Lombard calling. Integrity needs to become part of the Naperville district’s lessons, with an article in the Daily Herald because more than 40 percent of Naperville District 203 students don’t think it’s cheating to get their questions or answers before taking a test. Why hasn’t Glenbard East adopted the pillars of character as District 44 has already done and the Lombard Police have already done? Is there a reason for this? Naperville is also going to be investigating random drug testing at the school, because students are coming to the school under the influence. Perhaps District 87 can respond or Glenbard East.

Glenbard East, along with District 44, the village, churches and other Lombard organizations all shared aspects of Character Counts! when it came to Lombard in the 1990s. According to Gilda Ross, student and community projects coordinator for Glenbard Township High School District 87, East has maintained the standards of the program, saying, “The goals and mission of Character Counts! within the building are still actively employed.” Building character is a “top priority” at Glenbard East, she emphasized. Shahe Bagdasarian, assistant principal for student services, echoed Ross’ comments and elaborated that the school follows the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) model—“We do embrace the Character Counts! principles in the building.” He said the PBIS program includes a school-wide initiative called East Side Pride: Be Ready, Be Respectful, Be Responsible. In using PBIS, the school incorporates classroom discussions—based on school data—into the lesson plans, Bagdasarian continued, adding that the East Side Pride “three R’s” “sets the foundation in our building for expectations of behavior.” He mentioned that as a result, the school has seen out-of-school suspensions decrease by 70 percent over four years. “We’ve seen a tremendous shift in our climate,” the assistant principal summed up.—JAC

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To the parents of children in Lombard and Villa Park, are your schools teaching CSCOPE, or Common Core? If you want your children to be brainwashed that 9/11 was the fault of the United States because of choices we have made, you’d better get online and read what this is all about. They’re trying to put it in our schools. It is your job to protect your children. Get together with other parents, find out what it’s all about and stop this indoctrination of the innocent. They’re your children. You’ve got to see to it to protect them. Thank you.

Your comments were forwarded to both Dr. Jim Blanche and Dr. Janice Rosales, District 44 and District 45 superintendents, respectively. Rosales related that CSCOPE was developed by the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative (TESCC), “to provide high quality curriculum components and resources to help school districts ensure that all students meet rigorous academic achievement standards in efficient and economical ways.” She said Illinois has adopted the Common Core State Standards. Blanche said the standards “are written for math and English language arts,” adding, “The science standards have just been released.” He indicated that currently there are no social studies standards per se, adding that “The content areas of history, social studies, science and technical subjects have standards that support the reading and writing standards outlined in the [English language arts] standards.” When asked about your reference to “brainwashing,” Blanche noted that there is “no specific mention of historical events in the standards.” Additionally, Rosales related that when she looked up CSCOPE Common Core, “There is a Web site for a group that has different ideas,” in which she underscored “different.” “Your caller may have been looking at the rhetoric from that site,” Rosales surmised.—JAC

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Regarding the flooding of streets on April 18, I am surprised that people who live in front of storm sewers do not make sure they are clear of leaves and other debris. I was surprised because I went by some streets that were flooded and the next day they weren’t. You could see it was because the storm sewers were blocked.

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To the people complaining about the train station, I get it, but years ago the police said in SPEAK OUT, after the complaint was about them being in the library, that it’s hard to enforce loitering when somebody’s not doing anything wrong. I don’t hear anyone coming up with a solution except to complain to the village and Metra, or whoever is in charge of the station. Where would you have these people go when it’s cold? It’s like you equate the problem with litter all over that’s not getting cleaned up. These are human beings. The old NIMBY attitude, eh?—Not in my backyard.

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This is Lombard calling. I would like to say that on Saturday I received the controversial flier right before the election. I just think these women shouldn’t be putting on a show like that. It’s not good for the children and it’s not good for the people who supported Mr. Giagnorio, whom I am not one of. Thank you.

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This is Lombard over near Maple Street. I just wanted to give a big shout out to John at Waste Management. Today is our big flooding and everybody on our block, our basements flooded, and John is all alone in the Waste Management truck and he picked up everything himself that we had pulled up from our basements all along the whole block. So, thank you, John, very much, and I hope everybody gets dry soon. Thank you, bye.

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Thursday, April 18, 9:45 a.m., historic rainfall in Lombard, a disaster area and it looks like a police car at Eastgate is running radar. Why?

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Lombard calling. I’d like to join the chorus of voices concerning the Lombard train station turning into an all-week homeless shelter. I’m tired of going in there and it smelling like things I really won’t specifically mention. Further, I patronize the Corner House in the station on occasion and I can’t imagine that it’s very good for business or appealing to a potential customer when it smells in the station. I empathize with the plight of the homeless, but when it begins to have a negative impact as it apparently has, given the number of recent mentions in this column, I believe it’s time to do something. And again, summer is approaching and people will be staying at our grand hotel, using the shuttle to the station to visit the city. What kind of impression of Lombard does that leave with visitors? Perhaps our new trustee can reach out to Metra and PADS in a coordinated effort to rectify the problem. Now that would leave a more lasting impression, don’t you think?

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Villa Park has spoken. We stood tall against the man who tried to make a fool of us. Now we want to have confidence and trust in our elected officials, that they perpetrate dignity for the residents of our village. Also, go Mr. Giagnorio in Lombard, born and raised in Villa Park.

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After the northside flooding, I guess we can see why the District 1 trustee was voted out. Shameful.

