The 10th Annual St. Louis Public Schools’ Art Fair will be held February 25th through March 11that the Saint Louis Zoo. The Art Exhibit is free and open to the public. This district-wide art competition is a cross-curricular, research-based project concerning animals in their natural environment in which the visual arts are connected with science, social studies, and communication arts. 

The 10th Annual St. Louis Public Schools’ Art Fair will be held February 25 through March 11 at the Saint Louis Zoo. The Art Exhibit is free and open to the public. This district-wide art competition is a cross-curricular, research-based project concerning animals in their natural environment in which the visual arts are connected with science, social studies, and communication arts.  
 

My son, a seventh-grader, loves the first one or two snow days of the year. There’s the anticipation of not knowing if there will be school or not. Then once the district calls to confirm there’s no school, there’s the relaxation of knowing that he can sleep in.  

When I was a kid, I was, shall we say, sports challenged. You name the sport, I was bad at it. Soccer was about the only one I felt remotely confident playing. It’s a straightforward game — get the ball into the opponent’s goal. And it didn’t require the ability to keep the ball in the air or get it through a hoop.

Perhaps that’s why soccer is considered the world’s sport. People around the globe love to play soccer.

Seven years ago, soccer enthusiasts Tom Michler, Tim Tettambel, and Tom McCarthy started New Dimensions, a non-profit organization to help kids play. Many of the kids who participate are refugees from other countries, but everyone is welcome. The organization is 100 percent volunteer and participation is free or low-cost.

In first grade, Mrs. Thorne played a ‘red hot’ game. Using a film strip projector, she would display a word, then call a name. If that person could correctly read the word the prize was a red hot. I rocked that game, but not because of the prize factor. I was just an early reader who reaped the benefits of the booty. I don’t remember how others did with it; I was too busy reading Ramona the Brave in between turns and chomping red hots to notice.

My son is a very laid-back kind of kid and not much gets him riled up. But there is one time of year that turns him into a three-headed monster, and that’s financial aid form time.

For some reason, the folks who put this together want to make you love your life 10 minutes ago. You think you’re finished with lengthy  complicated forms just because you filed your taxes? Un-uh. Welcome to the world of FAFSA.

President Obama and the U.S. Department of Education announced a new grant designed to help the 5,000 lowest-performing schools over the next five years. A fund of $900 million has been earmarked for the program, called a "school turnaround grant." The administration has committed $3.5 billion in federal support for underperforming schools, taking new measures to reverse trends in schools with graduation rates below 60 percent. According to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Missouri’s graduation rate is 85 percent. St. Louis City Schools have a combined graduation rate of 45.9 percent. (Individual county school district graduation rates can be found at http://dese.mo.gov/schooldata/school_data.html.)