The Galveston Daily News from Galveston, Texas • Page 7

THE DAILYNEWS Page 8-A Call Heber Taylor at 744-3611 or 986-7711, Ext, 245 OUR COUNTY Wednesday Jan. 5,1994 COUNTY line County Slow down: classes begin today at public schools in La Marque, Santa Fe and Dickinson. Students are back in all Galveston County schools. Galveston The League of Women Voters of the Galveston Area will have a general meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Rosenberg Library, 2310 Sealy.

The national league office has requested local league to do a "Look at League" survey. The meeting will also address goal-setting for the coming year locally. This should be of special interest to all members. For more information, call Lynn Thompson, league president at 744-841 2 or Nina Williamson at a The Texas Singing Cadets will be in concert at 7:30 p.m. Mon- 'day at Ball High School Auditorium.

The concert is sponsored by the Mainland Mothers' Club, Galveston Island Mothers' Club and The Galveston County Club. Tickets are $10 general admission. For ticket information, call Mary Louise Giamfortone 9359497, Cliff Robinson 948-2994 or 766-3114 or Joyce Fundling 7445023. a Galveston College students can get a permit to register from 8:30 a.m. and 7 p.m.

today at Moody Hall, 4105 Ave. Q. Open registration is Thursday. La Marque The La Marque Chamber of Commerce will honor Estelle Neuner at the ninth annual Roast and Toast at 6 p.m. Jan.

13 at the La Marque Holiday Inn. Neuner is being honored for her service to the community as a member of the board of the chamber of commerce, volunteer work and work with the American Businesswomen's Association. Tickets are $15 and may be obtained by calling the chamber at 935-2000 or Esther Rice at 9355622. League City The city will accept discarded Christmas trees for chipping through Tuesday at 1535 Dickinson Ave. The trees will be chipped Jan.

12 and used by the city's parks and recreation department. The drop-off site is between Hewitt and Mulberry, just east of state Highway 3. Trees should be free of all decorations and stands. For more information, call Jack Pierce at (713) 332-3431. matters a TEXAS CITY: Commissioners meet 5 p.m.

today at City Hall, 1801 Ninth Ave. N. Topics include an ordinance regulating commercial bus service in the city; bringing the garbage and trash ordinance into compliance with the contract for privatization of residential solid waste collection, and an ordinance authorizing the director of parks and recreation to prescribe rules and regulations for parks in the city. PICK of the day Say all the good things you can about Dallas. Sing its praises until you're blue in the face.

With j'ust one word, I can refute it all. Mavericks. Want to know how many games they've won? Hold up two fingers. Want to know who they're up against tonight? The Rockets, of course. 7:30 p.m.

on Channel 20 (cable channel 9). But don't watch if you can't stomach the Rockets turning Reunion Arena into a slaughterhouse. Report of toxic seepage sets off investigations By DAVE YEWMAN The Daily News KEMAH The amounts are measured in parts site and will report to the Kemah City I per billion and are below state health Cnunnil af. Jan is mooHncr By DAVE YEWMAN The Daily News A report that small amounts of three toxic chemicals have seeped from a former dump on Anders Lane has prompted investigations by various agencies associated with the site. However, there appears to be no current danger to area residents, authorities said Tuesday.

The Aug. 31, 1992, report on the site was commissioned by the Clear Creek Independent School District. The district was considering a 9.5- acre site 500 feet west of FM 518 and Anders Lane for a new elementary school, according to Elaine Stoermer, district spokeswoman. The district backed out after the report showed trace amounts of three toxic chemicals at the site. In 1979, the school district opened Weber Elementary School near the former Brio refinery in Friendswood.

The school was closed by district trustees in 1992 due to its proximity to Brio now an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site. "I think it would be fair to say that the school district wants to be very judicious in choosing a school site," said Stoermer of the proposed site near Anders Lane. The chemicals found at the Anders Lane site are trichloroethylene, dichloropropane and dithenylhydrazine. T'he amounts are measured in parts per billion and are below state health minimums, according to Beth Vanderbeck, a spokesperson for Monsanto, the company that has been involved in cleaning up the site. "Based on our initial examination, there is no danger to ground water," Vanderbeck said.

"We're doing an extensive analysis right now at various depths and radiuses out from the pit area to determine exactly what it is and how far it's extended. "We're hoping for results by the end of January. Then we'll do whatever is appropriate to ensure the site remains clean." Officials from the Galveston County Health District also are checking the site and will report to the Kemah City Council at its Jan. 13 meeting, according to Mayor Ben Blackledge. "The profile of everything I've seen so far does not indicate that there would be a problem," said Jean Wright of the health district.

Wright also said any outflow from the site should not affect ground water near the site. Blackledge said the school district's withdrawal because of chemicals in the ground caused some concern, but he said he is adopting a wait-and-see attitude. "For 40 years I've been living here," Blackledge said. "I've been on a water well, and I've never heard of anything like this. This will scare people." HOME IN A FARAWAY PLACE German exchange student Rebekka left, laughs as she talks with swimming teammate Rachel Lawrence before a meet at La Marque High School.

Hevlcke, a junior at Texas City High School, will spend 10 months living and going to school in Texas, giving her plenty of time to experience how Americans five. (Photo by Jack Runkett) German student soaking up Texas life By RENEE BROWN The Daily News Foreign exchange student Rebekka Hevicke came to Texas City from a small town in northern Germany. The 17-year-old chose the United States over Africa, Canada and Australia, but had no option about where in the United States she would be sent. When she was told she would be going to Texas, the only image she could conjure up was of people on horses. "I only knew about Texas from Western songs and movies," she said.