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Lombard calling; a few comments on the election. As a member of District 1, I am proud to see that we have a new trustee, hopefully one who doesn’t want to just turn old downtown Lombard into more of a parking lot for people from Glen Ellyn and Wheaton. Hopefully he wants to maybe see downtown Lombard be a little bit more than a ghost town. We got rid of one part of the three-headed monster. I know Ware ran unopposed; I was just really disappointed when I saw the picture that went out in the mailing with the “we’re No. 1 sign.” You know, folks, I’m glad to say that I’ve only got about three of four years and I can get out of this village. Our leadership under Bill Mueller, at best, was poor, and with Dave Hulseberg still there, we went from poor to worse. Really, it’s time to get out of this village, folks. Thank you. Bye.

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It’s Thursday morning of the rain storm; reply to officer who wanted to know if ”we know the speed limit of the block,” Yes, Officer, we do and often tell drivers to slow down due to presence of children and pets on the block. Please help us understand under these conditions why you were driving above the speed limit: Blocks between Lincoln and Elizabeth are not very big and the east end of the block and west end of the block are under water. Children with their dogs are milling around in the water on the east end of the block. Neighbors are out assessing the damages outside after dealing with damages to the insides of their homes yet again.  Most of these people were up since 3 a.m. Numerous cars were down the road prior to you and were driving very carefully and turned around just like you and carefully drove back off the block. So I have to ask you; wouldn’t it be a better example if you drove cautiously due to above conditions as it didn’t appear that you were heading to an emergency. Maybe it would have been nice to ask if anyone needed assistance of any kind.

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Big shout goes out to Lombard voters for doing the right thing on April 9. The haters played their hand of ugly politics and it backfired on them. I just hope that when the financiers and designers of “Fliergate” are exposed, Lombardians never forget their names.

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This is Lombard calling. I think it was a great idea that the village worked with Waste Management and placed dumpsters around the village. The only problem is, they’re not dumping them. They placed one out here sometime around 10 a.m. Monday morning and I went by at 4:20 p.m. and stuff is falling out of the dumpster. It looks like they only put one out over the weekend and that’s when everybody was off, a good time to clean up their basement. They really need to extend this, bring more dumpsters or have somebody monitoring it. I know they probably have a shortage of dumpsters, but if you’re going to do it, don’t do it half way. People count on that. Thank you, Lombard.

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Hi, this is Lombard calling. I just want to say I’m tired of the sewer backing up into my basement. I wish the village would disconnect the sanitary and the storm water sewers. Also, the idea of them putting dumpsters sporadically throughout the village is really weird. How are we supposed to lug our wet carpeting over to a dumpster that is several blocks away? I don’t want to put it in my car. I think they should offer free garbage pick-up. Whoever thought of putting the dumpsters in various places, it was not a good idea. Thank you. Bye.

The Village of Lombard is offering up to 10 free garbage stickers, to provide relief to Lombard residents affected by the storms, through April 29.—JAC

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God bless the people of the Boston area. Our thoughts and prayers go out to them. Once again we must thank and remember all of our first responders and everyone who helped out. A reminder to all of us in this area. It is not the time to be cutting back on our public safety.

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Lombard calling. Condolences to the families and those in the tragic Boston terrorist incident. It sickens me that this goes on. God bless America. This is sick. We need to continue to keep putting these people away, give military trials to the ones who are guilty, not put them in civilian court. Also, quit letting them out of Guantanamo Bay as the president has been doing. We need to do what Israel does. It’s not politically correct, but odds are the person who’s going to blow up a plane in Israel has a certain kind of last name. Not popular but that does the job and keeps the Israeli people safe.

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Congratulations, Villa Park citizens, for coming out against voting for Heidelmeier. We don’t need to be the laughing stock of other towns by having this type of person as village president. Thank you.

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Lombard calling. I read the complaints from village board candidates and SPEAK OUT callers about the now-famous walk-out meeting. I attended that meeting and have attended many others. Thus, I feel I’ve gotten to know something of the personalities of the board members and some of it isn’t so pretty. Let’s assume that all of the complainers calling in were in attendance at that meeting—and there must have been hundreds—and saw and heard what developed. My question to them is, if you were on the board that night, exactly what would you have said and done to peacefully resolve the problem, and what would you do if it develops again? Don’t give me generalities; give me specifics. Speak up. What would you have done?

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Hello, I would like to thank the community leaders who led the BCS championship public football game party in downtown Lombard back in January. I can attest to the fact that I am a nobody; I’m not connected to anyone influential in town, and that being said, I can attest to the fact that this was no private party. It was a public event. Anyway, kudos to those who planned this. I had never been to Shannon’s Deli before that night and I have been back to Shannon’s at least a half dozen times since then and plan on continuing to frequent Shannon’s Deli. To those in SPEAK OUT who still complain, you should be ashamed of yourself. This was a lovely special event to draw people downtown. It did draw people downtown, and into downtown businesses. If you hate that idea you should not have run for trustee positions, you should not have run for re-election for your trustee position and you should not have run for village president. Congratulations to those who chose to plan this fabulous event. Thank you.

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Hi, this is Lombard calling. This is a question of why somebody would move into an extremely quiet part of town and then advertise his company out on his front lawn. It’s so incredibly rude that he allows his dogs to bark the whole neighborhood awake every morning, sometimes as early as 5:30 a.m. on weekends, and not even care about anybody in the neighborhood and think anybody would hire a company that would be so incredibly rude to his own neighbors. The neighbors have talked to him about it, the cops have been to his house about it and I’m also wondering why the cops have been there 20 times for unruly barking dogs at all hours of the morning. Why hasn’t he been issued tickets for disturbing the peace?

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America here. As I watched the bombing in Boston, what comes to mind is the taxpayer money Obama gave to the Muslim Brotherhood and our enemies in Egypt. As he dismantles our military and kills Americans with his health care, now he sends our secretary of state to appease Iran and North Korea. Whoever did this knows the Obama administration will say one thing and do nothing. It’s time for a real American president who is concerned about America, not his vacation and his golf game.