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(05-06) 18:09 PDT REDDING — A Northern California high school district’s drug testing of students taking part in competitive, nonathletic activities – such as the chess club, math team or school band – is an unjustified invasion of privacy, a judge ruled Wednesday in the first case of its kind in the state. The Shasta Union High School District presented no evidence that drug use was more likely or more dangerous for those students than for others, said Judge Monica Marlow of Shasta County Superior Court. She drew a distinction between students in the band or the chess club and student athletes. The state Supreme Court upheld the NCAA’s urine testing of college athletes in postseason championship events and bowl games in 1994, saying athletic competitors are accustomed to being monitored and have little expectation of privacy. Although drug testing has become both expected and accepted in sports, particularly at the college and professional level, Marlow said, “it is not a reasonably expected part of the life of a member of the choir or math club.” She issued an injunction halting a drug-testing program that the district, with headquarters in Redding, started last fall. The urine samples were screened for various illegal drugs as well as tranquilizers, alcohol and tobacco, said Michael Risher, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer representing students who challenged the program. The injunction does not affect the district’s drug testing of athletes, which began about 10 years ago. The ACLU said one of its student clients would have been barred from playing with her flute ensemble at a statewide competition later this month because she refused to be tested. Another student, who was raising a hog for a competition as part of a class project, took a drug test – which was negative – after a school administrator threatened to remove him from the Future Farmers of America, the sponsoring group, the ACLU said. “Students should not be treated like suspects because they want to play in the school band,” Risher said. He said the ruling “respects student privacy, it respects family privacy, and it teaches students that rights matter.” John Kelley, a lawyer for the district, said officials would probably appeal the ruling. Marlow’s decision applies only to the Shasta district, but an appellate decision could set a statewide precedent. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld drug testing of public school students in extracurricular activities in 2002, Kelley noted, in a ruling that recognized such tests as “a permissible step to try to protect the health, safety and welfare of students.” He said students in choirs, bands and other competitive activities are more likely than others to travel to off-campus events, some involving overnight stays, where a school’s ability to supervise them is limited. “The kids can wander the streets, go to bars, buy drugs, and it’s still the obligation of the district to supervise the students,” Kelley said. Marlow pointed out that the 2002 Supreme Court decision was based on the U.S. Constitution, which does not have an express guarantee of privacy. California voters added a right of privacy to the state Constitution in 1972. This article appeared on page B – 6 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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Drug tests for chess club? Judge says no!

