It’s that time of year when charities bring out their best heartwarming stories, and I have to admit the ones that rescue pets always get my check. Call me a crazy cat lady, but I firmly believe that pets bring more benefits to society than we’ll ever realize.

ASBJ’s research columnist, Susan Black, must have the same soft spot. In the December issue of ASBJ, she devotes her space to heartwarming stories about therapy animals–dogs and cats and other furry friends that even can help children learn to read. Yes, that’s right—they help children learn to read.

“Therapy animals” are pets that are trained and certified by programs that “are proliferating across the country,” as more schools realize their success, Black writes. In most cases, they are the pets of volunteers or staff who have passed rigorous personality and demeanor tests and have undergone training to ensure they are suitable to work with children.

The concept for the reading programs is quite simple: students who have difficulties reading are placed with a therapy dog that “listens” as the child reads to it. What researchers—including Black—have witnessed is that children who are reluctant readers often blossom with a therapy dog.

While they may have been embarrassed or ashamed to read aloud in class, the dog tends to provide a calming effect that allows the child to practice their reading skills more successfully. Studies have found that children who read to dogs gain substantially more points on reading assessments and read at faster rates than struggling children who do not have such programs.  The dogs are trained to sit there and listen, perhaps offer a paw for support.   
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Kelly learning how to say "hair" in Lwo, the local language in Gulu.

If you’re looking for a story of hope for the holiday season, I’ve got one for you.

We receive many manuscripts for publication each month — mostly from education professors and school administrators. Articles from school board members are not as plentiful, which is why Philip Kelly’s offering caught my attention when it landed on my desk.

The Boise, Idaho, school board member has an amazing story to tell, and we were happy to publish that story in the December issue of ASBJ. Kelly heard about the plight of the “invisible children” in war-torn Uganda at a school board meeting.

He might have chosen to store that information and go about his life as usual. Instead, he ended up traveling with a handful of other educators to Gulu, Uganda, in the middle of the war zone.

Read A School Leader’s Journey to find out how Kelly connected his experiences in Gulu with his board service in Boise, enhancing the lives of people in both communities.

As Kelly puts it, “I ran for school board to be involved in the school district, not the world. Who knew being on a school board could lead me across the globe?”

Kathleen Vail, Managing Editor

I’ve often said that school board members aren’t active enough in lobbying state and federal officials on matters of education policy-or  in reaching out to local citizens as the community’s education leaders

I’ve also said that I know darned well that it’s not really fair to criticize board members for that fact-because we all know how many hours they already devote to school business.

How much more can we ask of them?

I can’t answer that. But I can suggest you read the April issue of American School Board Journal and look at the recent work of school leaders in Volusia County, Fla.

They’re speaking out. They’re working with their state associations to support statewide lobbying efforts to stop any further deep cuts in education funding, and they’re meeting with county officials and citizens to rally them to the cause.

Admittedly, their efforts are spurred by a crisis-the school system has lost $50 million in revenue in the past two years, and some predict another $37 million to $44 million could be cut next year.

That’s too much,” warns Superintendent Margaret Smith. “We’re at the breaking point. We have nowhere to go if we’re to maintain our quality of instruction.”

But what’s noteworthy is that school officials aren’t sitting back and accepting whatever budgetary fate is decreed by state leaders. They’ve been holding public hearings for citizens to explain local budget decisions and the need to lobby state lawmakers, and they’ve convinced county leaders to set aside their lobbying priorities and make education funding the central message they send to the state capitol this year.

Such efforts are paying off. City mayors in the county agreed to rent buses to take community members to the state capital to make themselves heard. School board Vice Chair Candace Lankford remembers sitting at one public meeting when a county leader spoke passionately about protecting public education.
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Talk about putting your money where your mouth is, just before Christmas, Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert donated the last of his $60,000 mayoral salary to a program aimed at boosting college attendance among high school graduates.

Leppert, a former chief executive of Turner Construction, had already committed $50,000 of his wages to a college scholarship fund targeted to students attending predominantly low-income, high minority high schools in Dallas.

Nationally, 67 percent of graduates from the class of 2007 went on to college, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Statewide, the college enrollment rate in Texas in 2006 was 55 percent, according to the National Information Center for Higher Education and Policy Making Analysis.

Dallas, the 12^th largest school system in the nation, has a long way to go, as less than half of all ninth-graders graduate from high school four years later.

 ”We have kids who can’t link staying in school, going to college and what that means later in life,” Leppert told the Dallas Morning News.

And making those linkages are critically important, especially in today’s tough economic climate and competitive job market. High school dropouts earn, on average, nearly $10,000 less than those with a diploma; the difference doubles to $20,000 in annual wages when comparing high school and college graduates with a bachelor’s degree.

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor

I’m not an avid TV watcher and when I do sit down in front of the tube, it’s rarely for a television movie, let alone a Hallmark Hall of Fame one. Eekk. Those kinds of schmaltzy, sappy, tear-jerker films just aren’t my scene.

Yet last night, I found myself glued (and then increasingly unglued) as I watched Front of the Class, a real life tale of a young teacher with Tourette Syndrome. Despite a rough and misunderstood childhood, where classmates, teachers and even his own father ridiculed and berated him about his neurological disorder, Brad Cohen grows into an optimistic and determined young man, intent on becoming the kind of teacher he never had: kind, supportive, and understanding.

The journey is far from easy. Even though he excelled in college and had the recommendations to boot, Cohen interviewed at 25 different schools in the Atlanta-area, before he was finally offered a job as a second-grade teacher. The scene where Cohen breaks down in his car after a particularly horrible interview is heart-wrenching.

To be honest, there’s a lot of material in the film that will bring on the waterworks. Toward the end of the movie, my eyes were nearly swollen shut (can barely seen the monitor right now) because I’d cried so much and I AM NOT A BIG WUSS; trust me.

Front of the Class is an inspiring film; truly one of the best stories of human triumph that I’ve seen characterized on film in a long, long time. It should be required (I’m not getting paid by the Hallmark people) viewing at all schools, to show teachers and students how to treat people who are different. And to show those who are different that they can succeed in spite, and sometimes because of their differences.

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor