Category Archives: Lewisville

Lewisville Elementary and Mr. Snow

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The science teacher at my youngest son’s school, Mr. Snow at Lewisville Elementary, has been suspended with pay for alleged misconduct.  We got the automated call from the school at about 4:30 this afternoon and I just saw the notification in the Winston-Salem Journal’s afternoon email alert (article here).  No details were provided with the phone message other than that the school is participating with the sheriff’s office in the investigation.

This is the second time this year that Mr. Snow has been accused of misconduct.  The charges last fall were dropped after the authorities couldn’t find any support or proof of the allegations.  As I wrote here I wasn’t too pleased with the school’s initial handling of getting the word out the last time through, but I think they’ve learned their lesson because this time they seem to be getting the word out quickly and consistently.  One thing I’d like to know is when the allegations were initially made.  The last time we didn’t hear from the schools until a week after the allegations were made and the sheriff was called.  It will be interesting to see what the gap between allegation and parental notification was this time.

On the plus side the school reps went out of their way to say they are already working with the sheriff’s office so we know where they are in the process.  Unfortunately, because we’ve been through this already we know that the school system can’t tell us anything until the sheriff has investigated. Given the sheriff office’s performance in recent school cases let’s hope they get this thing investigated soon and thoroughly.

FYI, the phone’s already started ringing and the early take is that someone has it out for Mr. Snow.  I know it seems awful suspicious when any teacher is accused twice (where there’s smoke there’s fire, and all that), but let’s just say that those people familiar with the school have reason to think that there might be a reason that Mr. Snow would be accused.  As I said the last time, I don’t know Mr. Snow personally but I do know the people who are defending him and I trust their judgment. 

I just hope this somehow works out in such a way that the folks involved come out as unscathed as possible and that the truth is found.

Out of NoVA by the Skin of our Teeth

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As I’ve written many times before I grew up in Northern Virginia.  My family moved there in ’72 when I was in first grade and I lived there until we moved here in ’04.  Celeste’s family moved to Northern Virginia in ’79 and she lived there until we moved.  We both went to college at George Mason University in the heart of Fairfax County so we didn’t even leave the area for school. (Well I spent my freshman year in Nebraska at Concordia College-Seward, but that was really like an extended vacation).

We had several reasons for moving, but probably the most prominent was that we just couldn’t stomach the craziness anymore.  What had once been semi-rural suburbs had been fully developed and it seemed that just about every open space had been paved over and rush hour had grown to an all-day affair.  Hell, there were even traffic jams on Saturday.  If Northern Virginia had remained as it was when we first got out of college we probably would have stayed, but we just couldn’t take what it had become.  We could see first hand that growth in the area was out of control, and each year it seemed the NoVa counties were announcing astounding population growth.  So we got out.

Today I came across this article on WashingtonPost.com that makes me even happier that we left when we did.  Let me give you some numbers and excerpts from the article:

  • Loudoun County has added more than 100,000 people since 2000, increasing its population by 59 percent
  • Prince William County, where Celeste and I lived from ’96-’04 has added 88,000 people since 2000
  • "Fairfax County, the state’s largest jurisdiction, has packed in nearly
    47,000 more residents. The next fastest-growing counties — Stafford,
    Spotsylvania and Culpeper — are on the edges of the expanding region."
  • Overall, the state’s population has grown by 560,000 since 2000
  • "The study also found that 33 cities and counties have lost residents in
    the past six years — older urban areas such as Richmond, Petersburg
    and Roanoke, as well as rural counties in Southside and southwestern
    Virginia. Many of those residents seem to have migrated north, along
    with workers from other parts of the United States and the world who
    have been lured by the Washington job market."

That last item doesn’t surprise me.  Southwestern Virginia, along with northwestern NC, is actually served by many of the media outlets here in Winston-Salem and they are suffering the same economic fate as the rest of the region, with huge chunks of jobs in the furniture and textile industries going overseas.  It shouldn’t surprise anyone that they’re heading to places like Northern Virginia for jobs.