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — Ivan Nogalo can often hear small planes buzzing over his machine shop in Cleveland. “You want to be up there,” the 33-year-old said. But Nogalo can’t be. The would-be pilot has been grounded because the economy has forced him to tighten his belt. It’s the same for Ryan Fisher, who spent an estimated $10,000 on flying lessons before losing his job with a real estate developer. The 37-year-old was two weeks short of being certified as a private pilot when he couldn’t afford further training. “It’s frustrating,” said Fisher, of Cleveland Heights. “I miss being up in the airplane, that sense of freedom. It’s kind of transcendental.” The slumping economy has forced some student pilots to put their dreams of flying on hold, threatened to accelerate the decline of the U.S. pilot population, and put a financial chokehold on flight schools. The number of U.S. pilots has fallen more than 25 percent from a 1980 peak of about 827,000 to about 590,000 at the end of 2008, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. While there are no more recent figures, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association is seeing some anecdotal evidence that the economy is taking a toll, said Chris Dancy, spokesman for the Frederick, Md.-based organization. “Flight training is done with disposable income,” Dancy said. “It is very common in economic down times for flight training to fall off.” It usually costs between $6,000 and $9,000 to get a private pilot’s license, according to Dancy. Ryan Gessel, 26, of San Francisco, has wanted to fly for nearly three years, hoping to fly for pleasure as well as to see clients in northern California as an account manager for a brewing company. He began taking flying lessons last summer and had gotten four or five hours under his belt when the economy went into a nosedive. Gessel’s salary became uncertain, and while he has since gotten a new position in the company, he is not sure how much he’ll be paid. “There is a lot of uncertainty, so I didn’t see it as the smartest move to put $10,000 into something that isn’t really considered a priority,” Gessel said. “It’s kind of frustrating. But the dream is definitely still there.” Economic conditions have also forced some pilots who already have licenses to give up flying. Marty Helms, of Wake Forest, N.C., got his license in 2006 and would fly to visit family and friends in Virginia and Pennsylvania. Last May, Helms began to re-evaluate the money he was spending on aviation as the economy began to sour, the price of fuel began to skyrocket and his friends started losing their jobs. The 40-year-old hasn’t flown since. Helms estimates it would cost him $3,000 to complete the training hours needed to resume flying. Then add in the cost of fuel and renting aircraft. And there is the economy, which makes his financial future uncertain. “It’s not something that motivates you to stay in a hobby like aviation,” Helms said. “I miss it. There is nothing more rewarding than the flying.” Richard Syrovy, of Kitchener, Ontario, has a private license and was pursuing a license to fly commercially in hopes of making aviation his career. But the economy made openings for pilots scarce, and the 22-year-old college student, who took a part-time job marketing knives to pay for his training, couldn’t afford to continue. He last flew in June. “When you take a part-time job, your checks are going to be part-time,” Syrovy said. Flying lessons are down 50 percent from a year ago at the New Flyers Association, a flight club at the Ohio State University Airport in Columbus that has seven airplanes and 120 members. President Dick Willis blames the economy and uncertain financial futures of the students. “They don’t know what’s going to happen,” Willis said. “They’re keeping their money in their mattresses.” At Moraine Airpark in suburban Dayton, the pool of students has dwindled from 30 to 10. The school accounts for about 25 percent of the airport’s income. “It hurts us pretty bad,” said manager George Bockerstette. Nogalo had used some of his salary at the machine shop to bankroll flying lessons, which he started taking in October. But he put them on hold when business began to dry up because of the economy. “With this recession, it’s obviously hit northeast Ohio — especially the machining center — pretty heavily,” he said. “It was like someone turned off a faucet.” Bill Kronenberger, manager of the flight school at the Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport, said many prospective students can’t get loans to fund their training. Kronenberger said some students are opting for the less expensive sport pilot license instead of the private license. Sport pilots are limited to flying smaller planes with fewer passengers and cannot fly at night, in bad weather or congested air space. But the license costs half as much and can be obtained twice as fast. The licenses became available in 2005 and there are already 2,600 sport pilots nationwide. Todd Marte, 28, an Ohio State student, got his flying certificate last year. He began training for his instrument rating — which enables pilots to fly through clouds and in bad weather — when fuel prices began to go up and the economy began to go down. So, Marte put a stop to his flying, fearing it would put him in debt. “It’s so expensive to fly,” he said. “It’s definitely a luxury.” source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5icxnsOEsAl9OtSzdwzAtfp…

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Economy buffeting student pilots, flight schools

People who suffer from depression, addictions and other mental health issues often turn first to their religious leaders. But as 25 Brigham Young University graduate students found when they interviewed clergy from a range of churches in Utah County, many worry they may not be able to offer the right kind of help. The students, who are studying for master’s degrees in social work, hope to change that. This month the students launched Clergy Bridge, a project to teach clergy how to recognize mental health issues and where to refer members of their congregations who are burdened. The students hosted a workshop for 50 clerical leaders and social service professionals and published a manual in English and Spanish, making it available for free from their Web site. “Our purpose is to show a way to help,” said student LaDawn Park. “When a member of a congregation comes in with a problem, they will have a better of idea of how to address it.” “We want to create a bridge between the spiritual aspect and the social service aspect,” said Tiffany Winder, another student. What began as a project for Michael Seipel’s community organization class, however, may continue after the class ends, said student Jesse Ellis. Several of those involved want to turn Clergy Bridge into a nonprofit organization that will update the manual, which now focuses on Utah County resources, and broaden its geographical reach. “It Advertisement honestly just depends on resources and funding,” said Ellis. “If we can take the right steps and partner with the right people, there isn’t any reason we couldn’t extend it and make it more professional.” Already, the group is hearing from clergy in other states who want to use the manual. On Monday, two days after the workshop, there were 600 hits on the Clergy Bridge Web site, said Ellis. Some left messages. Most of the graduate students have already worked as social workers and recognize how mental health issues are misunderstood by the general public and clergy. “We want to get to a place where mental health is viewed like physical health. As a culture, nationwide and in whatever denomination, I think there needs to be improvement,” said Ellis. “This is just one step we’re taking to do that.” One of those who attended the workshop, Linda Walton, a volunteer chaplain at Utah Valley University, said religious leaders often are frustrated that they are left out of the loop once they advise someone to get professional help. “We may refer a suicidal person and we don’t hear back, and they might still be in the congregation,” she said. “When they pop in again, we sort of start from ground zero.” It would be helpful if the clergy could remain involved in helping the person, just as a person’s primary doctor remains involved once a specialist is called in, she said. Seipel said it was good to see his students grasp and run with an issue often discussed, but not often addressed. “I hope my students will have a greater awareness that they have a role to play in the community, building partnership, building bridges,” he said. “They have done a really nice little project.”

