2
Monday, February 19,1996
School Board Considers
Year-Round Program
I A large percentage of
parents said they favor
year-round schooling.
BY RICHARD RAY
STAFF WRITER
The Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of
Education discussed the possibility of year
round schooling Thursday at its annual
planning conference.
Year-round schools could appear in the
district by the 1997-98 school year.
In January, Superintendent Neil
Pedersen sent a survey to 900 elementary
and middle school families. Of the 377
respondents, 79.5 percent said a year-round
calendar should be an option in the district.
“A majority of parents at both the el
ementary and middle school level indicate
that they would be interested in having
their children attend a year-round school, ”
Pedersen said. “Such a strong response
suggests to me that we need to move for
ward with providing a year-round calen
dar option in the very near future.”
Pedersen said the board must first de
cide whether year-round schools will be
used for capacity reasons or educational
reasons.
In a single-track model, students would
all have the same schedule, with a shorter
summer vacation and more frequent breaks
during the year.
“A common schedule is for students to
attend school for nine weeks and then be
off for three weeks,” Pedersen said. “Dur
ing these breaks, known as intersessions,
schools typically offer remedial or enrich
ment programs.”
To decrease overcrowding with year
round schooling requires a multi-track
schedule. This would divide students into
two schedules; half would be in school at a
time while the rest are on vacation.
Pedersen suggested several options for
designating year-round schools by the tar
get date of 1997-98. These included pairing
two elementary and middle schools and
declaring one of each year-round and the
other traditional. Parents could then choose
which of the two schools to send their
children to.
Otheroptions include creating a “school
within-a-school” to give parents the choice
Officials Deem Scuttlebutt Unsafe;
Campus Store Closes Indefinitely
BY CHANTIELD. SMITH
STAFF WRITTR
The fate of the Scuttlebutt, a small snack
shop on the comer of South Columbia
Street and Cameron Avenue, was still up
in the air, said John Jones, director of
UNC Student Stores. Jones said Student
Stores had considered renovating the
Scuttlebutt, which was closed in April be
cause it was declared unsafe.
The cost of repairs was tremendous,
Jones said. Constructing anew building on
the site was also a possibility but immedi
ate decisions have not been made.
“We went in to do renovations and
started finding more and more problems. It
|k Jll^gyg
unti -iffrffTr W
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Rondell McKoy, Eric Hobbes, Dante Byrd, and Chris Isaac compete in the spades tournament in the Great Hall on Sunday.
The event sponsored by Alpha Phi Alpha, Inc., raised about SSO for scholarships.
Visiting Students Take Win in Alpha Phi Alpha Spades Tourney
■ N.C. Agricultural and
Technological University
team wins SIOO prize.
BY MELISSA STEELE
ASSISTANT FEATURES EDITOR
The Great Hall was fairly quiet on Sun
day afternoon except for the sound of
cards shuffling and slapping on the tables.
The contestants in the third annual Al
pha Phi Alpha, Inc. Spades Tournament
seemed to take their games seriously, but it
was the players with the best strategies
who made it to the championship game.
In the tournament there were nine teams
of two players, fewer contestants than in
years past. Malcolm Logan, vice president
“Such a strong response
suggests to me that we need to
move forward with providing
a year-round calendar option
in the very near future. ”
NEIL PEDERSON
Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools
Superintendent
of traditional or year-round options at the
samesite, or automatically designating new
schools as year-round.
Pedersen said the board could also set
specific criteria for making a school year
round. “For example, if 65 percent of the
parents and staff vote to convert to a year
round calendar, the board would approve, ”
he said. “Parents would be allowed to
transfer in or out, but transportation would
not be provided.”
Respondents to the survey indicated
that the greatest advantages of a year-round
schedule are continuity, increased energy
because of frequent breaks and the oppor
tunity for intersession enrichment. The
three major disadvantages are having chil
dren on different academic calendars, re
stricting opportunities for traditional sum
mer activities and problems with child care
during breaks.
School board member Ken Touw said
child care programs were cheapest during
the summer because college students were
available.
Board members agreed that creating an
option for year-round education is impor
tant. After discussing the issue, however,
the board decided to wait and see if any
schools volunteer for a year-round sched
ule. The board will continue to gather
more information on the subject.
“I think we need additional informa
tion before we can move forward,” board
Chairman Mark Royster said. “Our deci
sion is limited because we don’t have
enough information ourselves.”
The board’s planning conference took
place at the Friday Center Feb. 15 and 16.
The annual meeting brings the board to
gether with principals,teacher organiza
tion presidents and others to review major
issues facing the district.
was not wise to continue the renovations, ”
said James Powell, controller of Student
Stores. “It needed serious upgrading.”
Gregory Morton, assistant director of
Student Stores, said he did not know what
course of action Student Stores would pur
sue with respect to the building. “We’re in
limbo,” he said.
He said Student Storeshadtogo through
the facilities planning division of Physical
Plant before any plans could be finalized.
However, Claude V. King m, the facil
ity elect engineer of Physical Plant, said
“The ball is in (Student Stores’) court.”
The cost to reopen the Scuttlebutt was
estimated to be between $125,000 and
$200,000.
and service chairman of Alpha Phi Alpha,
Inc., organized the event as a service project
and said the numbers were lower this year
because not enough people pre-registered
to be in the tournament.
"We usually have seven, eight, maybe
10 pre-registered teams,” he said.
The tournament was sponsored, in part,
by the U.S. Playing Card Company and
the profits will go toward scholarships.
However, with the SIOO prize fee taken out
of the fund, Logan, who is a senior from
College Park, Md., guessed that they had
only grossed about SSO from the registra
tion fees.
According to the official rules for the
tournament, “each game was attended by
a monitor who was schooled in the rules. ’’
The monitors, who were members of the
fraternity, prevented cheating and acted as
scorekeepers.
UNIVERSITY & CITY
Community Outreach Vital Part of NAACP
■ BCC Director Gerald
Horne said the NAACP must
build on past lessons.
BY JENNIFER FULLER
STAFF WRITER
The NAACP’s past, present and future
were addressed by Gerald Home, UNC
professor and new director of the Sonja
Haynes Stone Black Cultural Center, as
part of a Black History Month celebration
Saturday morning.
Home spoke to a group of about 30
people at the Hargraves Community Cen
ter, in a lecture entitled “The Legacy of
W.E.B. Dubois: Is the NAACP Relevant
to the 21st Century America?”
“I think it is appropriate to ask what we
can learn from the NAACP,” Home said.
Much of Home’s lecture focused on the
early African-American leader who helped
found the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People in 1909
before being ousted from the organization
in 1948. Home stressed Dubois’ interest in
international concerns as an important fac
tor in the survival of today’s NAACP.
“I think Dubois recognized through his
life that we must also focus on what is
going on in the world,” he said.
Home said global changes cannot be
ignored because they are bound to affect all
of us, especially economically. He added
that many of the advancements in minor
ity rights came about in this country be
cause of international scrutiny.
Just as important as global awareness to
the NAACP’s future is its continued com
mitment to the grassroots support of work
ing-class people.
Home said it was vital that the local
branch remain involved in the fights of the
Black Public Works Association and the
UNC Housekeepers’ Association.
“The struggle for freedom has never
been easy, not in 1909, not in 1996 nor will
it be in 2001,” Home said. “Ithinkwewill
do quite well to follow his (Dubois’) path. ”
Home’s lecture attracted people from
various backgrounds.
For Da McMillian, minister of the Faith
Tabernacle Oasis ofLove Church in Chapel
Hill, hearing the lecture related to her ef
forts of trying to bring the community
together. “I’m trying to join in and be a part
of what’s going on in the community.”
Home’s message about the importance
of community, particularly that of work-
Officials at Student Stores said they
were hesitant about reopening the Scuttle
butt because there was no guarantee that
the money invested in making the repairs
would be returned in the form of profits.
