Morning Metro: Atlantic Station to Ban Smoking, W. Parkwood Break-Ins, and Good Students Doing Drugs
Decatur Metro | June 11, 2012
- Atlantic Station to ban smoking after asking Facebook [AJC]
- “Rash of break-ins” around West Parkwood over weekend [EastLake]
- Southwest Atlanta Beltline T-SPLOST transit project [Atlanta Beltline]
- 8 swans killed in Gwinnett County subdivision [AJC]
- Gov. Deal freezes gas tax [11alive]
- The risky rise of the “good grade pill” [NYT]
Map of Beltline transit projects courtesy of Beltline Blog
Latest from Decaturish
The governor prevents a less-than-a-penny per gallon increase, but supports a penny-per dollar sales tax increase (TSPLOST). Somebody please explain to me the rationale here.
There’s no rationale – he’s a politician. BTW, since we have the lowest gas taxes in the country, howcum gas in neighboring South Carolina can be 10 cents a gallon cheaper?
Gasoline sales would be exempt from the T-SPLOST — 48-8-241(d)(3). Explanation? Lose the exurbs; hand over the Gold Dome.
“Gasoline sales would be exempt from the T-SPLOST ”
Thanks for that info…it may have just clinched my “no” vote.
Agreed Brianc. I have all along been of the opinion that the transit infrastructure issues should be funded through an increase (not decrease) in the gas tax. I know that’s not popular but it spreads out the pain.
Kyle Wingfield had a great comment on the AJC blog the other day (although i’m generally not in agreement with all that he says):
“So, maybe the questions we ought to ask ourselves are not how much to spend, and where, but whether we can afford to subsidize people’s choices to live far from work — and, if so, whether there’s a cheaper and smarter way to do that.”
http://blogs.ajc.com/kyle-wingfield/2012/05/24/t-splost-is-traffic-really-a-problem-in-atlanta/?cxntfid=blogs_kyle_wingfield
There was an forced break-in in the 600 block of Sycamore Dr. (near Fairview) this AM. Detials are sketchy, so please wait for the official report, but the owner may have walked in on it in progress. The perp fled.
Listen to Deputy Police Chief Keith Lee give some tips and a contractor offer some reinforcement products at http://bit.ly/DHcrimeSeminar
Re “Good students doing drugs”: Boy has life changed. I remember when parents would be shocked that good students were doing recreational drugs, not realizing that good grades ≠ legal behavior! Now, developing teens are taking drugs to get those good grades. The NYT article is excellent at explaining the root of the problem–the emphasis by some on success vs. the academic process and learning that leads to success, and the naivete of many teens. This is a real phenomenon, even here in CSD where we are probably better than many public schools at emphasizing true learning over artificial benchmarks that can be manipulated. One of my children has asked about whether ADHD medication would help grades. I was surprised and thought it was because it is no longer a stigma to talk about ADHD and medication. Now I realize that some students see ADHD drugs as study aids. They think the reluctance of parents and doctors to provide them is like not letting them drink coffee or pierce their ears. In reality, there’s potential for medical harm if they do not truly need them. And it’s a shame if some students and parents think that an ADHD diagnosis will help them with standardized tests by giving the “extended time” (an ADHD accomodation). My research contacts in the field tell me that the extra time will not benefit students who do not really need it–in fact, they may overthink things and start second guessing themselves. It only benefits those students who have ADHD deficits.
The Times has been hitting home runs lately. There was a great article a couple of weeks ago about tax credits for students attending independent schools and how the program is being abused. The piece in yesterday’s magazine about sexual predators at Horace Mann Shool in NYC was a fine piece of reporting.
Wow, amazing story. Thanks for pointing me to it. More than just lurid, but really trying to understand the times and the culture that allowed predators to prevail at such a good school. I’ve known folks who attended Horace Mann during the described time period. It wasn’t just an elite prep school for pampered children of the wealthy but a NYC institution with wide influence. Incredible that it was just a short time ago that neither students nor staff felt they could speak up against academic authority figures who were preying on children.
Can you clarify the “predators” comment?
If you’ll just read the article, I don’t think any clarification will be necessary…
You can read it here…
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/magazine/the-horace-mann-schools-secret-history-of-sexual-abuse.html?pagewanted=all
Oh, I did. I guess the point I was trying to draw out is that the problem is attributable to far more than the middlemen (kids) distributing the drugs in school. IMO, the real predators are the pharmy companies and the “doctors” who bill hourly consultation rates under the guise of selling drugs.
Excuse me, that should read << "doctors selling drugs under the guise of diagnosing "medical conditions," all while billing hourly rates.
