Appearance Day of Lord Ramacandra

Hillsborough, North Carolina

"Look at that boy! He’s covered with jewels!" said one thief to another. So began a drama with some of our youngest students, ages 4-8. Each student not only remembered his or her lines but brought great charm and expression to the two plays—"The Thieves Try to Steal Nimai" and "Nimai takes the Brahmana’s Offering." Having spent over a decade organizing children’s plays, I was astounded to witness how expertly the teachers had directed this production. Teacher Campakalata told me that all the actors and actresses had their parts memorized four days after receiving their scripts.

The temple room was packed for both times the students performed, the Sunday program and on Gaura Purnima, Monday, night. Certainly the dramas brought the audience not only to an appreciation of Lord Caitanya’s childhood pastimes, but also to a love of His devotees presently growing up in the Hare Krishna Movement.

But the play was not the end of Padma Academy’s presentations. Next were three dances with the girls from Padma’s Dance Club. All three were about Lord Caitanya’s pastimes, performed to Vasudeva Ghosh’s Bengali songs, executed in traditional style. Some of the girls are not part of Padma’s academic program. In fact, some are from Muslim and Christian homes. After learning these dances, one girl from a Christian background was so excited she wanted to perform in her own school. As part of learning to dance, the students needed to absorb themselves in the story and mood of the Lord’s pastimes, a feat that was evident in the genuine expressions and grace of the dancers.

The performance, therefore, brought the Lord’s glories to the audience, involved the dancers in Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s pastimes, and acted as a preaching medium that extends far beyond the campus.

The sculptures that some of the students made last year to depict pastimes on the nine islands of Navadvipa beautified the March/April issue of Back to Godhead, being the primary article about Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Our teacher, Campakalata, also had an article in that issue about her childhood friend in the Movement.

A devotee who’s a professional web designer for the Catholic diocese of Raleigh has started to completely redesign our website. We hope to have something colorful—with photos and videos—as well as being fun and easy to use. We are also switching to a new server. As you may have noticed, our page has been either "down" or sending viewers to another site for the past month. L We’ll inform you when everything’s done.

Finally! It looks like we will be getting donations to pay the remaining $60,000 of the mortgage. The school will then be debt free and almost sustainable for daily maintenance.

Our next main project for the property is a playground. Ideally, we’d like to have a "theme" area, with play equipment based on Krishna’s pastimes, such as an Aghasura slide. An experienced sculptor, who came of her own accord, is eager to do the service as soon as funds are available. Please contact us if you are interested.

All private schools and colleges in our state that have faculty on campus (unrelated to residential students) do not pay property tax because of faculty housing. And, neither did we, with our principal’s residence half of the school building since its purchase eight years ago. But a new local tax assessor said that faculty housing meant we should lose our entire exemption. After a county hearing, we were granted an exemption for half the property.

At our state tax board hearing, the county stated that if they had known the resident staff member was the principal, they would have awarded us a full exemption. We presented evidence that the state fully exempts all other non-government schools with residences for faculty, especially if, as in our case, there are many school functions that take place in the residence.

Still, unbelievably, the state ruled with the county. At this point we can appeal at the state court level, or pay the tax and re-apply, both of which options involve hiring a lawyer that specializes in property tax cases. Local and national private school organizations can supply an amicus brief to support our cause, but not a lawyer or funding for one, even though the outcome of our case will directly affect many of their member schools. The legal cost simply for preparing a brief for an appeal is $5000. Of course, there would be additional costs for the lawyer’s time in court. To hire the lawyer to help us re-apply would cost about $1000 and may save us from having to go through the hearing and appeal procedure.

Any help in this regard— $5.00 and $25.00 donations add up— would be greatly appreciated and needed.

In coordination with Gopal’s Garden School in Mumbai (Bombay) and the Vidyapitha in Mayapur, the thematic curriculum for kindergarten through sixth grade is again in progress after several years of hiatus. Students’ study will focus on stories about Krishna, Lord Caitanya, and Srila Prabhupada, while thoroughly covering all academic objectives in subjects such as English, Math, and Science. Presently we are coordinating these objectives to the various stories, and hope to have some lessons plans completed soon.

The first set of stories ("unit" or "theme" in education jargon) that we are working on is that of Krishna’s pastimes in Mathura and Dvarka. We have tentatively decided to focus on the lila from when Krishna erects the Dvarka fort to the end of the fight with Banasura, including probably the first section from Lord Krishna’s daily activities. Several devotees who are experienced teachers will be assisting with writing the lesson plans.

For all of us at Padma Academy,

Urmila devi dasi

dipika.org April 14, 2003

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