July 16

July 16, 2013

Good afternoon, Pat,

I'm so sorry that I am just now writing. I was up late last night after being in Raleigh till about 8:30, then I had to go get some dinner with my friend and her husband. I looked for you on Halifax Mall, and even thought I saw you a couple of times, but it turned out to be people who were wearing masks that looked like you. There were many of them, so it was kind of confusing. There were also lots of women there, as I'm sure you know, since you arrested a bunch of them. That's good, since they probably needed some help making choices that afternoon.

I also looked for you out on the street. I didn't see you there, either, but I did see Representative Rodney Moore. He's from Charlotte just like you! Was he your representative? He was a very nice man and I'm sure he's doing a great job there in the legislature, but it seems like he's one of the only ones. Someone had a report card for the legislature, and Rep. Moore had an A+, but most of the legislature had an F. I'm a teacher, so I know if my students had grades like that, my job would be in jeopardy! I'm sure you would not be surprised if these grades put your job in jeopardy, too!

I am going to be busy in my home today, doing some things my husband asked me to do, but I am also going to be working on getting my papers together for my post-tenure review. I know that you don't think our university system is doing a very good job, but I expect that it won't shut down before August 1, so I guess I should go ahead and finish this task. One question I have, though - I need to print out all my materials and put them in a three-ring binder. Should I go to an office supply store and purchase a new one? Or should I just use one I already have? If I purchase a new one, should it be maroon or gray (our school colors), or plain white? Or do you have another suggestion? And should I put a table of contents and tab dividers in the binder, or just place the materials in the order they were asked for?

Thank you for your assistance. You may be interested to know that we harvested a cucumber from our garden this morning! We're very fortunate to be able to grow a lot of our vegetables since it looks like we're going to once again have to make some cutbacks in the family budget due to increasing taxes and health care costs. But I'm sure the corporations who are getting the tax breaks are pleased. Good thing they don't have children to send to school! They would probably want to relocate.

Have a great day!

Nancy

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July 16

Dear Governor McCrory,

In my email yesterday I said that I would try and come up with some strategies to help you develop a better working relationship with the legislature. There are some things that I do in my classroom that help me to develop a closer relationship with my students and their families.

One thing I do every morning is greet each student by their name, with a smile, in their native language. Now, I have checked the ethnic makeup of the legislature and it seems that the overwhelming majority of them are white English speakers. So this would be easy; all it would require would be a “hello” or “good morning”. Even a “hi” would work. Of course, you do need to add their names. Perhaps an aide or one of your cabinet members could help here. (After all, you did give them a raise so I think an increase in responsibilities is due.)

I’ve noticed that you also have some African American legislators. You could just use the same greeting as you do for the White ones but if you wanted to you could “get down” and say something like, “yo, what’s up” or even “what good”, This calls for some caution here however as engaging in this type of repartee can be tricky, but that’s really too much to go into in a short email.

There seem to be only a couple of Hispanic legislators and this too is simple, requiring only an “hola” (remember that the h is silent). You could also say “buenos dias” which means good morning and is basically the same thing as saying hello.

Well, I think that is enough to work on for today! You do after all have 170 names to learn pronto (a Spanish word meaning quickly).

Sincerely,

Debbie Leonard

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