Parents, what’s in your back-to-school shopping cart?
As the parent of a Salisbury High student, I’ve learned to be flexible. Sports practices and game times change, class schedules change and snow changes everything! Last year was especially changeable for SHS, and just when we were settling down with a terrific new principal, the school district decides to throw us a curve ball with a 1:1 laptop program. It’s hard to keep up!
That’s the point, though, in this fast moving and changing society. We need our kids to keep pace with the rest of the technologically savvy world. According to ERIC Digest, an organization that summarizes educational research, laptops in schools have the potential to increase student motivation, encourage cooperative learning and improve attendance; all while promoting confidence through technological skills. And as our principal, Mr. Brown, said recently, laptops have the ability to equalize learning. Kids with very little financial means have the same resources as everyone else.
As parents, we need to recognize that it’s time for our kids to enter the age of technology, because they need to keep up. They can’t do it if we don’t do our part. At Salisbury High, students won’t receive a laptop until their paperwork is done and their computer use fee is paid. If you haven’t done so, please turn in the “responsible use agreement” and the computer use fee soon, so all of our kids can move forward together.
Then we can sit back, relax and let them explain it all to us!
— Amy Wimmer
Salisbury

It’s about time, Mr. Obama
At last! The Lord’s “terrible swift sword” (America’s military capabilities) has been swung.
On the morning of Saturday, Aug. 9, at 10:30 a.m., President Obama spoke shortly to the America people explaining our country’s action in response to the savagery of the ISIS/ISIL terrorist army in the Middle East. We are now air-striking ISIS elements that are attacking the Kurds (a real U.S. ally) in northeast Iraq and dropping food and water to many thousands of Christians and other religious minorities stranded on a mountain as they flee from the “barbarians at the gate.”
Several weeks ago a friend forwarded me a video of ISIS thugs holding court for about 10 kneeling men, hands tied behind their backs. “Court” took less than a minute; all were found guilty. I was in shock and almost threw up as the “guilty” were summarily executed right in front of the camera — truly sickening! (I spent a year in Vietnam as an infantryman and never saw anything even close to this barbaric action.) Oh, yes. The men’s only crime — they were Christians.
I seldom agree with Mr. Obama, but I agree with the action he described Saturday morning. However, it bothers me that he did not do this two months ago (or sooner). Had he done so, those ten Christians would be alive, as well as several thousands more who were shot, beheaded or even crucified. Was the “terrible swift sword” kept sheathed too long?
Let us pray for the innocents in the Middle East and also pray that the president’s action does not handcuff our military. Now that last prayer could also be emailed to the White House.
— Ty Cobb, Jr.
Salisbury