Since the closing of the Scuttlebutt, the
main source of snacks and supplies in the
area has been Blue Ram, a snack shop
located in the Campus Y building.
Betty Degraffenried, a worker at the
Blue Ram, said it had not received an
increase in business since the closing of the
Scuttlebutt. The majority of the
Scuttlebutt’s customers were those who
had classes in the buildings stirrounding it
or lived in Fraternity Court across the
street.
Several of the members who were watch
ing and monitoring the games said they
chose spades over any other card game
because it was so popular among college
students.
“(Spades) is for entertainment,” said
member Terms Dolby, a senior from Char
lotte. “But it’s a communal game, one
where people come together.
“Spades, man, it’s culture,” he said.
The nine teams played games against
each other and after weeding out a few of
the teams, quarterfinal games were held,
followed by semifinals.
In the filial game, Eric Hobbs, a senior
from Charlotte, and Chris Isaac, a senior
from High Point, were matched against
Nesby Stanley, a senior from N.C. Agri
cultural and Technical State University,
and Korie Mathews, also a senior from
N.C. A&T.
'
DTH/SIMONE LUECK
Gerald Horne addresses Chapel Hill and Carrboro community residents Saturday at the Hargraves Center.
Horne discussed the growing importance of the NAACP.
ing-class people, also interested Elizabeth
McLaughlin, a first-year law student at
UNC who is involved with the housekeep
Group Says Inefficient Programs Should Be Cut
BY KATE HARRISON
STAFF WRITER
The U .S. Public Interest Research Group .
and Concord Coalition released a report
detailing a possible $38.8 billion Cut hi
government spending on inefficient and
environmentally harmful programs.
The report, “Green Scissors ‘96, Cut
ting Wasteful and Environmentally Harm
ful Spending and Subsidies," targets over
47 programs which receive the most outra
geous government funding and seeks to cut
theirtaxpayer support, saidArronMansika,
US PIRG campaign director.
“At a time when the budget is in such
limelight and Congress is trying to cut
programs that everyone cares about like
the Environmental Protection Agency and
Medicare, we found ways to cut the ineffi
cient and wasteful programs,” he said.
One such program is the North Caro
Superstition may have played a part in
Stanley and Mathews’ luck because they
brought the same chain with them to every
table at which they played throughout the
tournament.
“We’re not trying to change anything,”
Mathews said. He and his teammate
seemed to be confident in their playing
abilities. They discussed how and when
they would cash the SIOO check that they
planned to win from the tournament be
fore the final game even began.
According to Logan, during the final
game the score got to a point where the
outcome was obvious.
“After it was established that the losing
team had no way of winning, they threw in
their cards,” Logan said. Mathews and
Stanley predicted the future correctly. They
won the game and earned $ 100 to show for
it.
ers’ movement on campus.
“I think that it’s really important for
students to understand what’s going on in
lina timber subsidies programs. Compa
nies build roads through the forests they
are timbering, sell timber at prices below,
. r costs,?undro,c?iyegpyOT-..
ment subsidies to pay the difference.
North Carolina taxpayers lost $2.6 mil
lion making up the companies’ losses in
1994 and $2.3 million in 1993, according
to the General Accounting Office.
Other targeted programs include the
1872 Mining Act, a handout to the mining
industry which costs taxpayers $1 billion
and the Market Promotion Program, a
giveaway to pollutive companies like
Pillsbury and Sunkist for overseas adver
tising which costs taxpayers $550 million
the report stated.
“Of course, we get lots of opposition to
these cuts from the companies,” Mansika
said. “It means big money for them, so
they adamantly try to develop reasons they
need the funding and initiate big lobbying
Radio Duo Offers Scholarship
■ The money from deejays
John Boy and Billy will go to
journalism students.
BY REINO MAKKONEN
STAFF WRITER
John Boy and Billy, the stars of
Charlotte’s most popular radio show, will
be funding two $2,500 scholarships in
UNC’s School of Journalism and Mass
Communication beginning April 15.
