This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
While Utah politicians wring their hands about Common Core and other education initiatives they didn't think up themselves, and while legislators continue to micromanage education for their own special interests, heroic efforts by educators go unnoticed.
Those who scream that Common Core is a federal socialist plot seem to be the last to worry about homeless children getting an education.
After all, they often are the same folks who want to deport little kids whose only home has been in the U.S., but their parents came here illegally.
But someone cares about homeless children and their education. They are the front-line soldiers who work within the education bureaucracy, and who actually work to solve the problems facing schools.
There are about 80 school-aged children whose families stay at the Road Home shelter on Salt Lake City's west side. Most of them are elementary school-age and getting them registered each fall is easier said than done.
Rebecca Pittam, principal at Washington Elementary School, takes that responsibility seriously.
Registrars from the school visit the shelter several times before school starts. They work to identify each child at the shelter and get them registered. Many of the homeless families are transient and are in and out, so finding them all is difficult.
The Friday before school starts, the entire faculty at Washington came to the shelter, where food was brought in so all could share a meal together and get acquainted.
Salt lake City School District has a full-time homeless student coordinator, Mike Harman, who says the challenge is not only the students at the shelter themselves but the kids who don't live at the shelter but hang out around the area.
He says the district has transportation assistance for the kids whose families have been moved to the Midvale shelter because of overcrowding at the Salt Lake facility.
Kids are bussed in or given gas or bus credits from as far away as Tooele.
While the families move around frequently, Harman says more efforts are being made to keep the kids in the same school for the entire year.
Tough duty. But they're doing it.
History of rock and roll • It began around 1500 BC, when the earliest drums were left in caves for archaeologists to uncover centuries later, and it has evolved into raucous, multi-million dollar staged events in front of thousands of screaming fans.
We're talking, of course, about rock and roll. And now there is a class offered by the University of Utah's continuing education program that explores its history — taught by longtime radio personality and writer Lynn Lehmann, who began his career spinning records in 1966 when he was 19.
The continuing education program's official name is Osher Lifelong Institute, which offers an array of classes. But this one, in particular, seems especially geared for us graying baby boomers who grew up during the golden era of rock in the 1960s.
Lehmann, who began his career on the old teenager favorite KNAK-AM, was famous later on for his Lehmann Lemon Awards, given to some official who did something stupid, when he was with KCPX Radio.
He said the course will briefly touch on the percussion and woodwind instruments carved by the early humans and found in caves, then touch on the invention of radio and go on to the rise and evolution of rock and roll from the early 1950s through the '60s up to today.
Each generation has its claim on rock and roll over the years, but those of us in our 60s probably are the most snooty about the greatness of our era.
The nine-hour class will meet Wednesdays from 5:15 p.m. to 6:45 p.m., beginning Sept. 24, and going for seven weeks.
Lehmann, who worked on projects with the venerable rock and roll icon Dick Clark, said the course will include about two hours of video clips of what he calls "the soundtrack of our lives."
For more information on the class, go to http://www.continue.utah.edu, and search for "History of Rock and Roll."