Portsmouth

Justin Williams

Engl 621

Meeting story exercise

·      Students will have a different punishment

·      Might have to go to saurday detention

·      Hope to stop students from smoking in school

Intro

Students may be facing a new punishment for violating school policies, after Tim Steele, a member of the school board, made a motion requiring students who have disciplinary problems during the week to attend a Saturday morning session. 

This would be a very big change, as the previous punishment was the student sitting in a classroom with a teacher all day during the week.  Because this is such a big change, there have been some negative responses. 

                                    Negative responses

“I work six days a week and it’s bad enough to get my son off to school Monday through Friday.  Why should I have to worry about Saturday as well?” says parent Peggy Bacon. 

Another voice came from senior Lisa Gallagher, who opposed this plan.  “I think it’s just being done to make life easier for the faculty, so they don’t have to deal with detentions during the week.”

                                                Specifics

The session would run from 8 a.m. until noon several weekends during the year.  Besides parents having to worry about getting their children to this session, another problem they face is the session requiring $3000 per year, thus increasing taxes. 

                                    Support

While this plan was unpopular with some of the parents, Steele saw potential to stop students from breaking school policies, most notably smoking in the bathrooms.  “I know this isn’t good news for parents, but I hope the threat of Saturday classes will make the students think twice before breaking the school rules.” 

Another supporting opinion came from resident Bab Farley of 64 Elm St.  “Parents aren’t teaching their kids any discipline, so the kids have no respect for rules.  Maybe if they miss a few Saturday morning cartoons they’ll start wising up.”

Steele then reiterated how the only reason he is proposing this is to stop the issue of smoking on school property

                                                Result

In the end, no decision was made at the board meeting where all this discussion was taking place.  The board voted 5-3 to table the issue until next meeting.  During that meeting, Steele will have to had to come up with figures on in-school detentions so far this year.   

  

Notes

After looking through my text book, I have been realizing things I have to either start doing or get better at. One thing I realize that I really need to improve on is note taking. While doing interviews I do take notes, but they are not very useful. Its mostly me just writing down one word about a certain topic. I mostly rely on recording with my iPhone. While this ensures I always have exactly what they said, it takes a long time to find certain quotes to put in my story. It would be much easier if I were able to jot down the main points and even quotes so I can just look at a few pieces of paper instead of rewinding and fast forwarding a 5 minute interview. Based off the examples in the textbook, I know what I should be doing, now I just have to find a way to do it myself.

Federal Shutdown

The biggest story right now is obviously the shut down of the government. This is being reported in multiple ways. Some people are blaming others, some people are writing about the final fall outs, and some are just reporting how this is going to effect workers. An article in the Boston Globe touches on that subject, saying how many workers are now being furloughed. The article mentions how many people came into work today in MA not being sure if they would have work. To their disappointment, many people were turned away, and told to go home without pay. On place the article focused on particular was the John F. Kennedy Library, which has been shut down until further notice. The article began with a group of French travelers on vacation who were turned away from the library, thus effecting their plans. As many articles in the Boston Globe do, I really enjoyed this one because it only focused on the problem, and not what caused it or who is to blame. The purpose of this article was to let the country know just what kind of effect this shut down will have, and the consequences of it.

Hardest Week

Last week, I think I can say I experienced one of the hardest and most stressful weeks of my college career. I feel like I truly got to experience what it is like being a reporter. I was able to get 5 interviews done in 2 days, and it was not easy. Almost every person I asked told me to come back some other time for an interview, meaning I had to schedule that time around my classes and other interviews. By Tuesday afternoon I was running around Main Street trying to get all those interviews done. Thankfully, I was able to get them all. What also really helped was that the people I asked for an interview were willing to do one, just not at the time I originally asked them. The one person that gave me a hard time was a cook at one of the restaurants who clearly did not want to do an interview, but would not just say it. He kept making the excuse to come back when he had more time, even though the place was completely empty. Maybe he really was busy, but he sure did not look like he was overrun. When I finally did get the interviews done, it was time to write the story, which proved much harder than I thought. In the end though, I was able to get the story done, and use all my sources. While it was not easy, I think that was the most experience I have gotten so far in journalism.