GOOD MORNING AND HAPPY FRIDAY!
Graham Steer Marcus Montfort Accepts Tennis Scholarship with Holmes College! Congrats Marcus!!!
GHS DECA Student Competing at State! Good luck to Graham High School students competing in the State DECA competition today and Saturday in San Antonio. Competing are: Smith Graham & Garrett Gatlin Business Law and Ethics Team Decision Making, Chance Hornsey Sports and Entertainment Marketing, Kolton Spurlin Automotive Services Marketing, Kristen Duncan Principles of Finance, Kayla Clevenger Principles of Hospitality, Aimee McShan Principles of Marketing, Liliana Huerta Principles of Business Management.
Graham Steer Basketball Playoff Action- Best of luck to our Graham Steer basketball team as they take on Midlothian Heritage at 6:00 this evening at Aledo High School.
Graham Steer Joel Jones Competing at the USA Weightlifting Junior National Championships! Joel was invited to compete this weekend in Kansas City, MO. The competition will be aired live on the internet. You can go here to find the webcast site if you have time and are interested. He is in the A session for the Men’s 94kg class, scheduled for this Sunday from 11:00-1:00.
Graham Steers and Lady Blues in Action- During the second semester there are so many student activities it is difficult to keep up. If everyone has their events on the website here is a list for this weekend:
- JV Baseball at Bowie today
- JV Softball Candice Martin Tournament in Graham today and Saturday
- FFA Students at San Antonio Stock Show
- V Softball at Abilene Tournament today and Saturday
- V Boys golf at Lubbock
- GHS Track at Mineral Wells on Saturday
- V Baseball home scrimmage vs Bowie on Saturday
- JV Baseball doubleheader at Bowie on Saturday
- GHS StellarXplorer Semi-Final Round on Saturday
Speak up by joining the Texans for Strong Public Schools website!
The time is now for everyone who supports Texas public schools to communicate to lawmakers in Austin. TASB has created an easy way for you (and other trustees in your area) to make your voices heard. A new website, Texans for Strong Public Schools, makes it simple for you to tell your elected officials how you feel about vouchers and public school funding.
Enter your name and address, and the website will match you to your lawmakers so that you can contact them. Decisions are being made now. Sign up, speak up, and share this flier with trustees in your area, asking them to stand up for Texas public schools.
BY ANY OTHER NAME
Olga Samaroff delighted audiences in the United States and Europe with her legendary mastery as a classical pianist. Her stage performances were critically acclaimed from the early 1900s until an injury in 1925 limited her ability to perform. In fact, the music critics of the time proclaimed her to be the most brilliant and talented performer of all her contemporaries.
Olga Samaroff eventually evolved from a performer to a music critic and a teacher, but she is best remembered for her charismatic and enigmatic life on the concert stage. During a time when Russian musicians were enormously popular, Olga’s name was known world-wide, and she was the most popular performer of them all! Olga created a sensation wherever she went. A fiery and temperamental pianist, she was a formidable woman. She seemed to hold the music world of America and Europe in her hands!
Interestingly, her exotic and intriguing name Olga Samaroff was only a stage name. Olga was actually born in San Antonio, Texas, and she was named Lucy Hickenlooper at birth. Her talent provided her with an opportunity to study with the greatest performers in Europe at an early age, and when she returned to the United States, she decided to benefit from the popularity of the Russian performers by changing her name.
The music critics of her time, and even today, agree that whether she used the name Olga or Lucy, she was the greatest concert pianist of her time!
Isn’t this a delightful story? Lucy Hickenlooper knew that she had talent, but only as Olga Samaroff did she have the confidence and the bravado to become a world famous celebrity.
Between the 84th Texas legislative Session in 2015 and the 85th Texas Legislative Session that has just begun, several legislators must have read the story of Lucy/Olga. This session we are seeing tired, worn-out ideas reappearing with new names.
For the first time in several sessions, no school voucher bills have been filed so far. Before anyone has a coronary, you need to take a deep breath and let me explain. The voucher proponents are taking a page from Lucy Hickenlooper’s book; they have changed the name.
What once was a voucher is now a business tax credit (voucher on vitamins) or an Education Savings Account Program (voucher on steroids). The business tax credit is not a new idea. It was floated last session in some of the voucher bills, and, in fact, a version of the tax credit plan was in the voucher bill that did pass the Senate during the 84th session. This year’s business tax credit plan will allow a qualifying business who contributes scholarship money to students in most of the nonpublic schools to deduct the value of their donation from their state premium tax liability. What’s the problem? Any business donation reduces the amount of revenue flowing to the state’s general revenue which funds, among other things, public education.
Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) are even more insidious. In effect, ESAs are debit cards given to parents for each of their children eligible to attend school who are not enrolled in a public school. ESAs can be used to enroll students in private schools, to pay for tutoring services, to purchase instructional materials, and for almost any other educational expense a parent might choose. The amount of the ESA per child fluctuates depending upon a family’s income and any learning disabilities the children may have. In extreme cases, the amount of credit to the card can be 100% of the average per pupil state funding.
So, this session be on the lookout for Senate Bill 3 sponsored by Chairman Larry Taylor (provides for business tax credits and ESAs), Senate Bill 542 by Senator Bettencourt (dedicated to business tax credits), and House Bill 1335 by Representative Simmons (ESAs for special education students). There may be other bills filed later, but these are the current voucher-like bills before the legislature.
We are told that no voucher-like bill will pass in the House of Representatives this session; however, do not become complacent. Call your representative today and urge him/her to vote “NO” on any voucher-like bill that comes before their body. To quote former representative Dr. Marsha Farney, “Ask them to cast a hard NO vote for vouchers.”
The Senate is a different animal. As you know, last session, for the first time in the history of our state, a voucher bill passed in the Senate. Rumor has it that this session, the Lt. Governor cannot yet find enough support to pass any of the voucher-like bills that have been filed. It seems some Senators that represent primarily rural and suburban areas are listening to their constituents, and they are resisting pressure from the powers-that-be. The resistance is coming primarily from some of our Senators, those who represent TACS schools. Help them today! Call your Senator and urge her/him to say “YES” to public schools and “NO” to vouchers.
You can finds phone numbers and email addresses for your Senator and Representative at www.capitol.state.tx.us. When you get to the site, look to the left and click “Members”. By the way, the volume of calls does count. It is helpful if you engage your business community, civic clubs, chamber of commerce, and other groups in the action!!
SCHOOL FINANCE
Occasionally someone might ask you, “What are you all doing with all of the school property taxes that I am paying?” No taxpayer seems to realize that not every penny of school taxes collected pays for schools in that community. Some are also unaware that as property values rise, state contribution to public education decreases. Taxparency Texas provides timely information and an excellent brief video to educate your staff and community about school finance issues. Just click this link http://www.taxparencytexas.org/ for more information and to view the video. The video is found under the headline Why Taxparency Texas?
CORNY JOKE OF THE DAY:
Why are batteries lonely? (Scroll down for the answer.)
Because they are never included in things!
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