Sorry, I'm a little slow today. Forgot to take my adderall
Joe, there are two articles in the discussion here. The “predator” comment was made in reference to the article about sexual abuse by faculty at the Horace Mann school in New York, not about the “drugs” article. Sexual predators…
Glad to see that you misunderstood which article AHID was talking about. If you really needed clarification after reading the Horace Mann piece I was going to be pretty damn worried about you, Joe
Of course, this comes from a Penn State grad who has been following the opening of the Jerry Sandusky trial all day
Gotta get on my soapbox for a minute.
Frankly, I don’t see Decatur High as immune to this problem at all. I have a very open teen boy (as teen boys go) and am very aware of the fact that ADHD meds are being passed around at DHS as “study aides” (along with other drugs). The problem is that a couple of kids start doing it, then others think they are at a disadvantage so they start in on it too.
Summer is too short here for high schoolers to get involved in meaningful jobs/ internships/programs and still fit in any family time for vacations, much less a significant amount of time just relaxing.
Also, many kids who do sports or extracurricular activities at DHS feel that they can’t go on family trips on all of the so called “school breaks” because they are pressured to attend practices or games that are scheduled even though the week is supposed to be off. Add to that assignments that are often handed out over the breaks, and the weeks off really aren’t the wonderful “rest time” that CSD intended… at least not for the students… maybe for teachers.
In addition, DHS students not only have their AP and substantial summer reading loads and projects (to get done in 8 weeks rather than a full summer), but now they have sophomore and senior projects to work on in June and July. It seems like we could get the curriculum done in the 180 days that are available… kind of like they used to do when I was in school.
Maybe I’m going to be raising a bunch of slackers, but I think teens need a little down time when they aren’t thinking about an assignment, big game, test, project, etc. That time used to be summer when I was in high school. Somehow I managed to relax and enjoy my summers/school breaks but still get into a competitive college and eventually become a lawyer…… without the use of amphetamines to get the work done.
On a side note, I dropped one of my girls off for sleepover camp this past weekend. At the nurse check-in stand, I was amazed that probably more than half of the kids were checking in meds. I have a sickening feeling that most of them were ADD meds (I hope not), and this concerns me.
Am I just showing my age or laziness, or have times changed so much that schools have to impose constant rigor to the point where kids are drugging themselves just to keep up? What does this mean for these kids and our society when they are all adults?
When dropping off my kids at sleepover camps, it’s looked like about 1/3 of campers were in the nurse line, with about 1/2 of the medication drop-offs being for ADHD meds and the other half for asthma. Life in the 21st Century. It’s scarey if DHS kids are passing around prescription DEA-controlled ADHD meds as though they are study aides. Not only can they cause physical side effects, give a false sense of academic security, feed into tendencies towards drug abuse and overdependence, but the sharing could result in arrests and convictions for illegal drug dealing. I do know that teens and preteens are talking about them.
One more repeated chat to have with the kids as they grow–do not share hats, combs, brushes or pillows, stay with a buddy when walking around town, no trick or treating over age 12, no parties in the back of elementary schools, roam but let your parents know where you are, leave any event where you feel uncomfortable, call your parents if the police or legal system want to question you, and do not share or take any kind of medication from anyone but authorized adults, no matter what they claim.
Haven’t you figured it out?
Our society values productivity over life.
Look around. The signs are everywhere.
Ecosystems are collapsing.
A vast % of the population is now on psychtropic medication.
Our minds are bombarded by absurd corporate, scientific, political, religious messages/marketing/advertising/nonsense thousands of times a day.
All these powerful interests keep us all confused to maintain power.
Adults barely understand how thier minds work with this onslaught/deluge of information/mis-information.
My gosh, can you imagine how a child copes?
I’m sorry you are seeing what you are seeing at DHS but is it really that suprising?
This will never change until children are taught how to think, not what to think.
We have entered a new age. The culural period of the Renaissance created tranformatoin of the way people thought about everything…. politics religion, science, intellectualism, etc. This period lasted almost 500 years. I was recently reading that we are going through the same type of radical transformation…however instead of 500 years its happening in about 30 YEARS.
Can you say future shock?
You wonder why people are drugged up, you hear about mass killings all the time, we are killing the planet before our own eyes and people can’t even see it because they are so confused.
Its no wonder kids are on pharmaceutical drugs to cope.
Perhaps our generation is addicted to thinking and now our thinking has run seriously amok. Teach a kid about his mind and the tricks it plays. Let him notice the endless cycles of thinking his mind gets trapped in. Teach him how his mind works so he can become clear.
Seeing how this state loves to drive, It’s a surprise that anyone is complaining about commute times. We’re on the road to nowhere.