SITE Council

Once a month a group called SITE Council meets in the library to discuss issues concerning Free State.  This past monday the group discussed three issues, Career-Tech Ed (CIE) programs, Achievement Gap (Courageous Conversations) and The board goal/ schedule update/ and the budget Implications update.

To discuss the CIE programs Patrick Kelly showed a power point addressing the career tech programs implicated in the junior high and high schools. He points out the areas in the CIE programs where they are going to revise and the new programs he hopes to add to CIE. One of the programs he hopes to take off is offering a summer  program with the boys and girls club for 8th graders to explore jobs, and to do a intership. He stressed that CIE programs is good for all students. With part-taking in CIE programs you learn how to how a proper attitude towards work, good work habits, personal motivation and problem sovling.  And also you can potentially get college credits at JCCC for completing certain classes at Free State.

Craig Butler came to SITE council and began to discuss to the group a new program at Free State called Courageous Conversations. Courageous Conversations is geared toward young Black males in the school district. Traditionally black males test the lowest in the district, and in the state.

Board of Education Meeting February 8

Written by allison harwood

At the February 8 Board of Education meeting the main focus was the budget cuts. Numerous parents came up to the podium during the recognition of the audience to contest the idea of closing down any Lawrence schools. After an hour and a half of this, an exasperated Scott Morgan started enforcing the three minute talking limit.

Items on the official agenda included budget cuts and moving the ninth and sixth graders up. Free State teacher Sam Rabiola shared his opinion about the ninth graders being moved up to the high schools. Rabiola said he thought that the board should not move up the freshmen till at least next year because it would cause overcrowding at LHS. The board then took a vote about moving up the freshmen and concluded that they should postpone till at least the 2011-2012 school year.

LEAP Meeting

Written by emma machell

Board of Educations meeting

Written by amani safadi

The meeting began with the LHS student council president and principal talking about their lip dub. They talked about  how amazing it was that even in this time of budget craziness, they were able to make this wonderful video as a whole school, and for an hour they could all just have a good time and enjoy one other’s company. After explaining the video-making process, they showed the final product. 

Bowling Over the Competition

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Written by emma machell

“One year [the bowling team] is really hungry to win,” bowling coach Anita Carlson said. “the next year sometimes we come out a little bit flat.”

Kid Atom versus the Sword of Damocles

Written by Peter Bray

At first, there was a panic. But by now the riots had subsided, and most had gone inside to pray, or hug, or panic indoors. No one went to the old bomb shelters, following the procedure of the drills perfectly. By now, the few who considered it reasoned, the technology had advanced to the point that there would be no place safe to hide, so why bother? They could all see the light streaking from the missile’s boosters like a comet, even in the middle of the day.

            Jack had closed his blinds hours before, but there was still enough light to read comics as he lay on his bed. The adults were al downstairs crying. They had declined to tell him why, but his teachers all said he was bright, and he figured it out soon enough. It didn’t seem as important to him as they were acting. Superman would just come along and push the missile into space, like in the comics. But adults always acted weird. He didn’t get them at all.

            There was a knock on the door, and before he could get up to answer it, his mom poked her head through the entrance with tear-stained cheeks and a wavering voice.

            “Jack, honey. Are you okay?” Nose deep in Avengers, jack didn’t look up before answering “I’m fine.” She sidled over to him, slowly running a hand through his hair as she spoke. “Jack…Jack, look at me. Everyone is downstairs.” “Is Dad here?” That shut her up, or at least flustered her for a few seconds before sobbing out, “Please, honey, this isn’t the time for that. Come downstairs. Everyone wants to see you.” He looked up at her for the first time. “I’m reading, Mom. I’ll come down in a minute.”

            She might have said something, but he didn’t hear it through the tears, and he was already back in his comics before she stumbled out the door, slamming it behind her. Of course Dad wasn’t here, but he almost wished he was. At least he left him alone, especially when he was trying to read. If he went downstairs, his aunts and uncles would just hug him and kiss him and suffocate him in their arms all night, the same way they did when war was declared. If he wasted all night with them, he would miss his chance to see iron Man shoot the missile out of the sky – that didn’t happen every day.

            It started to get dark while he was reading, even through his blinds. By now the adults had stopped crying, and Jack couldn’t hear anything from downstairs but the steady ticking of the grandfather clock. He put away his comic book before he even finished it, and got up off his bed to walk to his window and raise the blinds. All the lights were off in the city for once, except for a few candles in the windowsills. The moon hung low in the sky, and the sun was still holding on tightly enough that stars were invisible. The brightest thing in the sky was the missile’s comet trail, so much closer than it was when he closed the blinds to shut it out. There was no sign of Superman. For a moment, jack had an idea of why all the adults were acting so weird.

            He looked at his door for a long minute. It had been a long time since he had seen his Aunt Sally, or his Uncle Bill. Then he looked at his comic books, lying in a heap of read material at his bedpost. Jack only had to look at them for a second. He took a deep breath. “Adults are wusses,” he told himself, then he opened the window, climbed onto the seventh-story windowsill, and jumped.

            The missile’s tail gleamed brightly, sinking further away for a heart stopping second before drifting slightly closer. The cool night air sped past Jack’s body at increasingly rapid speeds to match his accelerating heartbeat. The part of him that wanted to see his family again screamed that it wasn’t happening, but failed to make a persuasive case. His usual frame of mind laughed as the missile grew ever closer at the end of its parabolic arc. “If Superman isn’t going to do anything, another hero is going to have to pick up the slack.” He announced in his most heroic voice to any passing bird who would listen. It was getting colder now, and the air was thin, with barely enough oxygen to concentrate. The metallic menace was in sight now: just close enough to be struck on the body with a double dose of his fists of steel. It groaned reluctantly as he pushed with all his might, but he finally managed to gain enough initiative to charge up a mighty haymaker. As if admitting defeat, the screaming missile was sent careening off course on its way to a date with the Sun.

