Something new: Newtown Patch hating on Council Rock....

Not hating on Council Rock, just simply reporting an incident that was relayed to me by township police.

The title of the article is disingenuous at best and misleading at worst. The fight wasn't AT the game, it was in a parking lot near the school involving some juveniles. You wrote the article to make it seem as if CR students were fighting at the football game. The quote from the police doesn't even say if they were CR students and you don't mention who the opponent in the game was, my guess that was intentional. This article, and most others you write with regard to Council Rock, is written with a pretty obvious negativity.

The information from police said "crowds of juveniles who had been attending a football game at Council Rock High School North" were "moving between the high school and the shopping center." Seeing as I wasn't there, I have to take the police's description of the incident at its word.

And just to add, the title of the article says "during" for that very reason so as not to convey it occurred in the stadium.

Hate to say it, but Meg is right, at least about your misleading headline. Kara, you have been taken to task about sensationalistic headlines in the past and you seem to always react defensively when readers mention it. Let's not insult anyone's intelligence here. You know what the headline implies and that is why you chose it.

Apologies if it comes off as defensive. I'm just trying to provide an explanation, that's all.

When it comes to reading articles I click on, almost always the headline is conveying much more than what the article is about. I clicked on this thinking a fight broke out in the stadium but then it just seems like some nuisance kids at the shopping center. Was it a big fight? Small fight? Hardly seems newsworthy but with little that happens in Newtown what do you expect? I don't think Kara was trying to be bias I think maybe she was doing what every journalist does with headlines (not to say it is the way to go).

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the title or article. The fight broke out DURING a CR game. It doesn't say AT the game. Those kids were all there because of the game. They didn't all just happen to stroll towards the Wendy's parking lott at the same time, it most likely was instigated AT the game. The fighters moved from the game to Wendy's to keep it off of school property so they wouldn't get in more trouble. Kids from the game are most likely CR students since who they heck else goes to see HS games besides parents. Whether they were fighting the opposing team or their own school students...who cares. There was still a bunch of immature spoiled brats all fighting no matter how the article was written. Meg sounds like she was there and has some strong love for CR. Definitely sounds like a future parent of one of these kids..no responsibility for their actions. Its not hating on a school when the students bring it on themselves and bring the school's name into the news. I graduated from CR it was a horrible place then and even worse now with even more spoiled and disrespectful kids running around I see it everyday. You either got the blinded ones defending the school like Meg and believe that CR is perfect in all ways and could never do any wrong, or they just choose to ignore the truth behind the negativity.

Keep reporting the facts as you have in this case Kara. I appreciate your coverage of all things Newtown. When I went to CRHS a girl shot herself in the bathroom senior year and then blamed her boyfriend on it. Folks, negative things actually do happen at Council Rock, this is not fantasyland, it is the real world. One of our biggest issues in Newtown is that people do not lock their cars and night and far too many thieves know it and thus we see a rash of break ins and thefts in Newtown. Please remember we live in the real world where kids sometimes get into fistfights (this happened every year I went to Council Rock) on school property and right adjacent to school property, and where criminals commit petty crimes.

How about you actually read the article Rob? This didnt happen AT Council Rock. Who is to say it wasn't Truman students? Anyway-this is great advice coming from the only other person in Newtown that HATES Council Rock as much as Kara seems to. I mean, come on Rob, admit it-you only whine about CR as much as you do to deflect attention from how you looted the township coffers and ran Newtown into the ground.

Here's some recent coverage of Council Rock on Patch. As you can see, we cover both positive and negative. These three stories were published in the last two weeks. Thank you everyone for your input and for reading.
http://newtown-pa.patch.com/articles/council-rock-makes-philly-magazine-s-top-schools-list
http://newtown-pa.patch.com/articles/cr-north-among-highest-area-sat-scores
http://newtown-pa.patch.com/articles/council-rock-receives-national-award

Council Rock North was playing at Nehaminy this last Friday night. Just trying to throw clarity on it!

Council Rock South's site says it on the calendar: http://crsd.org/Domain/487
I received a news tip about this incident and called the township police. They sent me the information filed by the officers. All of the information published was provided straight from the police department. If you call the township police at 215-579-1000 I'm sure they'd be happy to answer your questions about the incident.

Also, I'm not sure why you think I would be biased? I live in the district, pay taxes in the district and in a few years my children will be attending schools in the district.

Meg:
I am not sure about where your comments are coming from with regard to "hate for Council Rock." It is my alma mater and I am proud of that fact. I do want the school to maintain extremely high standards and perhaps my standards are too high for some people. My point is that every school has problems and attacking the messenger as you have done with Kara, and now are doing with me solves no problems. Newtown Township has not, been run into the ground. Instead we have curtailed spending the best we can do to decreased revenues because of current economic conditions. We still maintain a healthy reserve fund and provide critical services to our residents.

I usually do not respond to anonymous posters as they could be anyone but I had to once again clarify my remarks.

By the way where did you go to school? And why are you not raising your children at that school? Just curious Meg, especially since my children are attending CR schools or are about to soon.

Rob - you're a public person so you can't possibly be so obtuse as to not realize that people take note of your constant railing against Council Rock? Nearly every time you comment on them it's negative. Maybe you should apply your "extremely high standards" to yourself and stop knocking your alma mater every chance you get to try to score political points. Schadenfreude is unbecoming.

