By Shawn Dell Joyce

We are all concerned about our schools and our rising school taxes. Most districts are facing a decline in state funding of 11% or. in Valley Central’s case; $3.6 million. That’s a lot of money, and we all wonder where it will come from.

Teachers are concerned about larger classes and less funding for teaching materials, salaries, and lower educational standards. Parents are concerned about less funding for the classes that keep kids interested in school, like music, art, sports, and extracurricular activities. Taxpayers are concerned about an ever-increasing burden that is already difficult to bear. Kids face crowded conditions, increased bullying, and less attention from teachers.

It’s a difficult situation for all, without an easy answer. Many school districts across the country are in the same pickle and some have come up with a few creative solutions that could be applied here.

Newburgh has hired an energy efficiency consultant to show faculty and students how to conserve resources and save money. Simple measures like turning off lights in empty classrooms, lowering the heat after hours, and reducing paper waste can more than pay the consultant’s salary, and save school resources over the long term. Engaging the student population in the school’s efforts to conserve, teaches children an important lesson to take back to the home and community.

Batavia schools have found methods for pooling resources and sharing specialized staff and equipment. This sharing cuts down on individual school district’s costs, and helps keep learning standards high.

In Fairfax County, Va., they are asking parents to pay fees for tests like the PSAT, and SAT tests. They are also planning to charge $50 per student to participate in high school sports. The most ingenious suggestion was to raise class size by a half of a student. You have to wonder where they put the other half!

Texas schools find themselves with a decreasing tax base (as property values plummet) and increasing student population. Instead of building more schools, the districts are encouraging home schooling by providing an online curriculum, free computer and internet, and a teacher with an online class size of 500.

Other states also encourage homeschooling by offering homeschooled children the use of the school for certain classes that parents may not be able to provide at home. For example, a high school science lab course would be easier to pay for than to recreate at home. This piecemeal approach to education also brings in additional revenues from homeschoolers already paying school taxes.

California high school students will soon be working from free digital textbooks online rather than the expensive hardcover textbooks at district’s expense.

Perhaps the best approach to solving the school budget crunch is the one right under our noses, and most likely to be missed. Why not have the children come up with the solution? One of the biggest complaints about schools is that they don’t prepare children for the “real world.” Here’s our chance, let’s give the kids a “real world” scenario, and see what they come up with?

Thomas Kerston of the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration has come up with a helpful module that could be applied to any classroom. It’s available free online at http://cnx.org/content/m14281/latest/.

We are quick to give our children the latest in interactive online video games, now how about we give them a quality education in life?

 Shawn Dell Joyce is the director of the Wallkill River School in Orange County. www.WallkillRiverSchool.com Shawn@zestoforange.com

Photography by Rich Gigli

- APPLE BLOSSOMS - Sweet darlings of the vernal air, Nestling your faces on the blue,The rosy goddess, Eos fair, With fond enchantment tinted you. - Augusta Larned, 1895. Photo taken Cooke Falls, N.Y.

By Michael Kaufman

The people who hijacked my email account last week got a virtual earful from some of my friends. I’ll share a few of their responses in a moment, but first a word about Jolly Widows, the Korean soap opera, which ended its run last week, and its successor, Happiness in the Wind, which began its run Tuesday night on cable channel WMBC.

Frankly, I am beginning with this subject and putting the title in the headline for one simple reason. Fans of the Korean soap operas (I prefer to call them “dramas”) will find Zestoforange when they do a Google search that includes the title of the show. This can help us pick up some new readers. I know this because of an email I got this week about Jolly Widows:

Hi Michael,
I came across your blog! Did you see the final episode? What did you think?  I was so torn!!!! This soap was as good as The Long Road Home and You Are My Destiny – quite possibly better!!! I have a question. Do you know if there’s a way to order the soundtrack? Also I can’t wait for the new soap!!
Thanks,
RM

I replied truthfully that I had never seen You Are My Destiny but I loved The Long Road Home and Jolly Widows. I was ambivalent about the final episode of Jolly Widows because I could never forgive Mrs. Na for the way she had treated Suhyeon and Jinwu while she was trying to keep Mr. Kang from recovering his memory, or for conspiring with Cheol to force Nayun to marry him against her will. As far as I’m concerned Mr. Kang should have gone back to his old family and Najeong could have stayed with Mrs. Na. She could have still  had frequent visitation with her grandmother, father, sister, and cousins! Yunjeong deserved better for all she went through…even if the ending implied that she and Junwu would be getting back together.

Like RM, I couldn’t wait for the new one to begin….but when we tuned in Thursday night there was a documentary about the discovery of an ancient sword found buried under a sidewalk in Seoul during a construction project in 1975. Fascinating as it was, I was disappointed. When would the new drama begin? Not Friday night. They showed a documentary highlighting the heroic resistance waged by Korean guerilla fighters against the Japanese invaders in 1906. (That one was fascinating too.) Monday? No dice: They showed part two of the Friday documentary (not so fascinating).

