On 07/01/2010 10:37 AM, The 2-Belo wrote:

> They need to do away with the stupid traditional school and park sandlots and
> put in real grass.

Don't know what it is like where you are, but up here in Nowhere, the 
kids have to clean the school weekly and the parents have to maintain 
the grounds.  No one knows how to maintain the stuff and it takes too 
much volunteer time to keep up.

We have four cleanup, raking, planting, and dirt grading events a year 
where we have to smooth out the pitches with large rakes and wide 
scrapers, after which one of the fathers, who runs a road construction 
business, runs one of his steamrollers over it and we wet the earth down 
to pack it.

The school also has an Olympic-sized outdoor pool, but it doesn't get 
maintained because the stuff you have to use ruins clothing.  I don't 
know of any school in Japan that has a clean outdoor pool because the 
parents won't do it nor will they contribute enough to the PTA to have a 
professional cleaning service come in.

-- 
CL