America West swings to profit in first quarter

Results include gain on fuel hedging transactions


The Associated Press
Updated: 11:28 a.m. ET April 20, 2005

PHOENIX - America West Holdings Corp., whose flagship carrier is in merger talks with US Airways Group Inc., said Wednesday it swung to a profit in the latest first quarter from a year-ago loss.

"c" is for...

I am actually thinking about charter school, for both kids. I'm just not hearing great things about the gifted program past third grade/over at Julian. I'm not entirely comfortable with charter schools, there are too many that are run as bad or worse than the public schools. There is an awesome one in Ahwatukee that my friends have their older boys in, but it's the wrong way for me to be driving. But, I know that a few of the excelling and highly performing schools are charters, so I am starting the search. There are three or four that are reasonable, travel wise, that look worth checking out.

I think Halle does want a challenge/would work if it was something she found interesting or was more under her control. She (independently) was working on these sheets she got somewhere... on each line there was a letter of the alphabet, and the rest of the line was blank. She was filling in a word that started with that letter. She got to 'c' and asked me...

Mommy, how do you spell cockroach?

A normal kid would just write cat. Hell, Tyler would have just written cat. Ro said... couldn't she just write cat? I asked a coworker, what would you write? and my 30yo coworker, SAID CAT. I don't think Halle has ever so much as SEEN a cockroach. That's one of the things that frustrates me most... at home, she carries around paper and pencil and book just as often as she carries around her Barbie's. She will get a book and read independently with no instruction from me, and Tyler still doesn't even do that. He reads 'for pleasure' pretty much only when I tell him to. I think Halle is the kind of kid who would do really well in a home school setting.

First Grade....

Well, I've got myself a pickle. This quarter we are right back to Halle not wanting to do anything. She says the morning message is boring. She wants to write something else, something harder, something 'like this, see, I don't know this word' as she waves a book around. She writes at home, little notes to the rest of us and copies out of books. Mrs. BAG says she doesn't really volunteer to read aloud at school, but she reads for me at home and reads independently at home as well. .'I don't even know what one hundred plus one hundred thousand thirty six is,' she tells me. Right now she's in the 'apple group' and she has pretty tough spelling words for a kindergartener. She's had a couple doozies like cooperative and significant. She gets 100's on almost every spelling test, whether she brings the words home and studies or not. Last week was actually the first time she's had any trouble, and she had words like blanket and number where the combos are weird and the 'et' sounds to her like 'it'. So, after talking several times with Halle and with Mrs. BAG and just feeling at a loss I called Karen Eger. I explained all this to her, and she said she thought it might be a good idea to go ahead and evaluate her, and that could probably be done early May. She said there may not be much that could be done this year, but that her bigger concern would be next year, which is also my concern. I relayed this to Mrs. BAG, and that I am really worried what's going to happen if Halle gets a teacher next year that teaches to the middle or low end of the spectrum. Mrs. BAG told me that at King, her opinion is that all the current 1st grade classrooms are geared middle/low, and that she wouldn't even know who to send Halle too. I asked a friend who taught at the school until recently, and she gave the same opinion. That really freaked me out... I am ready to pull my hair out now trying to motivate Halle, and Mrs. BAG definitely teaches to the top.

The good news, is that Mrs. BAG moved Halle right up to the front of the classroom and Halle commented she can see better (so we'll be seeing the eye dr. soon), and I'm giving her a sticker for her calendar at home for every morning message she brings home where Mrs. BAG has written ok/good job/etc indicating Halle worked in a timely manner. This seems to have helped; I don't think she likes the morning message any better, but she sure likes those stickers.

However, whether Halle qualifies gifted or not, I'm still concerned about next year.