No, we'll not be folding our tent.

For some weeks, the editors of the Waking Bear© have been discussing amongst themselves the merits of continuing our efforts amidst a community of supposedly intelligent - because their educated and presumed therefore to be involved - braindead and sadly uninvolved citizenry. Our e-mail exchanges had been fast, furious and inconclusive until we began hearing from our cyberspace readership that had not seen an amended Waking Bear© page since August 25th. It was their comments, support and suggestions that we provide the ONLY consistently vigorous voice representing financial sanity in the Three Village School District, the ONLY voice to take exception to the senselessness of the School Board as well as to the greed and hubris of the teachers that helped us to unanimously agree to continue.

However, there were other forces as well. The bile of the banal e-mail provided the final straw. Teachers and other mental incompetents saw cause to brag about the strength in teacher "Whatever it Takes!" unity versus the failure of the School Board to take a stand against them, in the weakness of a community to express themselves against the tyranny of a threatened strike, in the totally OUTRAGEOUS contract settlement providing 8% to 12.5% salary increases for each of the next four years to the drone membership of the "543 Club," by a shortsighted negotiator (lawyer) and elected official-dumb.

Having been an irretrievable thorn in the side of such fools for nearly three years has been a pleasure we would sorely (no pun intended) miss. WE WILL NOT STOP.

Clearly, change will take a LOT longer than anyone imagined. It is equally obvious that it will take consequences so dire they will border upon or exceed the disastrous. So be it. To quote the victorious drones: "Whatever it Takes!"

In the meantime, congratulations are in order to our intellectually "congenital ninth graders"[ teachers], president Sheila Mac Fayden of The Victorious Teaching Airheads (TVTA) and the contract negotiator, who slipped another one through.

We can hardly wait to see what the Administrators will be asking for and then, without question, receiving following this fiasco, given the fact that the Board of Education has gotten so very good at "picking up the soap."

Over time, The Waking Bear© will be refining its appearance. As the inadequacies of the Board of Education, administrators and teachers remain unchanged, all we have said before remains valid and need not be any further developed, only refined. To spread the gospel nationwide and in response to a number of inquires, articles will, where possible, be made generic so they may be used by those wishing a change in their own communities.

In the future, The Waking Bear© will be more data oriented, though not entirely. Expect to see a database providing information about teachers and administrators salaries, working conditions and perks. The things the imperious wish to keep under wraps.

But, don't let any of this keep you here in the Three Village area. Just as day follows night, the recent failure of the Board of Education to take control of the district's financial reigns will bring ruin. The percentage of parents of school aged children will reach a saturation point. Those of us financially and emotionally capable of doing so will exit stage left, including newspaper editors with family members teaching in the district, meaning fewer non-parents to pay school taxes. Student enrollment will reach 10,000. The number of teachers will increase by more than 200. By the year 2000, these "congenital ninth graders" will be earning average salaries of greater than $80,000. And, thanks to tenure, their numbers cannot be reduced. There will be an economic turndown. Upstaters will revolt against contributing state taxes to pay the disproportionately high Long Island teachers' salaries. And then...chaos.

So, where will this scenario find you? How about King County, Seattle? Perhaps the mountains of Montana, Tennessee or New Hampshire? The shores of North or South Carolina? Maybe Oregon? Take your pension, your savings, your 2.2% social security raise for 1998, your sanity and then

Sell your home and live free of an outlandish tax burden.