School district needs an education on its own Web site

A few years ago, there was a big to-do in the New York City public schools because parents were complaining about notes teachers were sending home with the students.

The complaints weren't about the content of the notes but about the fact that they were full of misspelled words and other violations of the English language.

Now I know I'm not perfect when it comes to language. Even as a copy editor, I've let some doozies slip through and taken my lumps. So maybe I'm the worst kind of hypocrite for pointing this out, but the Manatee County school district really needs to take a strong look at its Web site and fix all the mistakes on it.

One of the most glaring is that the site's calendar for the School Board basically ends on Nov. 30 with the following: ”Board Workshop re: Hireing (sic) Practices and Policy.“ The next entry is for Wenesday (sic), May 26, and it's an IB Pinning Ceremony at Southeast High School's auditorium. Am I to assume that the board is taking off for several months?

The calendar in PDF form doesn't even mention the Nov. 30 workshop.

On the page for the board's Web site, it points out that ”Meetings are held at the School Boards (sic) Administration Building ...“ There's a way in the language to form a possessive. Learn it and use it right, please.

Back on the front page, under ”Hot Topics,“ you can click on the link for the ”Annnual (sic) Report 2008-2009.“ Looks like someone's ”n“ key got stuck somewhere.

Finally, there's the issue of capitalizing every noun, which I see everywhere. Sorry, but in English most nouns (unless they're proper nouns) aren't capitalized. For this reason, there is no reason to capitalize ”Elementary Schools,“ ”Middle Schools“ and ”High Schools“ unless you're giving the name of a specific school.

It's really sad that in this time when so few care about writing well, the Manatee County School District's Web site, where it introduces itself to the world, seems to be falling short on the details.