Speaking of jobs, here’s another tidbit from the article:

No other region in the country, however, has created as many jobs in
recent years as the Washington metropolitan area. Between 2000 and
2005, the region added 359,000 new jobs, said Stephen S. Fuller,
director of the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason
University, citing Labor Department statistics. That was 75,000 more
jobs than the nation’s No. 2 job engine, Miami.

"We’ve been
adding jobs faster than we’ve been able to add resident workers," he
said. "Had we been able to produce more housing, we could have added
more people." The Washington region is the eighth most-populous in the
United States, Fuller said, but is fourth in the number of total jobs,
trailing only New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

The imbalance
probably means more congestion on Northern Virginia’s already-choked
roads. "The downside [to growth] is pretty clear," said Corey A.
Stewart (R-Occoquan), chairman of the Prince William Board of County
Supervisors, who was elected last year on a pledge to curb residential
development. "Increased tax bills. Crowded schools. Public services
stretched and overwhelmed."

I can’t argue that the job market in the DC area is great.  The problem is that housing is so expensive that all but the highest earners end up moving to the outer counties in order to afford a decent place to live.  Public transportation is expanding, but it can’t keep up with the pace of growth so that puts more people on the road and makes an already bad traffic situation almost impossible.

Now that things are getting ugly in places like Prince William and Loudoun the local politicians are starting to tighten up on development.  Unfortunately they didn’t listen to their constituents who were shouting for limits ten years ago.  Instead they gave the developers free reign and now they’ve got a mess.

The leaders here in the Piedmont Triad are pushing hard for more economic development, and in the wake of the exodus of all the textile and furniture business it’s hard to blame them.  I hope, though, that they take a long hard look at what happened in Northern Virginia and control growth from the beginning with a comprehensive growth plan.

I’ve always loved tilting at windmills.

Different Trouble at School

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Snowletter
Back on October 30, 2006 a teacher and the principal at Lewisville Elementary were suspended with pay while they were investigated.  I originally posted about it here and I’ve updated the post several times since then.  At the beginning of the new year the principal, Mr. Rash, was reinstated with his pocket a little lighter (10 days of his suspension was unpaid) and today (January 17, 2007) the teacher, Mr. Snow was reinstated in full.  I should point out that Mr. Rash was suspended because of how he originally handled the allegations against Mr. Snow, thus the unpaid part of his suspension, and Mr. Snow was suspended due to the allegations for which he has now been cleared.

The image above is a scan of the letter that the school system sent home with the students today (click on it to enlarge) and this followed a late automated call from the school superintendent last night.  That call was made because the father of the child who made the accusations showed up at the Board of Education last night and during the public part of the meeting complained that Mr. Snow was going to be reinstated. From the article about it in the Winston-Salem Journal:

An angry parent
confronted members of the Forsyth County school board in a meeting last night after he learned that school officials planned to return a
teacher who was investigated by the sheriff’s office to the classroom
this week.

"What concerns me
greatly is I learned of this decision via the grapevine," said the parent, whose child is a student at Lewisville Elementary School and
one of the children involved in the misconduct allegations against the
science teacher, Alan Snow. The Winston-Salem Journal is not
identifying the parent in order protect the identity of the child.

The parent said he
is concerned that he might not have enough time to prepare his family for the teacher’s return if it happened as quickly as school-system
officials told him that it could.

Superintendent Don
Martin and school-board chairman Donny Lambeth interrupted the father
a few minutes after he began speaking during the meeting.

Martin also
approached the father in the auditorium after the meeting ended and chastised him for talking about the case during an open session,
telling him that doing so could create more publicity before parents
could be advised about the teacher’s status.

The parents of the
child involved in the case met privately with the school system’s attorneys and other officials after the public meeting.

Martin updated the
school board on the case during a closed session last night, but he said later that no decision has been made about whether Snow can return
to teaching.

