Students, officials plan walkouts

Reports of the demise of civics education are greatly exaggerated.

For the past month since the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 people were killed, many teenagers across the U.S., motivated by shock and fear, have been living out the concepts in their government textbooks.

Students in New Albany petitioned their government, in this case the school board. Dozens of teens in Bexley sat down with school administrators to negotiate how best to express themselves.

High-schoolers in Columbus, Bexley, Westerville, Olentangy, New Albany and elsewhere are getting ready to peacefully assemble at 10 a.m. on Wednesday by walking out of class and doing other activities to draw attention to their cause.

What I am about to tell you may shock you, leaving you to question whether you’ve truly known anything for certain.

Or perhaps more likely in this part of the country, it will leave you scratching your head. Nevertheless, I can remain quiet no longer.

If you pay any heed to weather events beyond Ohio, you may have heard that another big storm is expected to hammer New England today with more than a foot of snow and potential blizzard conditions. You also may have heard that this is the third storm of this type to hit New England in the past two weeks.

And you almost certainly know what these particular storms are called. Nor’easters. Don’t call them that. I have it on good authority that the term is complete hooey.