Just like in the comics.

The Chronicles of Cranford Place, Volume III, The Spaceship Scandal

Written by Steve Norris and Alan O'neal

 As Willy the squirrel was drinking from the peaceful banks of a babbling brook, he realized he was drinking pure gasoline. In a cruel twist of fate, the tree next to him was hit by a freak bolt of lightning, burning it and Willy in the process. His kidneys caught aflame and he then exploded. This atrocity was seen by Bob Seger, the Captain of the space battleship, the Silver Bullet, through his magic scrying glass.

            “Oh blast! It must be one of those Hollywood Nights.” The failed musician exclaimed. He brought his spaceship out from orbit and landed it on a small farm in Kansas. The Silver Bullet then turned into a large Megazord. It began to rampage the state of Kansas, utterly assaulting nature. Cody Janousek saw this ridiculousness and hopped in his own Megazord.

            As he neared his target, Cody began to think upon events long gone, those he had loved and those he had lost, and things yet to come, and other such deep thoughts. He finally found Bob Seger and the battle ensued. Using his robots arm laser, Cody blasted a hole through the chest of his opponent, who then retaliated with a downward slash, his claws tearing through the metal of Cody’s left shoulder. The two behemoths stood locked in fierce contact, a contact that was not broken until Bob Seger’s robot slipped on an inconveniently placed banana peel. Cody hopped out of his Megazord, then lifted Mr. Seger out of his, and with an almost inaudible “Adios, chump,” hurled him into space with inhuman strength. He then walked away into the sunset, seconds before news teams arrived to question him about this strange series of events.

Blood Money

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The Sighting

It had been two days since one of our bulls had gotten sick. My son and I had been trying to take care of him, but we knew all of our efforts were fruitless. The best we could do was hope that our bull died with minimal suffering. We had taken the bull to the witchdoctor in the nomadic settlement nearby and the witchdoctor said that the bull was doomed. That was when we learned of the ‘death spirits’. He said that when anybody or anything is close to death, a ‘death spirit’ arrives to take the body away once the dying animal or person’s soul leaves. When he told me this, I laughed in his face. At the time I thought such a notion was ridiculous, until the day that the bull finally died.

My son and I were looking over the pasture. Its southern border lay on the edge of the forest and swamps. The sick bull was standing near the edge of the herd, gasping and wheezing. It was mid-afternoon. That was when the creature arrived. It was humanoid, had flat, human-like feet which pointed outward like a duck’s, and it had long, sinewy limbs. Its scaly skin was mostly brown with mottled green. Its head looked like some of the lizards’ heads that were picked in jars on a shelf in his hut. When it walked, it would shift its weight from leg to leg and its knees were bent so that its knuckles nearly dragged on the ground. In this state, it looked about six feet tall. It was rather comical.

At some point it stopped lumbering toward the bull and, tucking its knees against its chest, sat on the ground. I told my son to try to shoo away the creature. He walked over to it and nudged it with his staff. The creature did nothing, just sat there like a rock. Nothing my son did to it would cause it to move. I called my son over. We decided to observe it and figure out whether it was hunting, or merely observing.

The hours passed and it was late evening when the creature finally stirred. We were about to head back to the farm house for the night. I told my son to guide the rest of the herd back to the barn while I checked on the dying bull. I strode over to it. It was suffering from dementia and was growing paranoid. It hadn’t seen me and was staring at the creature, who had sat like a stone for hours.

Suddenly, the bull roared and charged at the dark animal. I thought the bull would gore it and destroy my slowly growing fears. The bull was bearing down on the creature. I blinked, and then it was gone. I heard a savage hiss and saw the creature swinging from a tree limb, hissing like a cat. That last burst of energy killed the bull. It staggered, confused, and then fell on its side.

The creature, which had been remaining so still for so long, now moved with such grace. It landed softly on its flat feet and calmly stepped over to the dead bull. It sniffed the corpse. It proceeded, in one fluid motion, to lift and carry the corpse on its left shoulder. I yelled at the creature. Even though the bull was sick, giving it to an animal was a waste of money. We could’ve sold it to a butcher.

The creature turned and hissed at me then continued to lumber away. I yelled again, this time, hitting it across the back of its head with my staff. It stopped, set the bull down, and turned. It then stood to its full, terrifying, ten foot height. Its eyes were sulfur yellow and when it opened its maw, the smell of rotted flesh greeted my nostrils. A brownish-green frill that had been covering its neck extended out and around its head and turned a bright, vibrant yellow. It issued a piercing, loud shriek, the shriek of a hawk diving for the kill.

This was startling, to say the least. I backed away slowly, keeping my staff in front of me, in case it tried to jump me. It stared at me with its sickly yellow eyes, its frill still open, continuing to hiss and snarl at me. My staff was visibly trembling because of my quaking limbs. The creature crouched back down, picked up the bull’s corpse, issued one last hiss, and loped back into the forest.

I jogged back to the farmhouse. My family was already eating dinner when I finally arrived. I ate my food hurriedly, not saying a word. I would tell them what happened the next day, but that night I remained silent, praying that the creature would never come back.

A few months later, an old cow was nearing its final hour and the creature appeared again. Once the cow died, it picked up the corpse and walked away. Over the years, whenever one of our animals would die, it would come and take the corpse away.

I’ve never been a superstitious man, but this creature has brought my fascination and my fear. I know that I will eventually meet the fate of the animals that passed away. I know that when it is my time to die, I will see that creature’s visage in my window. I just hope I’m much older by that time.

Spring Break Guide!!

Written by allison m and allison h