{"id":7524,"date":"2012-03-03T09:44:07","date_gmt":"2012-03-03T14:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=7524"},"modified":"2012-03-03T09:44:07","modified_gmt":"2012-03-03T14:44:07","slug":"is-schools-fatigue-setting-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=7524","title":{"rendered":"Is schools fatigue setting in?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com<\/em><\/span><\/span>
\n\"\"<\/a>We\u2019ll skip the politics this week \u2014 nothing I could write can match some of the things one might have seen on cable news in the last few days, although at least one story left my 10-year-old daughter asking me to define some of the terms being used by Wolf Blitzer, terms that seemed a lot more Jersey Shore<\/em> than The Situation Room<\/em>, involving women.<\/p>\n

But such is the life of being a parent these days.<\/p>\n

Possibly nearly as awkward was time spent at last night\u2019s Oldies Dance for the Unionville-Chadds Ford fifth grade dance. The event itself \u2014 beyond the volume one might expect from a few hundred over-excited fifth graders in one gym \u2014 was nice, but I found myself in another awkward position, having, I thought, followed the rules and\/or intent of the evening.<\/p>\n

According to the paperwork that came home, as an \u201coldies\u201d event, we were encouraged to dress in retro fashion \u2014 with \u201coldies\u201d seemingly now covering the scarily recent 1980s (OK, scary for me \u2014 I\u2019m old enough that I was running a weekly newspaper in the late 1980s), so instead of going for the obvious 1950s oldies look, I went 1980s.<\/p>\n

With no small amount of sarcasm, I embraced the full-on Miami Vice look, down to the aqua t-shirt, suit jacket with sleeves rolled up, stubble, sun glasses and enough hair gel to cause another gulf oil spill and yes, even went sockless, for the full Don Johnson. The wife, who has a limited sense of humor about such things, declined to let me have a Ferrari Daytona convertible to match, when I noted it would complete the ensemble.<\/p>\n

My wife and daughter went in for full 80s, too. My son (yes, I have two fifth graders \u2014 you save when you buy in bulk), wanted no part of it, and declined to dress up beyond his alien tie.<\/p>\n

You could say it was a unique fashion statement. Evidently, my reading of fashion was a bit out of whack. While there were a handful of retro outfits, it seemed like the most common definition of retro dress involved a hoodie. Even our in-house fashionista, Kelly Hockenberry, declined to embrace retro fashion (and I think, turned slightly green when she saw my get up \u2014 her fashion sense seriously wounded by my \u201clook\u201d for the evening). I won\u2019t say I stuck out like a sore thumb, but more like a thumb run over by a steam roller.<\/p>\n

And while that might still have been true had most of the other attendees gone for \u201coldies\u201d outfits, the lack of participation was a little curious to me. Curious, especially in light of other events in the last couple of weeks.<\/p>\n

I was similarly surprised at the lack of turnout at Wednesday night\u2019s Community Conversation. Although some 80 people signed up, less than two dozen people made it to the evening of discussing the school district\u2019s goals.<\/p>\n

It makes me wonder, a bit, whether we, as a community have reached a point of fatigue when it comes to our schools. Coupled with the interesting discussions prompted from the recent screening of Race To Nowhere<\/em>, which talks about kids and parents going overboard in terms of pressure to perform and have the perfect student, while sacrificing the little things in life, like, living.<\/p>\n

With everything this community has been through in recent years, from the high school renovation, layoffs, outsourcing, the teachers\u2019 contract and even last year\u2019s rugged school board elections, you wonder a bit whether we are all kind of burned out. I don\u2019t know, honestly, as things can go from ebb to flow in a heartbeat around here, and you can\u2019t really blame people for needing to take a breather.<\/p>\n

Maybe the March 12 budget hearing will be packed and filled with people expressing their opinion about the school budget and the school district. But it is something to keep an eye on as the spring moves on.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

If the sneak peek for those attending Monday night\u2019s Board of Education meeting is any indication, the Unionville High School Production of Phantom of the Opera is going to be nothing short of amazing. Connon McShane and Natalie Walden \u2014 the leads in the show \u2014 performed the title song from the show and were nothing short of brilliant.<\/p>\n

From what I hear, tickets are going fast, so if you want to see this show, click here<\/a> to reserve your tickets.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

The final details are being put together, but it looks like the basketball game of the year \u2014 maybe decade \u2014 is going to take place March 24 when the Unionville High School boys basketball team takes on a team of all-stars from the Unionville Recreation Association. This amazing match up \u2014 The Hoopin\u2019 To Help Invitaional \u2014 will raise money for the the family of Al Lewis \u2014 the local basketball legend and former coach at Chester and Cheney State \u2014 who was killed in an accident last month. His youngest daughter, Alison, is a star player on the Unionville girls\u2019 team and proceeds from the event will go to a scholarship fund for her.<\/p>\n

In addition to the boys\u2019 game, there will a second game with the Unionville High School girls team, with the juniors and seniors taking on the freshmen and sophomores. Check back in this space for more details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann, Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com We\u2019ll skip the politics this week \u2014 nothing I could write can match some of the things one might have seen on cable news in the last few days, although at least one story left my 10-year-old daughter asking me to define some of the terms being used by Wolf […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120,7],"tags":[989,43,24],"class_list":["post-7524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-featured","tag-fatigue","tag-schools-2","tag-unionville"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}