Classic Rant #1,002 (July 12, 2013): Johnny Kant Spel

One Long Island school district's decision to rush out a summer reading list before actually proofreading it has become the mistake of the summer.

The list, released by the Hempstead Public School District, one that is not that far away from me, contains about 30 errors.

Kids have been told to read F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gypsy," books by author Emily "Bonte," and several other misspellings that are an embarrassment.

In a statement, a member of the New York State Department of Education's Board of Regents pointed to the fact that he school district had been in the dumpster way before this incident.

"Hempstead has not had a stable administration for a long time and the kids are suffering."

The school district itself hasn't made any type of statement that I know of.

Summer reading lists are the bane of kids during the summer.

After a long, hard school year is over with, they are literally forced into reading something over the summer.

What happened to the carefree summer, when a kid could be a kid and not have to worry about schoolwork?

My son has had to read a book every summer, just like every other kid in the public school system, and it is a waste of time.

He hands in his work when school begins, and it is never spoken about again.

This year, we had to order his book from the public library, which has trouble keeping "special ed" books in its supposedly massive selection of books, for some reason.

It is now the middle of July, and he still hasn't received his book.

We will go back to the library tomorrow and try to figure this thing out.

But back to Hempstead ...

The school district is not a good one to begin with.

In the past, the administration and teachers have been found to be greatly inept.

The district was recently found to be expanding grades for its own betterment, not for the betterment of the kids.

As it is, the district has some of the lowest test scores in the state.

It has mainly a minority enrollment, which makes all of this even worse.

I am sure some dunce in the main office probably typed this thing out, and the approval was probably waived by whoever was supposed to see it, because they felt it was such an easy task to copy the proper names of the books and authors from whatever source they were using.

But to have it come out like it did is something of a travesty, wouldn't you agree?

If a properly completed document from the school district can't be written correctly, what does that say to the kids in that district who are trying hard to get an education in what amounts to an impossible learning environment?

It impacts thousands of kids, and their futures as responsible adults.

If the school district doesn't care about them enough, then why should they pursue their educational goals?

There are no excuses here.

Fix the reading list, and learn from this disaster, so it never happens again.

What to do about it?

Remove anyone who was associated with that list.

Yes, I mean fire them. I don't care who they are, get rid of them.

Secondly, get educators in that district who are clearly people who want to educate these kids. They have to be 100 percent directed to this goal.

And thirdly, have everyone employed by that district--I don't care if it is the superintendent or the janitor--to read one book on that list and do a report on that book.

That will teach everybody that laziness and shabbiness is not tolerated in that district.

And it will be the perfect life lesson for those kids, and adults, too.