The awards will go to students in the
journalism school’s electronic communi
cation sequence who have an interest in
radio.
“We broadcast across the Southeast
now, but North Carolina has always been
home to us,” said Ed Lowe, CEO of John
Boy and Billy Inc. “That’swhy wedecided
to go with the school in our own state
where our flagship station (WRFX in Char
lotte) is located. All in all, we’ve been
pretty fortunate in what we do, so we
wanted to give others an opportunity.”
Planning for the scholarships began in
January when hosts Billy James and Johnny
Frank Isley proposed the idea to Lowe,
who then contacted the journalism school’s
Director of Development Paul Gardner.
"First of all, I knew that neither one of
them had gone to school here, so I was
surprised that they called just out of the
blue,” Gardnersaid. “Usually, people who
contribute here are alumni orpeople whom
STIPEND
FROM PAGE 1
Hall, whele he earns S3OO per month. “I
cannot afford to be student body president
without a stipend because you don’t have
time to work,” Nelson said.
Nelson said being paid a stipend of
$2,400 a year calculates out to less than
two hours a day at minimum wage. “I can
promise I’ll be putting in more than two
hours a day,” he said.
Speaker Roy Granato, who withdrew
his request for a S6OO stipend last fall, said
a stipend would allow qualified congress
members to afford to ran for his office.
(Sift Daily (Ear Hpfl
our community,” McLaughlin said. “The
housekeepers are a part of our commu
nity.”
efforts to try to stop the reductions.”.
US PIRG and the Friends of the Earth
company successfully fought to eliminate
many of the programs targeted in last year’s
Green Scissors report, such as the gas
cooled nuclear reactor program and the
selling of public lands for $5 or less to the
mining industry.
Though Congresshasnotyetresponded
to the new report, the groups expect a
response as soon as the report has had time
to circulate.
Last year’s report gained wide support,
and its authors received “Dear Colleague”
letters of support from 15 Democratic and
13 Republican members of the House of
Representatives, Mansika said.
“Our goals of reducing the federal defi
cit and protecting the environment our
really nonpartisan issues,” Mansika said.
“Both parties of Congress have been very
supportive.”
we’ve had some kind of previous relation
ship with. They knew that we have a good
electronic communication program,
though, so they got in touch with us.”
Lowe and Gardner met several times,
finally agreeing upon the annual $5,000
contribution. Student recipients will also
be offered an unpaid summer internship at
“The John Boy and Billy Big Show.”
“We felt like (the internships) were a
nice fit,” Lowe said. “(Interns) will get
hands-on experience with the daily work
ings of a syndicated radio show.”
The two scholarships will be awarded
annually for the next 10 years.
Dean Richard Cole said he wanted the
relationship to last beyond the next de
cade.
“We hope that it goes on forever, and
they give us a lot more money,” Cole said.
The first awards will be given April 15at
the journalism school’s annual honors
lunch, and both James and Isley have been
invited to speak.
“I grew up in Graham a big Tar Heels
fan,” Isley said. “Security guards used to
chase me off of campus, andnowl’m being
invited to campus."
John Boy and Billy have recorded seven
albums since beginning their partnership
at WBCY in Charlotte about 15 years ago.
Their morning broadcasts consist of a vari
ety of characters, including The Reverend
and Goober, Murray the agent and Mad
Max, as well as conversations about such
topics as NASCAR and “The Andy Griffith
Show.”
“People who normally could be run
ning for speaker opt out because of the
expenses,” he said.
Granato said he withdrew his request
Oct. 11 because his request violated the
Student Code.
Finance Committee Chairwoman Julie
Gasperuu said congress members should
have no problem passing the stipend re
quests. “The appropriate time for a stipend
is during the spring budget process when
people are not in the position to vote on
their own pay,” she said.
“The thing we forget (is that) before, it
was general practice for people to take a
stipend.”