crazy local news highlights...

[acroyear]

1. the VA House actually passed the smoking in restaurants ban, carried mostly by northern virginia and hampton roads area.  the south, the west, and richmond all voted no.  We'll see how the Senate does, since that's supposed to equalize the regions a bit more and weaken NoVA's influence.
2. the senate passed a ban on teenagers driving with cell phones.  the AP doesn't say whether or not hands-free is permitted.
   
3. Gee, Marion Barry's in legal trouble again over his taxes, where he's accused of not filing his taxes for several more years after his last probation agreement required him to do so.  unrepentant bastard, it seems, and that's what jail is for.
4. more metro construction on v-day weekend - check wtop for details if your plans including heading into town
   
5. MD is considering raising the alcohol tax.  i say go for it.  in this economy, nobody would even try to notice.
6. Loudoun's talking layoffs for staff
7. fairfax is still mulling the idea of moving the high school start time.  i'm of mixed minds here
• i'm one of those whose 8am classes were consistently poorer performing than any other, BUT
• I'm also a band guy who knows that marching band REALLY needs the time after school to practice and will lose it

Comments

[petricat666.livejournal.com]

Speaking of Fairfax, okay, really speaking of Prince William, I'm stunned that we're not jumping on all their bandwagons of late. Our high schools start at 7:20 a.m. Our grade point scale starts an A at 93 (Fairfax was 94 and just lowered to at 90).

Oh, wait. I forgot, our county is all about Math Investigations, an elementary program that teaches math in conceptionalization right now.

Oh yeah, and you gotta love Virginia. A standard high school diploma is 22 credits, a advanced diploma is 24 credits including 3 foreign language requirements and 4 different sciences. If you are an IB diploma candidate....you earn the standard diploma. Why? Because they only take "2" different sciences at the most 3. They have to take the IBMYP Chemistry or Biology as a 9th or 10th grader and then take the two year IB Biology or IB Chemistry class where they will take the 5 hour IB exam (and possibly the AP exam as well).

Patrick gets the Advanced diploma because he bowed out of the full IB diploma and has already taken 4 different sciences because he took an extra science this year as an elective.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

I took my biology and chemistry as get-ahead summer school classes to free up space for both Band and Psychology (back then there were only 6 credits in a day - I hear there are more now). Others in my grade were taking Geometry in order to get back on a Calculus by Senior Year track in math.

Of course, I also took them in the summer 'cause I wanted to get out of GT science, not 'cause i couldn't hack it, but 'cause I was sick of all the work that went into the science fair project (which was required). 4 years of mostly winning something and I was pretty much done with it.

[petricat666.livejournal.com]

Patrick lives for science fair. This is the first year that Stonewall Jackson has not required all IBMYP Biology students to participate in science fair, it is completely elective. Therefore there are 10 to 15 students in the entire school doing the fair. The head of the fair basically told Patrick that he and his friend who went to state last year are pretty much guaranteed that they'll be going to regionals. (she knows the quality of their work). Compare that to evil Battlefield that usually sweeps the first place categories (or most of them) where the student doesn't compete until they've worked on their projects for at least two years. Patrick's project is a continuation of his IBMYP personal project (took a break from science fair last year so the judges will not have seen it) so he's got a two year project this year. We shall see.