Students are no longer the only ones receiving report cards. Now schools are being graded as well and not everyone is happy with the scoring system.

In September, Gov. Eliot Spitzer delivered on a campaign promise, putting forth a plan that would allow undocumented immigrants to get the same driver’s license as everybody else. But after anti-immigrant groups and politicians railed against the plan, Spitzer backed off and changed the plan dramatically – to the chagrin of New York’s strong and vocal immigrant population. Locals here in the northwest Bronx panned the plan as well.

Lynn Ferst-Valentin has walked her dog, Duke, in St. James Park in North Fordham every day for more than 11 years. "When we first moved here, it was just dirt, there was nothing here," she said. Now the park is finally getting a much-needed facelift.

Call us biased, but we feel journalism is a powerful way to learn about and influence one’s community. Young people rarely have had access to learning about journalism, especially considering the shortage of quality high school newspapers. This means the Bronx is not getting reporters trained at the grassroots into the pipeline of professional journalism.

We’re working to change that.

Starting in January, the Norwood News will run a youth journalism program for Bronx high school students in their sophomore, junior or senior years. (The program is made possible through a generous grant from the New York Foundation.)

Students will learn the fundamentals of reporting, writing, and photojournalism through classroom instruction and, most importantly, through hands-on reporting in their own neighborhoods.

Students will learn how neighborhoods work (or don’t), who has power, who doesn’t and why. We’ll teach them about the First Amendment and how it applies to them and every citizen. And they’ll learn how to record and edit audio and photo slide shows for the Web.

Thank you for the article in a recent issue of the Norwood News which focused a spotlight on the COVE (Community Organized with a Vision for Excellence) founded 20-odd years ago by the Knox-Gates Neighborhood Association. As friends of the COVE (co-founder; former directors), we appreciate Mosholu Montefiore Community Center’s commitment to continuing the mission of the COVE under its auspices to provide quality programming. We would like to expand the scope of the your article a bit to pick up the heartbeat that drove the formation of the COVE – developing the gifts of youth, steering them away from

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As part of a deal which allowed the Croton Filtration Plant to be built in Van Cortlandt Park, the Department of Environmental Protection promised Bronx politicians money to improve our parks. Harris Park is slated for a renovation and Phase 1 will begin in 2008. Three fields will be seeded with natural grass and three fields will be covered with artificial or synthetic turf. I am troubled with the idea of artificial turf in any public park where neighborhood children, Little League teams and adults play. Turf creates intense hot spots which are potentially dangerous. Turf requires misting or watering

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A list of community events and programs for people living in the northwest Bronx.

The Bronx’s largest hospital and employer, Montefiore Medical Center, recently held its annual black-tie fund-raiser, “Celebrate Montefiore,” at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Manhattan.

Local Bronxite Christopher Perkins, a staff sergeant with the National Guard, returned home a couple of weeks ago after finishing his second tour of duty in Iraq. On Sunday, Nov. 18, Perkins will lead Bronx Vets as the grand marshal at the upcoming Veterans Day Parade in Throggs Neck.