Meg you have not answered my question and continue with the ad hominem attacks. What I learned in school is he who resorts to personal attacks has already lost the argument.

Rob-I didn't answer your question because it's really none of your business where I went to school or where my kids go to school. My original comment expressed my opinion (which I have every right to) and didn't use Kara's name specifically - I referenced Newtown Patch. No one forced you to stick your two cents in on this thread, you chose to do so and referenced your own personal information (that you went to CR), so it's you that made it "personal". Since you chose to respond again and characterize my comments as "ad hominem", I'll clarify them for you via a simple google search:

Complaining about the class rank:
http://www.phillyburbs.com/my_town/hamptons/the-class-ranking-debate-to-tell-or-not-to-te/article_5ad048d6-3fd7-5f13-a376-9d37afedecf8.html

Using CR to bash Rendell and House Democrats
http://buckslocalnews.com/articles/2010/04/08/opinion/doc4bb3721078de6363278627.txt

Criticizing the District over the Melsky tract:
http://newtown-pa.patch.com/articles/melsky-so-what-does-it-all-mean

Criticizing the teachers salaries and benefits:
http://www.patownhall.com/article.php?id=5404

Criticizing the school board:
http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/courier_times_news/cr-taxpayers-could-face-percent-tax-increase/article_62b6ad5a-59e5-5251-b8ea-4195b1ec5ae6.html

Does that answer your question? Maybe you should have learned in school to mind your own business.

Rob is a cop hater. Heaven forbid the criminals find out how bad morale is in the township PD. How many people know that he and his Retardican alcoholic cronies on the Board of Stupidvisors bullied police into freezing their pay, virtually eliminating all overtime and other financially disastrous decisions. He wants higher office so he refuses time and again to raise taxes to cover the budget. You cut costs from the wrong areas of the budget, you idiot. Raise the effing taxes, you self righteous, pompous bag of hot air.

Wow! What I learned from my CR teachers and my parent was actually to be inquistive ask questions, offer an informed opinion and not be bullied by those who seek to silence me for offering an informed opinion. It is unfortunate some perhaps did not learn those lessons from their parents, grandparents and teachers. I became interested in local politics from my Practical Government teacher Mr. Rhett Johnson who lived right on Court Street in Newtown Borough. He had us attend a mayoral debate held on State Street in 1985. Many moons later I am happy to have his support in my efforts to help lead the township through our financial struggles and our battles with developers who seek to rezone lands or obtain zoning variances to increase housing densities in our town.

As someone whose brother is in law enforcement the other ad hominem attack comment is incorrect as well.

As a taxpaying citizen I will continue to offer opinions on policies and budgets that affect my family and other people in the community. I welcome disagreement with those opinions, but the above type of rhetoric designed to personally attack me will not work folks. It is low brow and unfortunate and demonstrates a lack of knowledge of the issues and a losing argument.

I got to the end of the comments and forgot what the article was about. Boo to Allison for her name calling and insults - if you can't argue a point, go home.

On the subject of the headline, I am not sure how Kara could have, in the space of a headline, conveyed that there was a fight in a local shopping center parking lot involving local high school students. I'm sure she got more clicks on the article with CR in the headline, but that's how she gets us to read the article. The purpose of the headline is to get you to read the article.

As for Meg, sorry, you sound like you are looking for a fight. Kara does print the good and the bad, and I am not always in agreement with the way Patch does things - most notably Patch's decision to publish the pictures of people in the midst of a suicide attempt (twice, once a pic of a man with a gun to his head).

Now, as far as the actual fight goes, why, it occurs to me that these rabble rousing students learned much from the sledge hammer punishments that were handed down last spring after the shocking display of teenage violence and rebellion that was the 30 second food fight in the cafeteria. Those students were initially told they could not walk at graduation (later rescinded), were suspended, had letters written to their colleges. These students wisely took it off campus!!

I left out that the cafeteria fighters had charges brought against them and were publicly admonished as threatening the health and safety of the other students in the cafeteria.

:)

Rob - As a tax paying citizen, so will I and too bad if you don't like my opinions. No one is trying to silence or bully you. I think you rail on CR too much and then use the "But.. I went there" excuse and trot out your Newtown pedigree as if that makes it OK. You being an elected official-putting that negativity out in the community about the school district doesn't help anyone. Sorry if you don't like my informed opinion (which is not personal, by the way.) but I stick by it and the examples I cited to back it up.

ok guys, leave Kara alone. Obviously if there's a football game at North people will be at Wendy's and most likely a fight will happen. So the title of this article fits it perfectly. The fight doesn't have to be at North for it to be during the time of the game.

I am a "juvenile" that attends council rock north, trust me I know

Kara you are doing a great job covering Newtown and Council Rock, thank you!! It's especially nice to have someone from my "old" hometown covering the news (and living) in my "new" hometown. Keep up the good work!

kara is too busy serving as a censor to worry about being fair. she deletes all accounts in violation of the first amendment (save the TOS expanation, it's bogus) that she doesnt agree with. Now go out and support Obama, Kara

The only accounts I delete are in violation of our Terms of Use: http://newtown-pa.patch.com/terms
You're too busy pontificating on your conspiracy theories to notice.

thats why you work for Newtown Patch.

Is that supposed to be an insult? Clearly you read Newtown Patch. I'm actually really tired of your constant inappropriate comments on a range of issues. It's really not helpful to anyone.

And you're not fooling anyone by changing usernames all of the time, BTW