And miraculously, the administration and teachers at HCE have made it a community. My daughter can walk down the hall and see all the moms and kids she has known since birth. She sees her teachers at the park. She is learning -- and learning to love learning. I don't want to give up this school, which is the glue that holds the Lakes together. But piece by piece, because of overcrowding, we are losing it.
We already have no art room, no music room, no PE area, no teacher's lounge. Classes are taught in closets and on the floor in the lobby. I believe that this may be the beginning of the end. Families who have held on for years are already looking for other schools -- out west. Teachers are looking for other jobs; and once they leave, HCE will no longer have its soul. HCE will become, once again, the school no one wants to go to -- and all the hard work of the staff, the parents, and, yes, the School Board will have been for nothing...
I am among the many concerned parents of Hollywood Central students who are hoping to keep our issues about critical overcrowding alive, that we may soon arrive at a solution that actually benefits the children of our community. It is extremely frustrating that after so many years and so many meetings, we have arrived, yet again, at Band-Aid options that the School Board offers instead of a true, comprehensive, long-term solution that puts education and the needs of the kids ahead of politics.
Why have the Hollywood mayor and the City Commission been allowed to focus on development with no interface regarding its impact on school overcrowding? What are their plans to act quickly to find land for a new school? HCE already has enough students to fill half a new school.
The School Board proposed some options for HCE, all of which seem to be intended to distract people from the true issue, which is that a new school needs to be built, immediately, in east Hollywood.
Melanie Rohrbach
Hollywood
Les' peddle the gov: Wow! Keep doing the Jeb Bush Farm Report Rants and tell him to try sounding like an auctioneer when he reads these things ("The Last Governor," Wyatt Olson, February 27). I do believe it will work, folks.
P.S. Houston can free Dallas with help from Denton and Fort Worth.
Jerry Boulware
via the Internet
The deluge: Bob Norman's piece on the Democratic Party ("The Jackass Whimpers," February 27) was dead-on. Keep on criticizing them. Makes them more irrelevant with each passing day.
Andy Alford
Columbia Falls, Montana
Democratic deceit: Right on, Bob. The Democrats have abandoned the peaceniks. The puerile fears of the peacenik are more important than the lives of the Iraqis that Saddam will murder. We know you can trust Saddam. He wouldn't lie. In their hearts, the Democrats haven't abandoned the peaceniks. The Dems love them. But the Dems love being elected more than anything. So principles out, practical politics in. It is political suicide to run on a platform of trusting Saddam not to give a terrorist a bucket of anthrax. Voters expect political leaders to want to protect them, and while this goes against the natural inclinations of the Dems, they so love being in power. So much for honesty, and so much for the Democrats. What else is new? Certainly not this.
Ralph Teetor
Boynton Beach
Bob as sayer of sooth: I grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where, after a 20-year dictatorship, we criticize and analyze everything. We trash our politicians and their ideas, and it does not make us less Brazilian. We disagree with this stupid war and most American foreign policies, but we keep eating at McDonald's and traveling to Orlando every June. Gas prices in Brazil have gone up 38 percent since Mr. American President started talking crazy.
It's frustrating to see otherwise smart people behave like they have been brainwashed. They don't see the big picture. "Freedom Fries"? When did everyone turn into a redneck? This war is good only for the people and companies that are going to make the billions that we taxpayers are going to spend. Maybe somehow it could be good for Israel, but I really think we are just stirring something that is very dangerous.
I am in this country legally, I pay taxes, I do volunteer work, and I even signal before I make a turn (more than you can say about 80 percent of people down here). But I don't feel entitled to express my opinions. That is because people tell me to go back home every time I talk against this stupid war.
Reading Bob Norman's columns makes me feel like someone understands. They make me want to understand and learn more. I send them to family and friends in Brazil who are pretty impressed, mostly because they thought everyone in America was brainwashed. Please keep kicking butt.
Chrystine Rocha
Fort Lauderdale