In his letter to the parents Superintendent Martin expressed regret that the investigation by the Sheriff’s and District Attorney’s offices took so long and that he appreciated the parents’ and Mr. Snow’s patience in the matter.  I’d say the least they should be is appreciative.  The man lived through the holidays with this hanging over his head and he’s been in limbo for close to 90 days and that’s simply unacceptable to me.

In a comment posted a couple of days ago on my original post a person going by the moniker P. Smith made some interesting comparisons between Mr. Snow’s case and the Duke Lacrosse case.  In the first paragraph of that comment he/she wrote the following:

Some interesting comparisons to what happened at Duke and the case in
Lewisville–an allegation from an unreliable witness–in this case a
teacher with a vendetta against another teacher. Sounds like the
science teacher is coming back to Lewisville after a thorough
investigation which found no wrong doing on him. Now, the question is:
what happens to someone who makes up a story to "get back at another
person"?

Until now I’ve only heard about a student making an allegation against Mr. Snow, but P. Smith seemed to know about Mr. Snow being cleared at least a day before it became a news item which leads me to believe he/she is tapped into the "grapevine" that the student’s dad referred to in the Journal article, and so I’m wondering which teacher the grapevine is saying had it out for Mr. Snow.

Now comes the truly hard part for the school.  Mr. Snow is an incredibly popular teacher with many students and parents and I have a feeling that there are going to be some festering wounds left by this experience.  I can only imagine what Mr. Snow is feeling these days, and he will be a larger man than most of us if he is able to return to school and not harbor some serious animosity towards those who were ready to believe the worst. (Speaking of which, to this date no one has said what Mr. Snow was accused of, so everyone was left to imagine the worst).  And I’m sure that there will be many members of the Lewisville community wondering what the consequences should be for those who filed the allegations against Mr. Snow.  There will also be those wondering if Mr. Snow has grounds for a civil case against his accuser’s family and there may even be those who will push him to sue.  Finally, I’m sure there are plenty of people who know who made the accusations and I’m willing they won’t be too shy about sharing that knowledge.  All of this can spell serious trouble for the school’s community, and I guess the best we can hope for at this point is that we keep the kids out of the fray as much as possible.  That’s something about which I’m sure everyone can agree.

As for the school system I think they have to seriously re-think some of their policies.  When I talked to the Assistant Superintendent for Lewisville, a very nice lady named Charlene Davis, she emphasized to me that if they are going to err it is going to be on the side of protecting the children.  I’m all for that, but I think they can do so without killing a teacher’s career.  For instance, I see no reason to make the teacher’s name public until there’s sufficient evidence or reason to do so.  Sure we the parents will probably know what’s going on, but in the Google Age the accusations will live long and spread far whether they’re founded or not.  Let’s put it this way; if Mr. Snow decides to leave town and start fresh somewhere else he’ll probably be checked out by all potential employers and if they type his name into a search engine what do you think will pop up?  What are the chances they’ll see the article about the allegations and then stop looking before they get to the articles about his being cleared?

What I mentioned to Ms. Davis is that they could have protected the kids by removing Mr. Snow from the classroom and they could have protected Mr. Snow by saying that he was on a temporary assignment with the school system, or that he was taking a leave of absence.  Whatever, as long as they don’t make public that a teacher is being investigated until they have solid evidence that something’s going on then I think they’ll be doing a lot better.

Another issue they need to work on is communication.  They definitely did a better job once enough parents complained about not knowing what was going on, but they need to have a communication process already planned out for instances like this.  By not communicating effectively they let the grapevine or rumor mill do the communicating for them and that helps no one.

**Update 1/22/07** In the Sunday, January 21, 2007 Winston-Salem Journal columnist Scott Sexton had the following in his piece:

The man wanted to know
whether school officials were about to put a teacher who had been
investigated on sexual-abuse allegations involving his son back into
the classroom Thursday morning. If so, he wanted to know why he and his
wife had not been told about it.

and

Dealing with sex-abuse
allegations is difficult for all parties. The parents ride an emotional
roller coaster, and the teacher, whose livelihood and reputation are at
stake, goes through hell, too. Investigators have to tread lightly when
interviewing a child, and school officials must work hard to balance
the serious nature of the accusations with the rights of their employee.