Getting used to life in Texas will be difficult, she thought. Now, four months later, she's enjoying herself and not at all homesick. For one thing, she has an excellent command of English, which she has been learning since the fifth grade back home in Sogel, a town of about 6,000 near the Holland border. For another, she says she has a great family to stay with the Critz Cullen family of Texas City. Rebekka is part of the Rotary Exchange Program, a foreign exchange program sponsored by Rotary Club International.

Students can apply through the club or their school counselors. The Rotary Club pays for the flight to the country of choice, and students stay with Rotary Club members like the Cullen family. Each student spends a little more than three months of their 10-month stay with a different Rotary family. Rebekka first stayed with Randy and Peggy Dietel. After her stay with the Cul- TEXAS CITY 1 only knew about Texas from Western songs and German exchange student Rebekka Hevicke lens, she will go to the home of Steve and Susie Moncla.

Rebekka is in the llth grade at Texas City High School. She said the American and German school systems parallel each other up to the sixth grade. Then in Germany, she said, students are split into two levels: one with a vocational track and the other leading to university study. Where you end up depends on your scores on two or three long exams given during the school year, Rebekka said. In Germany, Rebekka is on the university track.

There she takes chemistry, physics, biology, French, English and German in a six-period day that lasts from 8 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. "We don't have assigned homework," she said. "You are expected to study on your own." If you don't study, you can't pass your exams, and much of a student's future rests on test scores. Only the best students attend university- prep high schools.

German high schools have no attendance office and no hall passes. Students write their own absence excuses. Few skip school, Rebekka said, because of peer pressure to do well. "If you fail just one subject, you have to repeat the entire year," she said. Rebekka finds American high school easier than school back home.

She said German schools require more math, science and language for their university- bound students. "There's no multiple- choice or true-or-false questions on our tests," she said. "We have to take a two- to six-hour essay examination twice a year." One thing that surprised Rebekka about American high schools are the number of students who have children of their own. "I don't know anyone in my school back home who has a child," she said. "You just don't see it there." Romance is different back home, too.

"We have longer relationships," she said. "Here, a couple is together for a few weeks, then they break up." Boys and girls in Germany spend a lot of time becoming friends before they start dating, she said. There is no "dating" in the traditional American way. Boys don't ask girls out. Instead, they go out in mixed groups and everyone pays his or her own way.

Rebekka will be in Texas City until the end of the school year. Before she leaves the United States, she will take a three-week trip to the East Coast to see places such as New York City and Washington, D.C. But for now, Rebekka is "just like one of the family," according to Critz Cullen. "She fits right in. She's a typical teen-ager," he said.

Year-round plan gets raves, but that may change Parents still have a choice ByNEJLORMAN The Daily News Year-round education, which has divided the community in Dickinson, has received rave reviews in Friendswood. Year-round school is in its second year of a pilot program at Westwood Elementary and C.W. Cline Primary School in the Friendswood Independent School District. The pilot program is scheduled to last through the spring. Superintendent Gary Clay will recommend whether to continue the program to the school board early next year.

Clay said year-round scheduling has been well- received in his district, despite a few dissenting voices. But Friendswood still offers parents a choice between traditional and year-round schedules which Dickinson parents could lose if the school board there votes Jan. 17 to extend a proposed year-round schedule to students in kindergarten through eighth grade. More than anything, that fact may account for the differing community reactions. "We've done surveys.

Almost without exception if been positively received," Clay said. "Most of the parents whose children have participated in it would like them to continue." Several Friendswood parents reached at home Tuesday raved about the year-round FRIENDSWOOD program and what it had done for their children. "I love it," said Linda Tyler, who teaches first grade at Cline Primary. "It works out great for me and my schedule. And the kids are very enthused when they come back from their breaks." The proponents of year- round school traditionally argue that it intersperses break time better, leads to less teacher and student burnout, and may improve student retention.

"The children are able to retain more and seem more interested in attending school," said parent Lisa Dannemiller. A small minority of Friendswood parents oppose the program because of the expense. The year-round pilot program cost the district $50,000 last year, according to Clay. But no organized opposition has arisen in Friendswood against the district's year- round program as it has is Dickinson, where petition drives and rallies against year- round school have been organized. Clay said his community could experience a similar split if the board votes next year to go to a single calendar and eliminate the choice.

Clay prefers that option because it is much less expensive. "There's always going to be some families who oppose year- round school," Clay said. "It is a natural area for debate and discussion." Village adds parking lot By NEIL ORMAN The Daily News The village's City Hall has a new 65-space parking lot next to the Municipal Utility District No. 12 building on Neptune Avenue. The lot will be used for vehicles on village- related business and for village events.

"We can use it for cook-offs and all kinds of things," said Mayor Billie Moore. Village aldermen voted unanimously Tuesday night at their regular meeting to designate an entrance and exit for the lot. Vehicles should enter the parking lot from Warsaw Street and exit from Pompano Street. Police Chief Chuck Miller suggested the parking BAYOU VISTA route would cut down on fender-benders around the parking lot. In other action, the aldermen unanimously voted to beautify ditches between double streets in the city with wildflowers.

Moore Bruce Wise, a gardener employed by the local homeowners association, volunteered to sow seeds of bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes in ditches at his expense..