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BYU grad students build bridge to clergy

High school students with dreams of competing in alpine skiing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, beware: when this academic year ends, the institute will no longer have a varsity team. That squad and seven others — competitive pistol, golf, wrestling, and men and women’s ice hockey and gymnastics — were eliminated on Thursday by M.I.T.’s athletics department, citing the need to trim $1.5 million from its budget. The announcement ended several weeks of meetings and student hand-wringing over which of M.I.T.’s 41 Division III varsity teams would be cut. Being an innovative lot, M.I.T. students looked for ways to save programs, including fund-raising and protests. Some disgruntled students even kidnapped Tim the Beaver, the institute’s mascot, demanding that all 41 teams be kept. (The student playing Tim was released unharmed, although the costume’s head eventually ended up on the John Harvard statue in Harvard Yard.) “These programs contribute to our ever-precious admissions yield, which in turn contributes to our esteemed public perception and high national ranking,” Ethan Solomon, a second-year student, wrote in an opinion article for The Tech, M.I.T.’s student newspaper. “Indirectly, these factors may influence alumni donation rates, which further influence our national ranking.” The institute said, however, that even in flush times, the 41 teams weighed heavily on the department, and that the cuts were intended to strengthen the remaining 33 squads. Some of the eliminated programs, like the pistol team, may become club sports, said Will Hart, the pistol coach. “We’ve been a varsity club since 1937, so this is something entirely new for us,” Mr. Hart said of the pistol program, one of the top-ranked in the country and one of the institute’s most popular physical education classes. “M.I.T. has a certain culture,” he added. “The students need release. I hope they find something else that was as close to enjoyable as their sport was.”

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To Save Money, M.I.T. Drops 8 Sports Teams

Almost six years after a lawsuit forced the city to pledge to keep better track of students who leave public schools without graduating, the number leaving high schools has continued to climb, according to a report to be released Thursday by the public advocate’s office. Skip to next paragraph The report raises questions about why more than 20 percent of students from the class of 2007 were discharged — the term for students who leave the school system without graduating — but 17.5 percent from the class of 2000 were. Much of the increase has come from students who are discharged in the ninth grade, which has gone up to 7.5 percent for the class of 2007, but was 3.8 percent in 2000. Though students can be classified as discharged for a number of benign reasons, including a transfer to a private school or a move out of the city, the Education Department has been sued several times for pushing out students who are struggling and are unlikely to graduate, a practice that can help raise the school’s test-score averages and graduation rates. In 2003, Chancellor Joel I. Klein called the effect of the practice a “tragedy,” and when the lawsuit was settled in the fall of that year, the department began requiring all schools to interview students before they can transfer to other programs. The report was written by Jennifer L. Jennings, a doctoral student at Columbia University, and Leonie Haimson, a frequent critic of Chancellor Klein and the executive director of Class Size Matters, an advocacy group that urges more checks on mayoral control of the schools. The report is being released at a time when the State Legislature is to consider extending the 2002 mayoral control law. Betsy Gotbaum, the public advocate, said the findings supported her call, issued in the fall of last year, for an independent research board to monitor the Education Department. “I don’t think anything has gotten any better,” Ms. Gotbaum said Wednesday. “The numbers explaining where these students go is certainly at best questionable and at least a bit wrong. We really don’t understand what all these numbers mean.” Ms. Gotbaum said she asked on Wednesday that the state comptroller’s office audit the city’s graduation and discharge numbers. David Cantor, a spokesman for the City Education Department, said that while the increases were noteworthy, they reflected the fact that the student population often moves in and out of the city. He said the city’s graduation rate, which is affected by the number of students who drop out but not those discharged, has improved steadily over the last six years. For the class of 2008, the projected discharge rate is 19.2 percent, Mr. Cantor said. Mr. Cantor said the city’s graduation rates and discharges were audited annually by Ernst & Young. One of the most alarming trends, according to the report, is the number of ninth-grade students who are discharged. “This finding is of serious concern, as the goal of the public school system is to provide all students with the support needed to persist and successfully graduate from high school,” the report states, adding, “Schools may be responding to accountability incentives to discharge students earlier in their high school careers.” Jennifer Bell-Ellwanger, a senior adviser to the chancellor who oversees research, said department officials had noticed the increase in ninth-grade discharges and were trying to determine its cause. According to data provided by the Education Department, roughly 74 percent of the more than 18,000 students discharged from the class of 2007 went to a school outside New York City. But according to the report, there is no evidence in census data to suggest that so many teenagers have left New York in recent years. The department has also reported that the number of high school students transferring to parochial schools has increased over time; there were 2,084 such transfers for the class of 2007, but 821 for the class of 2004, for example. But the report also uses data from the state’s Education Department showing that the enrollment in parochial schools appears largely flat. The report also finds that far more black and Hispanic students are discharged than white and Asian students, and far more boys than girls.