As far as I know this is the first time that the specific allegations against Mr. Snow have been made public and I’ve emailed Mr. Sexton to see if he’ll share where he heard those specific allegations.  Was it at the board meeting (did the father blurt it out during the public session) or did he get it in private from the family or from a school official?  And no matter the source, why specify the charges now that Mr. Snow has been cleared and after everyone (including his own paper) had been so careful to avoid publicly airing the specific allegations?

To sum up I can only say that I hope that Mr. Snow can find peace back at school, the Lewisville community can somehow patch the wounds of this event and the school system can learn from its mistakes before more careers are jeopardized.  As for the child and his family, I don’t know them (don’t want to know who they are) and I only hope that they somehow find whatever help they need. 

Trouble at School

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Last night we got an automated phone call from Lewisville Elementary which is nothing extraordinary since we get about one or two calls a week from the school.  But last night my youngest took the call and listened to it and then informed me that his principal and science teacher had been suspended.  Given the fact that Justin is 10 I kind of took it with a grain of salt because there is no more reliable way to get a muddled message across than to tell a 10 year old boy something and have him pass it along.

After Justin gave me the message I checked the school system’s website and found nothing there and heard nothing on the news so I chalked it up to a misunderstanding.  This morning I saw nothing in the newspaper and there was nothing on the news all morning until about 9:00 a.m. when it was reported on WXII that Principal Rash and Mr. Snow the school’s popular science teacher had been suspended.  The school system hasn’t given a reason for Mr. Snow’s suspension but they did say that Mr. Rash was suspended because of how he handled the unspecified allegations against Mr. Snow.

This is the first time we’ve had anything like this happen with any of our own kids’ principals or teachers.  Both Justin and my daughter Erin really enjoy Mr. Snow’s classes and the few times I’ve been around Mr. Rash I’ve found him to be engaging and popular with the parents.  Hopefully the school system will let us know what’s going on.

I just checked the school’s website and there’s still nothing on there about this whole mess.  I’d like to suggest that they do a better job of using the site to inform us of what’s going on, and I’d also like to suggest that the school have a number we can call in to retrieve any messages that we parents might have missed because our kids listened on our behalf.  I’d suggest putting an audio archive online but I don’t want to overtax them.

**Update**  Here’s another point I’d like to make.  I know that due to state personnel laws the school system can’t tell us too much about what’s going on, but why can’t they at least tell us if this is a potential criminal matter or more of a procedural matter?  We got a call last week about a pellet gun being found on a student last week so I’m wondering if Mr. Snow and Mr. Rash were suspended for mishandling that situation.  Or is it something far more serious like what happened recently at Jefferson Middle School?  They could at least let us know the potential severity of the situation.  I’ve had two kids who were or are students of Mr. Snow so I’d at least like to know if he’s suspected of doing something really creepy.  If he’s not suspected of something criminal it would benefit him and the parents to let us know it’s a procedural matter.

**Update #2** I got around to reading the Winston-Salem Journal’s item about the incident and they got confirmation from the sheriff’s office that they are investigating, so I guess we can assume that it’s a criminal investigation.  Justin came home from school with a note from Mr. Gale who is the acting principal.  Here’s the text:

Dear Lewisville Parents:

As most of you know by now, Alan Snow, the science specialist at Lewisville Elementary, and Ron Rash, the principal, were suspended yesterday with pay. School-system administrators are investigating an allegation of misconduct against Mr. Snow and how Mr. Rash handled the allegation. I understand this is a difficult time, and as soon as the investigation is completed, we will provide more information.

I will be filling in for Mr. Rash as principal for a short period of time until the investigation has been completed. I would like for you to know a little about me.

I retired from the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School System in June, 2005 after serving the school system for thirty-nine years. I served as principal in three schools:

  • 1990-2005 Piney Grove Elementary School
  • 1978-1990 Speas Elementary School
  • 1971-1978 Fairview Intermediate School (now Ashley Elem.)

