former governor of North Carolina, who heads an education think tank
5. Janet Napolitano, Arizona governor
6. Andy Rotherham, better known as Eduwonk, and co-director of Education Sector He was an education adviser in the Clinton White House.
7. Jon Schnur, New Leaders for New Schools

Other names that have been batted around are Bob Wise. He's the former governor of West Virginia and head of the Alliance for Excellent Education. And, apparently some morning radio people in Toledo, Ohio, suggested Hilary Clinton.

Obama is expected to name his Cabinet as early as Friday.

Are there any folks out there you think could work?

Board members in Montgomery County spent less than five minutes Tuesday night discussing their Legislative agenda for 2009, in what was a record-quick (in recent memory) school board meeting at 45 minutes.

Board members were given copies of the 2008 prorities, a list of eight issues they want to local legislators to push in the upcoming general assembly. With no discussion, sans a question about whether any regulations on charter schools had been changed, the board aproved the same agenda for the coming year.

They are:

1. Full Funding of standards of quality positions and JLARC efforts

2. Funding for school construction

3. Continued support and expansion of the four-year-old Virginia preschool initiative

4. Flexible spending for funding received from the general assembly

5. Increase in funding for salaries

6. Oppose vouches or tuition tax credits

7. Opposition to any change to charter schools legislation

8. (Increase incentives) for National Board Certified Teachers

On Monday at Christiansburg High School, the board plans to meet with local legislators.

Montgomery County school board member Phyllis Albritton will remain on the seven-member panel through next year, after a landslide victory over opponent B. Amy Mauldon.

Albritton recieved 72 percent of the vote in Blacksburg's District A, or 4,121 votes, whle 26 percent of voters, or 1,529, chose Mauldon.

It was clear early in the night that Albirtton would stay on the board. She and a team spent the day campaigning outside polling places, including the Blacksburg Public Library. There, Albritton stood as close as the door of the library giving hugs to people she knew and flyers proclaiming her stand.

Throughout her campaign, Albritton said she supports finding ways to make sure third graders can read at grade level by the time they move to fourth. She also had the support of the Montomery County Education Association, which includes teachers and staff. Leaders of that organization praised her for standing by them to obtain a pay raise the previous year.

While she's been on the board for a year, this is the first time voters have elected Albritton to the board. In 2007, board members appointed her after another member resigned. Mauldon also was a candidate for appointment at the same time.

Albritton will serve a partial term, which ends next year. Another election will take place in November.At a forum between the two last week, Mauldon said she would run again then.

I just heard details about a Radford High senior who put the high school band's performance over her own pain.

A couple of weekends ago, 18-year-old Rachael Baber, the Mellophone section leader for the 50-member band, tripped over  a manhole and smashed her nose just as the band was about to perform a state-ranking competition in Pulaski.

Baber, who is the featured soloist in the show's second song, hit her nose on her instrument, fracturing it.

On Oct. 18, the band was at the VBODA state marching competition. Bands who earn a superior rating there, and at a concert in the spring, are considered state honor bands, said band director Daniel Frankenberger.

With their soloist injured, no one knew what do. Other mellophone players began to cry. Frankeberger asked his band to "sing" the solo.

Read more »

Today, residents in Blacksburg's District A can vote for a member on the Montgomery County school board when they had to the polls. The choices are Phyllis Albritton and B. Amy Mauldon.

Whoever wins will begin a one-year term in January.

On the national front, presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama both have different views on education from vouchers and school choice to school accountability.  Here's a take from Washington Post columnist Jay Matthews that says either one will continue a tradition in education that's already begun.