NBC5-TV.Rockwall sends 1 million meals to Haiti. Students at Rockwall I.S.D. are making a difference in the lives of people affected by the devastating earthquake in Haiti, with help from the rest of the community.

“Its instilling good values in my children to pass on, it also is helping the community and the world,” said mother Deborah Shultz.

The group of nearly a thousand spent the day creating a million meals to send to Haiti.

“It’s just awesome like this morning we started here at 4:30, we had over 100 community volunteers and student volunteers and staff and our community always supports our students so we’re just really pleased to be a part of it,” said superintendent Gene Barton.

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Rachel Scott was a victim of the Columbine shootings. Her legacy is challenging every teen to show an act of kindness.

At Rockwall High School, those kindnesses come in the form of rice, soy and a host of other ingredients to fill bags that will eventually create one million meals to help starving kids in earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

“I just thought one million meals is just an unfathomable amount of meals,” said student Reed Loftis.

Desi Smalley, 36, was caught in Arkansas this morning.

He’ll soon be on his way back to North Texas.

The incident has every school in the Rockwall district extra vigilant today about security and safety.

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By J.J. Smith. Due to inclement weather, all Rockwall, Royse City and Garland ISD schools are closed today and all after-school activities have been either cancelled or postponed.

Many government offices have also either been closed or will open late.

All Rockwall County offices will  be closed all day. City of Rockwall offices will not open until 10 am. No word has been received or is posted on the websites of the Cities of Fate, Heath, McClendon-Chisholm, Rowlett or Royse City.

Temperatures are in the high 20s at 5:30 am but are expected to rise to 34 degrees by 10 am and to 38 degrees by 2 pm today. The snow has stopped falling in North Texas and the Winter Storm Warning is no longer in effect.

More area weather closings can be found on the WFAA-TV website.

By J.J. Smith. The superintendents of the Denison and Sherman Independent School Districts have filed a formal appeal against last week’s UIL realignment that requires the two Grayson County towns to participate in sports in Mt. Pleasant and Texarkana, which are over 100 miles away.

In a letter to the UIL Appeals Committee, Dr. Henry Scott of Denison and Dr. Al Hambrick of Sherman suggested moving Denison ISD and Sherman ISD to District 10-A, and moving Rockwall and Rockwall-Heath to District 13-A.

They argued that Rockwall ISD schools could make the trips to Texarkana and Mr. Pleasant much easier on Interstate highways with drive times considerably less than those for Denison and Sherman.

The superintendents met Monday to discuss the problems presented by the new changes as well as possible solutions. Both agreed that the primary problems created by the new alignment involve decreased student time in the classroom and greatly increased time spent traveling. They also agreed that the only solution would be an appeal to the UIL Appeals Committee.

“When traveling to games as far away as Texarkana and Mount Pleasant, our students would have to leave school much earlier to arrive in time for games…and some sports have more than one game per week, said Hambrick. “That translates into less time in classrooms for our student athletes.”

“In recent years, we have traveled to schools in the Frisco and McKinney areas, a situation that was much more reasonable in that our kids could be at most games in a little over an hour, making round trip travel time two to three hours. Under the new alignment, those travel times have basically been tripled or quadrupled.”

Scott agreed, adding that mid-week competitions were of special concern. “We’re particularly concerned about the games that will require between 2.5 and 3.5 hours of mid-week travel time, such as baseball, volleyball, softball, tennis, soccer, girls and boys basketball…and also our JV and freshman football teams.”

“That’s five to seven total hours spent traveling to and from these games, putting our kids back home at well past midnight. A lot of kids will be negatively affected by this, not to mention the increased costs for travel. From an academic and student performance standpoint, this is simply not a good situation.”

“Total round trip drive time from Rockwall to Texarkana is approximately 4 hours and 40 minutes, roughly half the time that will be required of Sherman or Denison to make the trip,” said Hambrick.

“Similarly, Rockwall’s round trip drive-time to and from Mt. Pleasant is estimated at three hours, which is two hours less than the time it would take our buses to make the trip.”

Both also mentioned safety as yet another reason for officials to grant the appeal, noting that the creation of a District 13-4A centered around I-30 seems a logical choice since driving conditions and times would be so much better for the districts involved.

“The children of Denison ISD and Sherman ISD deserve the best opportunity available to achieve and succeed in school as a means to a bright future,” said Scott. “The demands of balancing studies with sports are daunting at best, but our students work hard to meet their many obligations. We sincerely hope that the UIL Committee will help us ensure that our children are not unnecessarily burdened by changing our district’s placement to one that is more conducive to student success.”

Mike Singleton, the school district’s chief financial officer, presented a “Balancing the Budget” plan to school board members Monday night. And if all goes as planned, the school district could have a budget surplus of $262,247 in 2010-11.

Even though his report was positive and it drew a favorable response from trustees, Singleton stressed that there is “a lot of work, obviously, that still needs to be done.”

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By J.J. Smith. Family violence, child abuse and dating abuse numbers have all skyrocketed dramatically over the past few years across Rockwall County and Texas.  

Now Heritage Christian Academy, Walmart, Rockwall ISD, Rockwall County DA Kenda Culpepper plus over a dozen more businesses, media, health care and law enforcement organizations are teaming up to raise awareness and funds for local campaigns to end abuse by co-sponsoring the first annual Lillian Smith Rockwall “Race To End Abuse” 5K/Family Fitness Walk.

The event is scheduled Oct. 31, 8-10 am, in the Kroger Food Store parking lot. Over 500 participants are expected. Runners will race 3.1 miles from Kroger to Country Club Dr. and then back to Kroger. Walkers will walk or jog one mile to Fox Chase Park and back.