I also served as a sixth grade teacher at Clemmons Elementary School from 1966-1971.

As I entered Lewisville Elementary Monday morning, it was quickly evident that Lewisville has a very dedicated, caring staff that is providing a wonderful environment for children.  During my short stay at Lewisville, it is my desire to assist you and the staff to continue to provide a safe learning environment for your child. I can assure you that we will do everything in our power to do just that.

If you have any concerns, questions, or comments, I will be happy to talk to you. I look forward to working with you.

Sincerely,
signature
Thomas N. Gale
Acting Principal

I talked to another parent who did hear the automated phone message that was broadcast last night and she said that a contact name and phone number was provided for calling with questions.  She was quite frustrated that she didn’t have a pen to write down the name and number and there was no way to replay the message.  This just reinforces my belief that for something this important the school system needs to come up with some alternative messaging systems.

**Update #3** Here’s a link to WXII’s October 31 report on the investigation.  According to the report the sheriff’s office was informed of the allegations early last week, which begs several questions.  First, why weren’t parents informed about this sooner?  Second, why was Mr. Snow allowed to keep teaching for another week?  If it went to the sheriff’s office early last week it would lead a logical person to believe that the school system knew about this even earlier.  I think we parents are owed some answers.

**Update #4, 11/9/06** I called the Assistant Superintendent who’s responsible for Lewisville Elementary, Charlene Davis, and she returned my call very promptly.  She discussed the issues with me and shared with me that the investigation is now in the hands of the sheriff’s department and that she’s asked the school system’s attorney to make sure the sheriff shares any developments with them as soon as they can.  She also filled me in on the timeline of events and all things considered it sounds like they moved on this as quickly as possible.  She also told me that she’s spoken with lots of parents (apparently I wasn’t the first to call) and that she’s happy to talk with any parents. So if you have questions please do call Ms. Davis.

Is 500 Feet Enough?

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Lewisville’s (NC) public-safety committee has proposed expanding the distance from a building within which you can fire a gun from 300 feet to 500 feet.  Earlier in the year the committee had recommended expanding the distance to 1,000 feet, but the town council changed the distance to 500 and then sent the proposal back to the committee after receiving complaints from some citizens.  The committee held two public meetings and then settled on 500 feet as a good compromise.

I don’t know much about guns but 500 feet doesn’t seem like enough to me, especially when you consider that people can actually shoot closer to buildings if they have the owner’s permission.  That means that if you want to shoot off some rounds on a farm or in an open field you can do so even within 100 feet of a building if you have the owner’s permission.  That also means farmers who want to keep shooting pests and varmints on their own land can do so at will.  On the other hand 500 feet doesn’t seem like much of a buffer if you’ve got someone with bad aim and a hunting rifle popping off shots down the street from the backyard where your kids are playing.

Part of me thinks I might be getting a little too touchy here, and I do understand where the long-time residents who are used to hunting and shooting on their family farms are coming from (they don’t like this proposal), but on the other hand the town is only going to get more populated and I think we need to anticipate that eventuality with some common-sense regulations. Still, whichever way the town council votes on this issue won’t change the fact that this is a great place to live.

Lewisville Has a Sister City in Middlesboro, KY

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I learn something new every day.  Lewisville, NC which my family now calls home, has a sister-city in Middlesboro, KY and there’s an interesting article about it in the Middlesboro Daily News.  Something else I didn’t know: Daniel Boone started his travels west through the Cumberland Gap right here on the Yadkin River, and his parents are buried here.  Very cool.

Lewisville Businessman Selected to Participate in Vonage IPO

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That headline sounds impressive right?  Until you consider that all Vonage customers who meet certain criteria are invited to participate in Vonage’s IPO.

