A message from a respected Doctor in our community about Swine Flu

Hi folks,

Please read this email in its entirety. It contains very important information, and I'm giving you a scoop that isn't being given in the newspapers based on my reading today.

I would like to give you my take on the current state of the Swine Flu virus with signature H1N1 (I'm going to refer to it as the H1N1 virus from now on).

I am not usually one to panic about these things, but I think this is a very serious outbreak and I'd like to give you some advice you're not seeing in the newspapers.

Please feel free to forward this to your friends.

Here are some facts:

1) There was an outbreak of : resistant H1N1 influenza virus earlier in the flu season. Tamiflu is a drug commonly given to either prophylax against influenza, or to lessen the symptoms.

2) Influenza typically undergoes shifting of its genome during the course of the year, and this genetic shifting is frequently implicated in the worldwide pandemics that you've heard about in 1918 etc.

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This article's author very adequately cites significant evidence that America's Educational System is STILL not doing so well in a global economy. We are still not competing with other countries. In some ways we are not even close. After so many years of listening to government officials come up with new ways to keep us in the competition and listening, year after year, to the statistics that these ways are not working, is it time to admit we are on the wrong path altogether? How can organizations like Creative Tutors get us on the right path?

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Creative Tutors works closely with parents and their children to help the child prepare for their college experience. When a child reaches 9th grade (freshman year) we begin to counsel the family and child on how to build their portfolio along with keeping their grades at the top of their game. Unfortunately, some students begin too late and end up settling far from their dream and in the position to now connect to a new dream.

Other students, hard working and staying on point also find themselves settling far from their dreams and miss the "Top 10 Percent" mark. These students that reach just below the top 10 percent class rankings become highly recruited from out of state universities and private colleges. Again a shift in their dream but not necessarily a shift in the quality of education they are seeking at the university level.

Shifting ones dream or path is not the end all of the college dream. It is a transition that the family may need to make to their budget. The student and parents must work harder on finding the scholarships needed for them to help realize their college experience in making it an affordable option. Some universities are very eager to recruit out of state students from Texas. Why? Our students are talented! The quality of the student is high and a great resource to bring to these out of state schools such as Georgetown University, http://www.georgetown.edu/ Vanderbilt University, http://www.vanderbilt.edu/ William and Mary, http://www.wm.edu/ just to name a few.

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To educate a child in public school it is noted that the combined cost is nearing $25,000.00 per year per student.

How would you score the ROI on your child's education in public school?
1 being the lowest - 10 being the highest? Explain why.

Interesting articles to read below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_education
http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp-025.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/04/AR2008040402921.html

Share articles that you find by adding them to your comments message.

Senator Odgen's Rider 48: Appropriates $200 million in state dollars to reshape the service delivery system for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It provides a significant number of HCS and CLASS program "slots" to address the disproportionate wait time for these programs. The initiative restores the safety-net for this population by returning funds to MHMR Centers. This initiative also caps the State Schools census at 3,000 individuals and directs the state agency to move 500 people out of institutions over two years. The initiative also removes the HCS case management function from providers and places this responsibility with MRAs.

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This message was given to me by a parent of an adult with Down syndrome. Please Read. If you feel moved to contact your representative please do:
http://www.house.state.tx.us/resources/faq.htm#who_rep

I am the mother of a 24 year old daughter with Down syndrome. I believe the Texas Legislature needs to be responsive to the long-term services needs of people with intellectual disabilities.

The 20+ bills and resolutions related to state schools clearly indicate the need for a PLAN FOR LONG-TERM SERVICES & SUPPORTS in Texas must be a priority.

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It is arguably the most overlooked ingredient in the recipe for student success. Encouraging words. Taking time to celebrate the little successes so that they will grow into bigger more frequent successes. Children can be such fragile little plants requiring just the amount of sunshine and water and time to grow. It is so easy in our sometimes overzealous and caring quest to create blossoming, beautiful and hopefully fully self sustaining living beings, to be inadvertently overzealous, huddling and worrying over every little thing rather than gently cheer leading, nurturing and guiding our children to the next step.

There are many tools for success you can teach a child but giving them the tools to believe in themselves and to persevere in reaching their goals even in the face of the constant criticism of others, will take them far in a world that is already full of negative feedback.

A psychologist told me today that for every negative thought that enters our world it takes ten positives to counteract it. The adult world is so full of negatives. The world needs adult children who can give out of the overabundance of positive love they have received from their parents, teachers, and others of influence in their childhood to be a life changing influence in the lives of so many peers who have not been so blessed.