Speak Out 3/18/16

Council giving

money away

After reading about the Eight Points debacle and now the NewWave cluster, maybe the Poplar Bluff City council should consider hiring some one to negotiate their contracts. Who in the world would agree to guarantee a company 12000 customers with a population of 18000. If the council reads your paper they should know that by virtue poor Internet and cable service as well as poor customer service they probably lost about a third or more of the customers they had when they sold the cable company to them. If the council has any more money to give away, I could use a few extra dollars. I realize with your agenda you will not be able to print this but at least I had my say.

Comparing PB

to N'ville schools

In the Tuesday, Feb. 23 edition of the DAR it was stated on the front page that "schools from across the state are interested in learning what Neelyville is doing right." If my memory serves me correctly, I think I have read in different articles where Neelyville test scores were the highest in the area, and in a separate article that Poplar Bluff scores were below the state average.

Having been employed in both districts, I can easily see what Neelyville is doing right. And what Poplar Bluff is not doing. Perhaps it should be the other way around -- what is Neelyville NOT doing and what IS Poplar Bluff doing? Neelyville does NOT have Macbooks where the students can watch videos when the teachers turn their heads. Neelyville does NOT allow students to have cell phones out at anytimes. Neelyville does NOT let its students walk around with "ear buds" in their ears listening to music, NOR are they allowed to listen to music during class. Needless to say, Neelyville students do NOT spend 15 minutes per hour programming their electronic devices with songs they want to listen to that hour. You do NOT see Neelyville students walking around with sodas and a big bag of chips all day eating and drinking in class.

Neelyville has Tiger Time. Poplar Bluff has advisory hour. Basically the same thing. At Neelyville you do NOT see students spending that time texting, watching videos, shopping and facebooking. Most of them are doing school work.

Neelyville staff and administration does NOT have any tolerance for students being disrepectful, rude, or causing interruptions in class.

What is Neelyville doing right? It's what they're NOT doing that is right. Poplar Bluff is so proud of all their expensive technology. But it is totally mis-used and until someone wakes up and takes control, their test scores will continually go down.

Congratulations to the Neelyville School. Keep NOT doing what you are NOT doing. Just maybe other schools will learn from you and start NOT doing it.

DAR print

is too small

Why is the newspaper print so small? I need a magnifying glass to read it. Horrible! Horrible!