“If I’m elected, I’m going to help Mrs. Goodloe-Johnson.”
School board candidate Arthur Ravenel Jr., during a voter forum last week. The story the next day in The Post in Courier noted “whispering” in the audience following the comment, but it was actually laughter, and one person noted, “I bet you will.”
14, 12, 9
Those are the ages of three children accused of robbing the Hollywood Video Store at the corner of East Bay and Calhoun streets with a BB pistol. The older children have been charged with the crime, but the nine-year-old was released because you can’t charge someone under 10. Source: The Post and Courier
61
That’s the average age when those polled expect to retire, according to a Pew Research Center survey.
Charter chatter ·
Organizers of a charter high school planned for the former Rivers Middle School campus on King Street are looking for parents interested in developing the Charleston Charter High School for Math and Science. Leader Park Dougherty held the latest of several monthly meetings last week to drum up support with about 20 parents and educators attending. Most had smaller children, some in private school, but hope to have a better alternative when the students reach their high school years.
“Many people have lost confidence in the school district,” Dougherty says.
Dougherty and other organizers are speaking with community leaders to assuage concerns that the charter school would be a bastion for white students in a minority community and that Burke would lose some of its brightest students. Expectations are that the school will pull students countywide and reflect the racial make-up of the county, with minority students making up between 34 percent and 74 percent of the school’s initial 400 students.
While charter school organizers will reach out to the community around the school, the task is likely insurmountable until the school is operating and the community can see its value, says charter advisor Robert New, a former Charleston County School Board chair and an organizer of the James Island Charter High School.
“People in the black community are going to be suspicious about it in the next year or two,” he says. “You’re not going to be able to make peace with everybody in this community before you start the charter school.”
The school will likely start with freshmen and sophomores and build on that in following years to fill out the Rivers campus that can hold more than 1,000 students. Organizers need to target students from “from McClellanville to Edisto” to attract the 400 students that will be needed to get the school operational in its first year. “The problem now is finding the students,” New says. Parents interested can e-mail Dougherty at park@charleston.net or attend the next organizational meeting at 5 p.m. Oct. 25 in meeting room B of the Charleston County Library on Calhoun Street. —Greg Hambrick
TREE TROUBLE ·
A forest management conference planned for Oct. 10-13 in downtown Charleston has several activist groups organizing a two-day counter-event beginning this Sunday, Oct. 8.
STOP GE Trees Campaign, Global Justice Ecology Project, Dogwood Alliance, and ForestEthics are rallying against the industry conference because of concerns over genetically engineered trees. The activist conference will begin at 7 p.m. Sunday with a documentary and discussion on genetically engineered trees at the Beatty Center at the College of Charleston and will continue from 2-9 p.m. Monday at Gage Hall (4 Archdale St.).
But the industry conference organizers say genetic engineering is not the focus of their event.
“The only presentation on genetically engineered trees is going to be given by environmental groups,” said Fred Cubbage, a forestry management professor at North Carolina State University. The Summerville-based biotech company ArborGen is also a sponsor of the industry conference.
Some environmentalists fear government regulations will fail and genetically-engineered trees introduced into the environment will cross-pollinate with natural forests creating a dominant genotype of tree. With less genetic diversity, the species could be more susceptible to viruses, bacteria, and insects.
All genetic engineering aside, Kim Marks with ForestEthics said conventional tree farms as they operate now are an ecological and social threat. Marks flew in from Oregon to help local activists organize the counter-conference.
“A tree plantation is not a forest; they’re crops,” Marks said.
New Zealander Chris Goulding, a co-chair of the industry conference, says plantations now supply 30 percent of the world’s industrial wood, helping take the pressure of demand off unsustainable logging in native old-growth forests.
“Within New Zealand, virtually all of our 15 million acres of native forests are now preserved from any form of logging,” Goulding says they can meet New Zealand’s domestic demand for wood products from the island nation’s 4.5 million acres of plantation forests, planted with predominately Monterey Pine from California.
“The only alternative to plantations would be to destroy our remaining native forests or import wood products from overseas that would most likely have come from unsustainable logging of tropical forests.
“I’m disappointed that we will be seeing protesters at this conference because actually I believe they have misinterpreted the aims of the conference,” Goulding says. “These are to examine the relative merits of forest plantations and improve their management while mitigating any deleterious effects.” —Benjamin Schlau
Addressing Buist ·
The District 20 Constituent School Board is continuing to struggle with district administration and the Charleston County School Board over alleged false addresses used to get children into Buist Academy, an excellent-rated Calhoun Street magnet school. Constituent board member Pamela Kusmider said students continue to be admitted to Buist even though parents are known to be falsifying addresses. Associate Superintendent Earl Choice said that he was no longer verifying addresses, leaving them up to the school unless there is a problem. District 20 members and parents have been working with the school district on revising proof-of-residency requirements, but the two boards have not come to a consensus.
Also last week, the constituent board used what little authority it has to send a message about the county’s treatment of other downtown schools. The board has refused to give its approval for a permanent Spanish teacher at Buist because other foreign language vacancies on the peninsula have not been filled. —GH
3 ounces
That’s the amount of toiletries now allowed on flights, but they must be in a clear sealable sandwich bag. Drinks purchased in the airport past security will also be allowed on the plane. Source: The U.S. Transportation Security Administration
3.7
That’s the magnitude of an early morning earthquake last week that was centered about 90 miles southeast of Charlotte. A slightly smaller earthquake had hit the area three days earlier. Source: The National Earthquake Information Center
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