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It's nice when logic prevails on school board

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Tom Jackson

tjackson@tampatrib.com

Published: May 24, 2009

To decidedly little fanfare, considering the emotional run-up, Pasco County School Board members properly chose not to fix what was not broken at San Antonio Elementary School. Yay.

At issue was the cleverly named Coaches' Training Camp, a before- and after-school operation conducted by the school's entrepreneurial physical education teachers, J.J. Scaglione and Bobby Wade, previously partners in a landscape maintenance business.

Nearly 40 students regularly attended at least some portion of the program since it began last August, a number purposely limited by the school administration's decision not to promote, publicize or otherwise market the offering. And the parents were pleased, as evidenced by their warring over a plan to replace the coaches with the district's own extra-care program.

Happily, four of five school board members (Frank Parker demurred) voted with the San Antonio parents this week, laying down a marker in favor of experimentation and individual initiative among its faculty.

The board now should instruct Superintendent Heather Fiorentino and her staff to study other opportunities for entrepreneurial activity that benefits students and families. Let's see what might grow from the coaches' little acorn.

Dignified silence, please

The court got it about right in the sentencing of Jennifer Porter, the Land O' Lakes dance teacher infamous for fleeing the scene after her car struck four siblings crossing a Tampa street in 2004, killing two.

Absent evidence she was otherwise careless or malicious, Porter officially conceded to acting out of bad judgment, but saved the region the bitter, community-tearing theater of a trial in which skilled advocate Barry Cohen almost certainly would have turned the tables to blame the neighborhood where the accident occurred.

Alas, Porter's gambit for early release from probation suggests she still doesn't appreciate how good fortune smiled upon her in the first place; how deep run the poisonous suspicions, everywhere, that attractive white women routinely beat the system; and how sometimes it is best just to swallow your medicine in stoic, dignified silence.

Shame on Jennifer Porter for swiftly dismissing the agony she confessed to creating, and for disdaining the public's memory. Ordering her to serve out her sentence was right.

We pretty much knew this

As if it required quantifying, a poll administered by the insurance wing of financing giant GMAC finds that Florida drivers are just slightly smarter than gerbils on an exercise wheel. And that's just when it comes to answering questions on the typical driver's license exam.

What we put into practice once we're behind the wheel - tailgating, blowing red lights, texting and gabbing on cell phones, reading, performing advanced grooming, dawdling in the passing lane - adds up to misery spread thick across every paved patch in the state.

Makes a fellow long for urgency on the regional light-rail front. I'm all for an alternate mode of transportation that will get bad drivers out of their cars ... and leave the roads open for good drivers, like me.

Keyword: The Jax Files, for Tom Jackson's bonus insights.

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