Coach Brown has suggested more than once that the editor of our local paper, the Ukiah Daily Journal seems to have a problem with the local school district. I haven't really agreed with him until now. This morning, I saw this blog posting from the editor entitled Wondering about UUSD policy.

I got a call from a single Mom who has two children, a kindergartner heading to first grade next year and a fourth grader heading to fifth grade. The two children both go to Frank Zeek School, which is not their neighborhood school. This woman got permission to put her kids into Frank Zeek (Nokomis is her neighborhood school according to UUSD) because she thought they would get a better education there and their father lives in the Frank Zeek neighborhood. The other day, this Mom got a letter from the principal of Frank Zeek saying that because her fourth grader had been absent from school four times in the past year and tardy 14 times, he was no longer welcome at Frank Zeek and that she would have to go register him at Nokomis next year. I understand she got a similar letter for her daughter who she admits had a tough kindergarten year tardiness wise, not wanting to go to a different school after a happy pre-school experience.

This woman lives in the neighborhood of the Grace Hudson School which she thinks would be a good place for her children, but was told by the administration there that her children would not be eligible to go because they do not speak Spanish. According to this Mom, she was told by the Grace Hudson School that kids going to that school must enter at kindergarten because of the immersion Spanish program which teaches English speakers to speak Spanish.

Apparently the waiting lists for local charter schools is long and her only option is to try for the lotteries at each school, which does not guarantee her children will go tot he same school.

Why doesn't she want her children at Nokomis? She says she knows that children there get bullied and beat up regularly and that the campus security is lax.

So, I am wondering:

• if it's true that only kindergartners or kids who already speak Spanish are allowed to enroll at Grace Hudson School even if they live in that neighborhood?
• if four absences in a 9-month long school year can result in your kid basically being expelled from the school?
• if Nokomis's reputation - and I recall our own news stories from four or five years ago about the bullying at Nokomis - is deserved and what the school district is doing about it?

After reading the posting, what "I am wondering" is why KC posted this item without actually confirming any of this mom's assertions or giving the school district the opportunity to respond. It just blows me away that she's basing this posting entirely upon one phone call. That shouldn't fly on the front page of her paper, so I'm not sure why she thinks it is OK on her blog.

Personally, I don't know if any of this is true. It might be nice however to hear from the school district about it.

I could easily write something similar about the local paper without any confirmations or research. I wonder how she would enjoy that.

I got a call from a subscriber to the local paper. She's taken the paper for a number of years. All of the sudden she got a letter from the paper saying that because she has missed a subscription payment and bounced a few checks to the paper that they're canceling her subscription.

She tried to subscribe to the Willits News, but they said they wouldn't give her a subscription either because they only deliver in Willits.

She doesn't want to subscribe to the Lake County Record-Bee because she knows that they just make up their stories.

So, I'm wondering:

• if it is true that the Ukiah Daily Journal would cancel a subscription just because someone missed a payment.
• if it is true that the Willits News discriminates against Ukiah residents.
• If the Lake County Record-Bee's reputation is deserved and what the California Newspaper Partnership and MediaNews Group, Inc. is doing about it.

It wouldn't be so much fun if the shoe was on the other foot.