This morning the "Lewisville Businessman" mentioned in the headline, that would be moi, had a voice mail from the Vonage folks re. the IPO.  The message pointed me to www.vonageipo.com to see if I qualified for inclusion in the IPO.  So I visited the page and clicked on the button to register and was directed to this page which listed the following criteria I need to meet to participate in the IPO:

  • You opened an account with Vonage on or prior to December 15, 2005.
  • You have maintained your Vonage account in good standing through February 1, 2006.
  • You are a U.S. citizen.
  • You will be a U.S. resident as of the date of the consummation of Vonages initial public offering.
  • You have a valid U.S. social security number.
  • You are a natural person. No entities, such as companies and trusts, are eligible to participate.

                Other conditions to participation also may apply.

The one about being a "natural person" worries me because, you know, sometimes I get that "not-so-natural" feeling…but I digress.  This is my first opportunity to participate in an IPO which means I’m a little worried about Vonage’s future.  I mean if they want me then there has to be something wrong, right?

***Update 5/31/06*** I’m very glad I didn’t go for this deal.  Here’s a NY Times article that describes the IPO as disastrous.   Here’s an excerpt:

Vonage,
tarred by a disastrous initial public offering last week, is scrambling
to reassure investors. The company, which provides Internet phone
service, said yesterday that it would reimburse the bankers who handled
the sale if any Vonage customers refused to pay for shares that were
allotted to them.

Vonage gave its customers a chance to
buy as much as 15 percent of the 31.25 million shares that were offered
last week. About 10,000 of the company’s 1.6 million customers
ultimately received shares, which were sold at $17 each, according to a
person briefed on the deal. Customers had until yesterday to open an
account with a specified broker and pay for their shares.

Some
customers who participated in the "directed share program" were
reluctant to pay for their shares after the stock fell. The shares have
lost more than 26 percent of their value since their debut last
Wednesday. They fell 52 cents, to $12.50 yesterday.

   

Lewisville Politicians Face the Public October 20

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The Lewisville Civic Club is hosting a Candidate’s Forum on October 20, 2005 from 7:30 – 10:00 p.m. at the Lewisville Elementary School auditorium.

Click here to see the candidate bios (PDF) and informational flyer about the event.

Lewisville is a great little town to live in and although we’ve only lived here for 16 months we are very interested in helping it stay that way. As with most communities Lewisville is facing significant changes in the coming years and the leaders we select now will have a large impact on the direction that change takes.

On Saturday Celeste and I attended a dinner hosted by the Mayor for the town’s volunteer community (members of various boards and committees) and we definitely had the sense that the town has a lot of people who have lived here most of their lives and have seen it grow from a rural, agricultural community into a bedroom community for Winston-Salem.  Now they are faced with the inevitable development of becoming a full-fledged suburb of the city.

Having grown up in the Northern Virginia area Celeste and I saw first hand what happens when areas grow in a haphazard and uncontrolled fashion.  Sprawl, traffic and a general degradation of quality of life.  That’s one of the things that prompted us to move to Lewisville and that’s why we don’t want the same thing to happen here.

But change happens and the only thing we can do is decide how change happens.  As much as some people might like to keep everything as-is, it just doesn’t work that way.  If I’m in town on the 20th I plan on attending the meeting to find out which candidates understand controlled growth and how to build a sustainable community and those are the folks I plan on voting for.

Specifically I think we need to concentrate on developing a mixed-use town square, with green space, shopping areas that can be easily accessed on foot and homes on smaller lots (cluster homes maybe).  Mixed use will broaden the towns tax base, give residents an option for shopping without having to hop in their cars, and build on the activities being held in Shallowford Square.

Quick aside: Events like the free Friday night movies in Shallowford Square (next one is School of Rock on October, 15), and the free theater productions put on in the square are a great family activity.  Definitely a jewel in the town’s crown…here’s a schedule of events.

Something else I’d like to see is for us to embrace the bicycling community.  We literally have dozens (maybe even hundreds) of visitors from outside the town who drive in, park their cars and then ride the bike routes on roads throughout Lewisville.  Why not capture some of that energy by hosting special events to attract them and perhaps even contribute a few dollars to Lewisville’s coffers?

Okay, I could go on and on, but I won’t.  What I will do is get more involved, starting on the 20th.