One of the main reasons we live in Hershey is the supposedly superior school system here: high test scores; excellent facilities; a good percentage of kids going on to good colleges and universities; fantastic teachers. So here we are, paying the big tax dollars to make sure our kids get a good public school education, and BAM! We get hit three times in one day with some of the worst examples of spelling, grammar and punctuation I've ever seen --
FROM THE SCHOOL DISTRICT AND PTO.The official school calendar (embarrassing snippet from the cover shown above) demonstrates that educators in Hershey are no better than demonstrators in Kennebunkport at punctuating "its" properly.
And if that weren't bad enough, the elementary school's PTO newsletter appeared the same day with a letter from the administrators of the three elementary levels. It was entitled:
"Letter From the Principles." And if
THAT weren't bad enough, the letter stresses the importance of writing:
The next step is to move into the area of writing and our focus this year will be on enhancing our understanding of the strategies to teach the six traits of quality writing as well as implementing a new program called Framing Your Thoughts, which is a systematic and explicit approach to teaching the craft of writing quality sentences and paragraphs."I'm not sure I've ever seen a worse sentence. Ever. It does not give me hope that my children will be learning how to write well in this school district. And if it's this bad in an acclaimed school system, how bad is the writing elsewhere?
I should really shoulder the blame for this. Poking fun at people in Maine and their signs -- it just beckoned karma to Hershey.
