• About Us
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Pickem Terms and Conditions
Sunday, February 5, 2023
The Platte County Landmark Newspaper
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Pickem!
    • Weekly Pickem Updates
    • Results by Week
    • The Leaderboard
    • Pickem Rules and Help
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
  • es_MXSpanish
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Pickem!
    • Weekly Pickem Updates
    • Results by Week
    • The Leaderboard
    • Pickem Rules and Help
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
  • es_MXSpanish
No Result
View All Result
The Platte County Landmark Newspaper
No Result
View All Result

Reconnect and recharge Thanksgivings,

Guy Speckman by Guy Speckman
November 18, 2021
in Ponder the Thought
Reconnect
4
SHARES
107
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare via Email

Last week, the Kansas City School District decided to give staff and students a longer Thanksgiving break. The school approved a plan to cancel classes on Monday and Tuesday to go with the Wednesday through Friday already planned, lengthening the Thanksgiving holiday to an entire week off. The superintendent indicated that he hoped this change will give everyone more time during a season where “many of us look forward to reconnecting and recharging.”

What? This is what drives most standard working and taxpayers crazy about public education. This underperforming institution decides time off is somehow beneficial to the mission. It’s simply a silly, self-serving decision disguised as some type of “lofty” ideals of “reconnecting.” Just to cover themselves, they are offering “free” childcare to those parents that can’t just decide to lengthen their break like the staff of the Kansas City School District did.

RelatedNews

Chiefs reality, Josh Hawley cringe

Ankles, schools and column etiquette

Airport power ports, urinals and restaurants

“Free” is also a code word to the rest of us who are not in public education, that we are probably paying for the “free” part.

Mental toughness has given way to mental weakness. Less work, less results and more colorful press releases that justify the decision to work less.


I’m sure there are plenty of other districts that have now made this move, or will shortly, so my scorn is directed at education in general, not just the Kansas City district. It’s an epidemic and not getting better.


This seems like a suitable time to tell you that the Kansas City School District ranked 504th out of 516 districts in the State of Missouri based on the rankings at moschoolrankings.org. I was not a math major, but this seems bad. The “GPA” score was a 1.0 on a 4.0 scale. I too, took some days off to earn a 1.00 GPA at times, so I’m not judging, but if you’re in a rut you might want to quit digging.


Foley has never once told me to take an extra day off after a crappy column.


Since I brought it up, this may be one of those crappy columns. Win some, you lose some. Probably take a couple of days off to “reconnect and recharge,” that should help.


Just looked up my high school. Plattsburg High ranked 377th out of 516th. That’s not great, but it seems like a good place to hang my lifetime of mediocracy excuse. Kind of feel like I overcame my position in life as the GPA for my high school is 1.7 and I was a solid 2.0+ student.


Please don’t email me your “teachers work so hard” anecdotal stories. My daughter is a teacher, I have other family that are teachers, many of my friends are teachers, I respect the work most of them do. Trust me, they’re not working any harder than most of the people in the world and the narrative that they outwork their pay is not supported by the facts of the number of people that continue to stay in and seek employment in teacher jobs.

(Guy Speckman can be reached at gspeckman@me.com or taking a few days off to recharge this column)

Guy Speckman

Guy Speckman

Guy Speckman is a Landmark contributing columnist with his Ponder the Thought column. Speckman is the former owner of the Savannah Reporter, where the column appeared for nearly two decades. Speckman is a former city government manager, serving as city administrator in Maysville, Plattsburg and Savannah before entering business. He is a graduate of Northwest Missouri State University (1989). He is originally from Plattsburg, Missouri. He and his wife own and operate a real estate valuation firm and a daily legal newspaper and are the parents of two grown children.

Related Posts

Downtown Platte City

Caution tape around downtown building

by Ivan Foley
February 3, 2023
0

Caution tape surrounds a commercial building at the northwest corner of Third and Main Streets in downtown Platte City. City officials say a few bricks at the top front of the vacant building had worked loose and fell to the...

KCI Airport

KC’s new airport ready to fly on Feb. 28

by Ivan Foley
February 3, 2023
0

FOUR-YEAR BUILDING PROJECT WILL SOON OPEN An opening date has been announced for Kansas City’s $1.54 billion new airport terminal, located in Platte County at the site of the existing KCI Airport. Kansas City officials this week the new airport...

First Watch is open at Tiffany Springs

First Watch is open at Tiffany Springs

by Ivan Foley
February 3, 2023
0

MAHOMES-OWNED WHATABURGER ALSO PLANNED A First Watch restaurant has opened at Tiffany Springs in Platte County. The new First Watch opened recently near the N. Ambassador/NW Skyview intersection at Tiffany Springs. The official address is 9021 N Ambassador Dr., Kansas...

Platte County Resource Center

Sheriff’s office planning to move out of Platte City

by Ivan Foley
February 3, 2023
0

New home may be resource center near KCI A plan is in the works that would move the Platte County Sheriff’s Department headquarters out of the county seat of Platte City. As exclusively reported last week by The Landmark, the...

Next Post
The Metaverse

The Metaverse

Popular News

  • Joe Vanover

    Vanover wins Sunshine Law trial

    15 shares
    Share 6 Tweet 4
  • Sheriff’s office planning to move out of Platte City

    11 shares
    Share 4 Tweet 3
  • KC’s new airport ready to fly on Feb. 28

    8 shares
    Share 3 Tweet 2
  • Culinary-inspired library planned at Green Hills

    98 shares
    Share 39 Tweet 25
  • Lawsuit claims toxic heavy metals in herbs and spices

    25 shares
    Share 10 Tweet 6
  • About Us
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Pickem Terms and Conditions
Call us at 816-858-0363

Copyright © 2019-2020 The Platte County Landmark Newspaper - All Rights Reserved

No Result
View All Result
  • Subscribe Online
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Pickem
    • Login / Sign-up
    • Results by Week
    • The Leaderboard
    • Pickem Rules and Help
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
  • es_MXSpanish

Copyright © 2019-2020 The Platte County Landmark Newspaper - All Rights Reserved