Community Blogs
Read blogs posts annistonstar.com Community Bloggers.
Behind The Star by Bob Davis
The Bitter End by Ben Cunningham
Chris on Tech by Chris Williams
The Church Lady by Jan Case
Clip2Save by Theresa Shadrix
Community Connections by Anna-Marie Moorer
Faith and Family by John Bagwell
Garden Goings On by Paula Barnett-Ellis and Sherry Blanton
Kaleidoscopic by Brian Robinson
Mileage by Mercy Pilkington
Munford Mixer by Jami Van Brocklin
Musings by Debra Parker Thomas
Prevention Works! by Julie Hope
Savory Servings by RaDonna Ridner-Thurman
Tri Talk by Brooke Nelson
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Blogs
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Recent Blog Posts
DeBlase children slowly poisoned to death with anti-freeze, investigator testifies by AnnistonStar
Feb 14, 2011 | 
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The stepmother to Natalie and Chase DeBlase slowly poisoned the young children with antifreeze by pouring it into their food in an effort to kill them and have less responsibilities, a Mobile police detective testified this morning.
Heather Leavell-Keaton, 22, is charged with two counts of ... | 14 |
Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions leads attack on Obama's 2012 budget by AnnistonStar
Feb 14, 2011 |
President Barack Obama's proposed budget for 2012 will be released this morning, but for weeks Sen. Jeff Sessions has been preemptively critical.
The Alabama Republican is now the top GOP member of the Senate Budget Committee, and he's asserting himself more aggressively than ever in the d... | 9 |
Leaders predict more Huntsville growth with BRAC-type actions by AnnistonStar
Feb 14, 2011 |
Buy a lot in Huntsville, said Randall Griffin, the CEO of Corporate Offices Trust.
Griffin gave that advice last week to a conference of commercial real estate pros. He based his predictions of more military-related growth here on talks he'd had with officials in Washington.
Read the full... | 9 |
Immigration legislation to be expected in Alabama by AnnistonStar
Feb 13, 2011 |
People can expect, as one of its first acts of business, for the Legislature to pass immigration reform in the state of Alabama.
And since some, and I emphasize some, of my colleagues in the national media love stories that reinforce stereotypes of Alabama as a racist state, we can probabl... | 9 |
North Alabama health care fraud penalties top $48 million, U.S. says by AnnistonStar
Feb 13, 2011 |
Penalties for health care fraud have totaled more than $48 million in north Alabama in the past four years as federal authorities push harder to get the guilty individuals and companies to pay up, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
But the amount being collected from investigations does ... | 8 |
Officials expect state worker layoffs by AnnistonStar
Feb 13, 2011 |
Some Alabama officials do not see any way they can balance the budget for next year without laying off state employees.
They're forecasting another hole in the state General Fund budget, which pays for Medicaid, state prisons, public safety, public health and most other non-education funct... | 8 |
Munford teacher says farewell after being called to duty by AnnistonStar
Feb 12, 2011 |
Lee Romines, Munford High School special education teacher, was surprised by his fellow faculty members with a goodbye ceremony Friday morning, his last day of work before being deployed to Iraq. Romines is in the Alabama Army National Guard.
Read the full story from The Daily Home. | 10 |
Determined Chelsea 5th-grader Hunter Jones keeps training for marathon after awakening from coma by AnnistonStar
Feb 12, 2011 |
Hunter Jones just couldn't get enough.
The 10-year-old from Chelsea walked up and down the halls of Children's Hospital. Over and over, the youngster who had spent about a week in a coma after a horrific December car accident would repeat his trek, his reluctant mother in tow.
Read the full... | 8 |
Cold case rape nets Gadsden man three life sentences by AnnistonStar
Feb 12, 2011 |
A 43-year-old man charged with rape, sodomy and burglary in a 1996 Gadsden attack has pleaded guilty, according to a news release from Attorney General Luther Strange.
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Geoffrey Todd Mack, of Gadsden, pleaded guilty Friday to fi... | 8 |
UAH shooting tragedy remembered in Huntsville one year later by AnnistonStar
Feb 12, 2011 |
The University of Alabama in Huntsville community gathers on campus this afternoon to remember three people killed and two seriously wounded one year ago in a mass shooting in a biology faculty meeting.
The Feb. 12 crime quickly made national news because of the six people shot, the suspected ... | 8 | Follow Us
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Tuesday, 18, 2013
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Anniston Middle School
Editorial: The shattered world of Anniston Middle School
Jun 18, 2013 | 391 views | 
| 11 | | Anniston Middle School
Last month, after decades of debate, the Anniston Board of Education voted to close the school on Alabama 21 and move its students to other campuses as part of a system-wide reorganization and cost-cutting measure.
Last week, Superintendent Joan Frazier announced her retirement for June 2014, meaning someone else -- possibly from outside the system hierarchy -- will shepherd the system through the middle school’s closure.
And Tuesday, the state Board of Education included Anniston Middle on its list of “failing” schools that, as part of the Alabama Accountability Act, will allow parents zoned for AMS to receive tax credits if they transfer elsewhere.
For the Anniston Board of Education, the state board’s list of 78 “failing” schools represents two different headlines -- both significant. No other Anniston schools made the list. (For that matter, Anniston Middle was the only school in Calhoun County to be deemed “failing” by the state board.)
Anniston High School, whose dropout and graduation rates have long been serious civic concerns, and the system’s five elementary schools are free of both the stigma and the practicality of being considered “failing” institutions. We are glad that’s the case.
But the other headline didn’t bring a sigh of relief to a city desperate to use public education in its efforts to reinvent the city’s outlook on vital matters such as job creation, economic growth and crime reduction. A city without vibrant and well-supported public schools is a city that struggles to educate its children and sustain its future. A city without successful public schools is a city that faces stagnation and decline, not prosperity.
That is Anniston’s struggle today.
Our advice is to consider Anniston Middle School’s label as a “failing” school as part old news and part opportunity. Don’t overreact.
Instead, see Anniston Middle as what it is -- a school already destined for closure. That’s not a rationalization; it’s a fact. What’s important now is the system’s still-developing reorganization that, once completed, is expected to lessen the system’s fiscal concerns.
More important, still, is this community’s understanding that the education of the children within Anniston’s public schools must be a grade-A priority. It is not the priority solely of the city’s educators or its black community, whose children are overwhelmingly the majority of the city’s schools. It must be a priority for all who want Anniston to prosper.
Make no mistake: We are disappointed that the state considers Anniston Middle School a “failing” school. But we cannot lose focus on the larger, vital picture -- the reinvention of Anniston’s school system and the improvement of its public education. The ailments are well known. Repairing them with hard work and rational decisions is the key.
