Big Yellow Fellows

In Friday's edition of the Herald, you will find a story about bus maintenance. To some of you, it may be silly. It may even seem like a nonstory, and you may skip right over it to read about the latest dirt on Paris Hilton or the golf course or check out the new cars in the classifieds.
But the truth is, it all matters in education, from the buses to the food to the books to recess. So I urge you to read it, because it is a positive story on a part of the local school district that is doing something right.
Friday will mark my third anniversary with the paper, and most of that time I have worked with schools in some fashion. Two years of that time I worked in sports, covering high school athletes from this county and beyond and the coaches who lead them. For the last year I have been able to delve deeper into the inner workings of the school district in a newswriter's role.
And during that time, I have come to realize two things. One, there are a lot of teachers, administrators and staffers that truly do care about providing your kid with the best education they can in a safe environment to make them productive citizens of the county.
And two, that doing my job is not fair to them sometimes. I don't try to be unfair. People often tell us we never write anything good about the schools. But when tests scores come out, it is our job to report them good or bad. It is our job to compare them with area counties' scores and give our readers context to base their opinions on the district upon.
I would love to write a story on a kid who learned the alphabet, the meaning of Pi or the capital of Djibouti (it's Djibouti) every day, and I could because those small victories are won every day in classrooms all around this county.
But unfortunately,we don't have that much ink.
Test score season is fast approaching. Writing scores should be available within the next week, and end-of-grade ones will follow in August. I have no idea how those scores will turn out, though I know there have been many teachers and administrators working hard this year in Lee County to win enough of the small battles mentioned earlier, hopeful that it will translate into an overall victory in the war that has come out of federal and state standardized testing.
Hopefully I can write a few more positive stories like the bus one. But if not, just know that there is a lot of positive stories going on each day in each of Lee's 15 schools to make up for the bad ones.
You just have to ask your son or daughter how their day went, or what they learned today.