GoBigEd

Posted 8:48 AM by Susan Darst Williams

GO BIG ED HALL-OF-FAMER PAUL FILIPI
SENDS KIDS A $$$ VALENTINE

Omahan Paul Filipi, 88, has donated $10,000 for students who attended the low-income Conestoga Elementary School in inner-city Omaha who need scholarship assistance to enroll at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

For his generosity, he joins the Go Big Ed Hall of Fame. See the list on the left-hand column of the Go Big Ed homepage, www.GoBigEd.com

Filipi, retired from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, has been a volunteer reader for third- and fourth-graders at Conestoga for six years. His gift, the Golden K-Conestoga Scholarship Fund, is through the University of Nebraska Foundation.

“I want the children to realize that someone cares about them,” he said. “Some of these kids really got to me.”

On this Valentine’s Day, it’s heartwarming and inspiring to know about this 88-year-old, who sets such a great example for us all.

Homeschooling Bill
Encourages Single Parents

What happens in a divorced family when one parent wants to homeschool the child, and the other one is hostile? Right now, a family mess. But with LB 1213, proposed by State Sen. Adrian Smith of Gering, up for hearing before the Legislature’s Education Committee today, it would be straightened out.

It’s an equal protection problem: why should the state require the signatures of both biological parents authorizing homeschooling, but not public-schooling?

It’s hard enough being a single parent these days, being a diligent advocate for your child’s optimal education, and wanting to live out your conviction that homeschooling is best for your child, when the state stacks the deck against you.

Here’s hoping the senators will give thumbs up to this bill. For more information on it, see this page from the Home School Legal Defense Association:

http://www.hslda.org/Legislation/State/ne/2006/NELB1213/default.asp