By Tuesday morning I couldn’t take it anymore. I called the WMBC headquarters in Newton, NJ, and asked the woman who answered the phone if she could tell me when the series that will replace Jolly Widows will begin.

“Jolly Widows? Hold on, please…” I was kept on hold for at least as long as when I called the unemployment office last year. I hung up without getting through, assuming that WMBC was swamped with callers asking the same question.

And our question was answered that night. Happiness in the Wind is on the air! I love it already. You can find it on Cablevision channel 20 Monday through Friday from 9:20 to 10 p.m. (Some clips from Jolly Widows can be found on Youtube.)

Okay, so last week my Yahoo email account was hacked by the so-called Russian Mafia and everyone on my address list received an email purporting to be from me, stranded in the UK and asking for money. Replies went directly to the hackers, who responded in my name. When Hal Davis, once a classmate of mine at SUNY New Paltz, posed a question that only I would be able to answer, the fake me responded, “I have been anticipating your reply…it s been a hell of a day,  just believing God for a miracle.” Then followed instructions to wire $920 via Western Union to an address in Bristol, England. Hal, a veteran newspaperman, was not fooled. He knows I’m an agnostic Jew who doesn’t expect miracles from God.

“You think i will seeking assistance from you if this was not serious?” they replied to Peter Knobler and Mikhail Horowitz when they couldn’t answer their questions. “Asking you to send the money to me directly is enough proof…” Mikhail had some sharp words for them, which he thought better of sending. But you can hear sharp words from him in person starting at 2 p.m. Saturday (April 17) when he joins Ed Sanders for a poetry reading at The Gallery at R&F Handmade Paints, 84 Ten Broeck Avenue, Kingston (for directions call 800-206-8088 or 845-331-3112).

Tony Seymour had some poetry of his own for the hackers (adapted here for publication):

“Listen up……whoever the [BLEEP] you are…….send me one more answer and its going directly to the US ATTORNEY general,  ya dig!!! get the [BLEEP] out of my friend’s accounts you little TWERP ASSED MOTHER[BLEEPER]!” He signed it, “Poet, Tony Seymour.” (You can find Tony reading his “rocket poetry” to Jeff Beck’s music on Youtube.)

My brother was not fooled by the hackers but he emailed me to say he thought “the part about losing the passport and wallet gave it all a personal touch of authenticity.” I wonder what he meant by that.

“Emairjancy, Emairjancy,” wrote Jack Radey, “everyone is to get from strit!! ” That was Jack’s way of letting me know he wasn’t fooled.  But then he added,  “Come on, Michael, fess up, at your age you actually DID lose your credit cards, command of the English language, and good sense.” I refuse to dignify that with a reply.

Don’t forget to tune in tonight to Happiness in the Wind.

Michael can be reached at Michael@zestoforange.com.

Photography by Rich Gigli

ROPE - The strength of rope is it's tiny strands, bound together, intertwined, with a beginning and an end, can twist, get into knots, form links, carry heavy loads, help guide us, or end a life.

Photography by Rich Gigli

The Red Mill

The ca. 1810 Red Mill, Clinton, N.J., was originally built as a woolen mill. Over the next 100 years, the Mill was used at different times to process grains, plaster, talc and graphite, and pump water for the town.
The historic Red Mill is known across the country as a photogenic symbol of early America’s rural industry. It is the most photographed spot in New Jersey and one of the top ten most photographed buildings in the U.S.

Photography by Rich Gigli

REFLECTIONS - The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins? - Edgar Allan Poe (Photo was taken along the Passiac River at Pennington Park.)

Photography by Rich Gigli

GRIST MILL - Philipsburg Grist Mill is a historic house, water mill and trading site located on US 9 in the village of Sleepy Hollow, New York. The manor dates from 1693 when Frederick Philipse of Yonkers was granted a charter for 52,000 acres along the Hudson River. By the mid 18th century, the Philipse family had one of the largest slave-holdings in the colonial north.

Photography by Rich Gigli

WINTER IN THE COUNTRY - Nathaniel Currier and James Merritt Ives referred to their company as the "Grand Central Depot for cheap and popular prints." They began in 1835, years before photographs came along to compete with them. In the sixty or so years of their existence, they produced thousands of pictures, prints of urban and rural life in America. Photo was taken at the Dixon Homstead, Boonton Tws. N.J.

FLYING EAGLE – Did you know that in 1782, the Bald Eagle became the national bird and political symbol of the United States of America? However, it wasn’t without opposition from Benjamin Franklin, who proposed the turkey as the national bird. Could you imagine having a turkey on top of a flag pole or an American Gold Turkey coin? Photo was taken along the Willowemoc River, Livingston Manor, N.Y.

— Rich Gigli