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Number of Students Leaving School Early Continues to Increase, Study Says

Collection of the best toilets around the world. It dares you to visit and try to pee and poo in the amazing toilet spots in the world. AwesomeToilet THE LADY IS GETTING READY TO ENTER!! This is a picture of a public toilet in Houston � Now that you’ve seen the outside view, take a look at the inside view… It’s made entirely of one-way glass! � No one can see you from the outside, but when you are inside it’s like sitting in a clear glass box! Now would you…. COULD YOU….??? � BATHROOM PAINTED FLOOR!!! IMAGINE YOU ARE AT A PARTY . Tenth floor of a hi-rise building….. AND THEN YOU HAVE TO VISIT THE BATHROOM…. You open the door… NOW, REMEMBER THE �FLOOR IS JUST A PAINTED �FLOOR ! KINDA �TAKES YOUR BREATH AWAY….. DOESN’T �IT? Scroll sloooooooowly. ………. � Would this mess up your mind??? �Would you be able to walk �in To �this bathroom??? THIS IS A �CEILING MURAL IN A SMOKER’S LOUNGE. � Please share with friends with a sense of humor�.

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Awesome Toilet

It is definitely something to look into. High school seniors: Take a year off and go out and do something else. I think there are many advantages and opportunities to this.  You could also take advantage of the time to get more aid money — more fixed-rate student loans and bigger grants to the poorest students. Just a few hundred dollars a year in grants and a few thousand dollars more in loans may not seem to be a lot, but it is not entirely about the money. You could gain a great amount of experience – as long as you are not messing around. If you are a students who have already applied for college, and you are now waiting to hear who accepted you can ask to defer the acceptance for a year, colleges usually don’t mind. Here are some additional things to concider doing with this time Consider working for a year to help your parents with the tuition Consider working for projects such as AmeriCorps and Habitat for Humanity Peace Corps (Two years, and only if your already interested) Taking a break. No. No. No. – Not a choice… “I haven’t had many students in my career do that, simply because it’s not part of the norm,” said Robert E. Bardwell, director of guidance and a counselor at Monson High School in Monson, Mass. “Many of them, especially the higher achieving students, are eager to get into college so that they can get done sooner.” I suppose they want to pay the debt sooner, (ie, get the job) Please note, I am not suggesting you should take a year off just for the sake of it. You must plan in advance, you must use this time wisely or you might greatly regret doing this. NYT Author Jonathan Glater says: Students who get into college this spring, it is hard to see a downside to taking a year off. Gaining valuable life experience is not exactly dilly-dallying. And if ever there was a time that youthful enthusiasm, energy and creativity might be needed out in the real world, this could be it. Things I have mentioned above can give you an introduction to the real world, an experience, and a good reason to delay college. But I can’t emphasis enough that you should only delay college if you have a good reason; That is to use your time productively and wisely.  And a last note, some have tried this and had no motivation or were not thinking or were just too lazy to do anything, which made them worse off – to the extent that some of them did not go back to college! Good luck, make your decision wisely!

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Are there benefits to delaying college by a year?