Additional co-sponsors include Pepsi/Aquafina, Presbyterian Hospital of Rockwall, the Dallas Morning News Neighbors Go, TheRockwallNews.com, PegasusNews.com, Rockwall Enterprise-Success, Radio stations 93.5 FM “The Range” and 92.1 FM “The Possum,” Eclipse Fitness, Rockwall Running Center, Lady of America Fitness Clubs, Joe Willy’s and Taco Casa.

More co-sponsors can still participate with cash and/or in-kind donations of between $500 and $3,000. In return, co-sponsors receive a booth at the event, plus lots of positive publicity in current and future campaigns.

Organized by the Rockwall-based Lillian Smith Family Violence Foundation, the non-profit will use funds raised for ad campaigns and video productions in local media, schools and communities to help end domestic, dating, child and family pet abuse. It is Texas’ largest network of survivors and other concerned citizens, founded and directed by Rockwall resident and marketing consultant J.J. Smith, who has worked with such leading brands as Chevrolet, CBS Radio , Exxon, Macy’s, Southwest Airlines, The Dallas Cowboys and Time Warner Cable TV during his 30-year advertising and public relations career.

He recently launched Rockwall County’s leading online news website at www.TheRockwallNews.com, plus his personal blog at www.RockwallRocks.com, which combined currently attract over 10,000 visitors per month and are growing fast.

Smith said that domestic, dating and child abuse are now so widespread that utilizing the power and reach of media – especially the Internet – is essential to reducing and preventing abuse. 

“The number of confirmed child abuse victims rocketed 79 percent across Rockwall County since 2005, according to CPS data,” he said. ‘The number has almost doubled during the past two years ago from an annual average of 45 to nearly 90.” 

“Family violence has soared 61 percent in Rockwall alone since 2004, according to Rockwall Police,” he added.  “The numbers have jumped from over 150 reports to 250 each year. But since national experts believe that only about 25 percent of assaults are actually reported, the numbers are most likely four times higher.”

“We also understand an average of five local women per day meet with domestic violence counselors from the Greenville-based Women In Need women’s shelter. Rockwall County needs to financially support WIN, for the good of the community. “

Smith emphasized that dating violence is now so out of control in Texas that the State legislature passed a law in 2007 requiring all public school districts to develop anti-dating abuse programs.

“Three in four young Texans, 16-24, have either experienced dating abuse or know someone who has, according to a 2006 study conducted with the Texas Attorney General’s office,” he explained. “That’s much higher than the national average of one in three teens and young adults, so we definitely have a very serious epidemic on our hands.”

“We’ve been assisting Rockwall ISD for several months and will soon begin helping Heritage Christian Academy to develop excellent programs. Then we’ll look for other school districts and private schools which want our help.”  

Lillian Smith anti-abuse campaign ads, news articles and Internet videos will soon begin appearing in local newspapers, billboards, movie theaters and on local websites featuring a variety of prevention -oriented messages which Smith, other marketing professionals and abuse survivors from across DFW are developing.

Adults, seniors, children and families who want to race or walk can obtain information and registration details online at www.racetoendabuse.com or by calling 214-256-4071, seven days a week,from 8am-10 pm.

More sponsors and volunteers are currently needed and should also contact Smith by visiting the same website or calling the same phone number as above.

By J.J. Smith. Most and perhaps none of Rockwall County’s public and private schools will be showing President Obama’s controversial live speech to school children in their classes Tuesday morning at 11 a.m (Central Time).

Rockwall ISD will provide ”optional access” at a designated location on each campus.

Royse City ISD and Heritage Christian Academy (HCA)will not.

The Fulton School’s administrators were meeting Friday morning and have not yet decided.

RISD and RCISD will use their websites to make a recording and text of his speech available for students and parents to view at their convenience. 

According to a letter sent home yesterday with children from RISD, “due to the important content and historical nature of President Obama’s address, we will provide all students and their families optional access. ”

“On each campus the president’s address will be available at a designated location.”

“Please contact your campus administrator if you would like your student to view the message as it is broadcast live.”

RISD will also post “the full content of the message” on the RISD website home page” “so all students and their parents and guardians will have access to President Obama’s address at their convenience.”

“Our main goal is to keep the decision in the hands of the parents,” said RISD Director of Communications Sheri Fowler.

According to the RCISD website, ”Royse City ISD will not be attempting to show this event live to our students.”

“ There are too many issues,  including the capability of our technology system to stream a live event to all classrooms, as well as the fact that it will be during the lunch time of many of our students and staff.”

“ However, we will make a recording available to our social studies teachers for them to use at their discretion.  Parents always have the ability to opt their children out of the viewing of any video.  This should be done by contacting the teacher or the principal at the appropriate campus.”

HCA administrators said they had no particular comments to offer.

In a letter last week to the nation’s school principals, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the speech streamed live from the White House website would simply challenge students to work hard, set educational goals and take responsibility for their learning.

But some education experts and parents are criticizing the speech because they say a suggested lesson plan that calls on school kids to write letters to themselves about what they can do to help Pres. Obama  establishes the president as a “superintendent in chief” and may indoctrinate children to support him politically.

Pres. Obama will deliver the national address directly to students on Tuesday, which will be the first day of classes for many children across the country. Most Texas schools have already been in session for two weeks.

“The goal of the speech and the lesson plans is to challenge students to work hard in school, to not drop out and to meet short-term goals like behaving in class, doing their homework and goals that parents and teachers alike can agree are noble,” Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman, told FOXNews.com. “This isn’t a policy speech. This is a speech designed to encourage kids to stay in school.”

But in advance of the address, the Department of Education has offered educators “classroom activities” to coincide with Obama’s message. 

That’s the main reason for the controversy.