This week is National School Choice Week. Supporters of classroom options will be joined by Civil Rights leaders for a rally in Montgomery today which more than two thousand people are expected to attend.
Marchers are demanding law makers protect and expand K-through-12 educational choices for children and familes. Sonya DiCarlo is the Director of Communications for the Alabama Opportunity Scholarship Fund. She says children are not all the same.
“One size just doesn’t fit all for every child. We need to really take a look at the way we are educating our children as a whole and realize that not all children are the same. Putting all of our children in a public school that they are zoned for may not be the best option because it’s just not a good fit.”
DiCarlo adds the Alabama Accountability Act awarded 2,800 scholarships to children grades k-12 across the state of Alabama. The money is supposed to help them go to private schools instead of failing public schools. There are over two thousand families on a waiting list.
If you ever lost something at the airport, your opportunity to find it could be coming today. The Alabama Surplus Property Division of the Department of Economic and Community Affairs is holding an auction today. The sale features items state and federal agencies are no longer using. It also has property that was abandoned at airports across the southeast.
Shane Bailey is the Division Chief of the Surplus Property Division. He says that the auction attracts both a local and out of state crowd.
“We’ll have over five-hundred people sign up. We get people from California, Texas, Louisiana, and Indiana. We have a lot of local folks too, but we do have interest all across the country.”
The surplus property auction is being held off Mobile Highway in Montgomery. It will begin at 8 AM and will continue until each item is sold. A photo ID and social security number are required to participate in the auction.
A settlement in a desegregation case in Huntsville city schools is currently under review by a federal judge.
That settlement between the school system and the Justice Department is to resolve disputes over the racial fairness of the school system's student attendance plan.
The federal government objected to that plan, arguing that it failed to improve academic opportunities for black students.
The Huntsville school system says this new settlement will revise attendance zones and improve the city's magnet school program to increase racial diversity.
That agreement is currently under review by U.S. District Judge Madeline Haikala.
A committee of students and parents will be advising the federal court on the implementation of the settlement.
Alabama's embattled prison system has received another blow – the commissioner of the department of corrections has resigned.
Governor Robert Bentley says Commissioner Kim Thomas is retiring and will be replaced by Colonel Jefferson Dunn. Dunn will take over that position as soon as he retires from the Air Force.
Dunn is currently serving at Huntsville's Maxwell Air Force Base. He's a graduate of Birmingham Southern College.
Billy Sharp, chief investigator with the Alabama Criminal Justice System, will serve as interim commissioner until Dunn takes over.
Alabama's prison system has come under fire lately for overcrowding issues as well as accusations of substandard medical care.