Teaching Darwin splits Pennsylvania town
The Supreme Court has ruled definitively that Creationism is not to be taught in public schools. Enter “Intelligent Design”, aka Creationism Lite. Proponents of Intelligent Design try to work it into school curriculums by claiming it is science, not religion. Sometimes the truth comes out, as it did recently in Dover, Pennsylvania after the school board ordered teachers to downplay evolution and start teaching intelligent design.
“Darwin’s theory is a theory … not a fact,” the school board declared in their statement to the teachers. “Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin’s view,” said the report.
The command landed in the sprawling, red-brick Dover high school like a bomb. Biology teachers refused to read it, while around 15 students walked out in protest.
(more…)
Bill Would Legislate Maryland Students’ Use of Sunscreen
It’s a boiling hot late spring day and your child has soccer practice at school. What do you do? If you are in many school systems in Maryland you call your doctor and ask him to write a prescription so the school will let him use sunscreen.
Four school systems require a doctor’s order for students to apply sunscreen. Eleven require at least a parent’s note. Eight systems require students to leave the product with the school health officer. Rules can vary from school to school within each system.
(more…)
Career day photo of soldier with gun puts school district in a bind
Updated 30 March 2005: School compromises and allows a different picture, also with a gun. Details at bottom of post.
The Salem-Keizer School District has a very strict zero tolerance policy. Not only are weapons, replicas and look-alikes banned but so are images of them. Freshman Shea Riecke of McKay High School ran up against this policy when she tried to put a photo of her brother, Marine Corporal Bill Riecke, on her classroom’s career board.
She wanted to display the picture with those of other McKay grads’ career choices. Riecke’s teacher, Rick Costa, encourages the exhibits.
But Riecke’s photo created a little controversy. Actually, it kicked up a sandstorm of grief for the family and school-district officials because of the photo’s content. It pictures the Marine hefting a big gun while decked in military desert camies (camouflage). It was taken while he was stationed in Iraq; he will be redeployed there this summer.
…
School officials denied the photo on the grounds the guns in the picture violated district policy. Riecke’s mother, Connie Riecke, appealed to district officials including Superintendent Kay Baker. Connie Riecke said she has not heard back from the district but was told that it probably could be displayed if she consented to having the weapons removed, via computer, from the photograph. Riecke said her son insists that it run as it is or not at all. She agrees with him.
(more…)
Student Suspended After BB Gun Incident
The recent rampage in Minnesota has scholastic administrators all over the states overreacting and striking out against their students. A Tea Middle School student from the Tea Area School District is the victim of an administration in witch-hunt frenzy mode. They have suspended him and he faces expulsion for possessing an empty BB gun after school hours off of school property.
While school officials and police are investigating the incident, the superintendent tells me the boy never threatened anyone with the gun, and he’s not even sure the boy had the gun on school property.
They believe the boy may have walked by the school with the gun after school hours.
(more…)
Parents Protest Student Computer ID Tags
Updated 29 March 2005: Town forces radio tracking system out of school. Update at bottom of post.
Brittan Elementary School has new ID badges. Visible identification in schools is not a new concept but these badges are equipped with radio tracking transmitters. Many parents see this as an attack on basic liberties.
The badges introduced at Brittan Elementary School on Jan. 18 rely on the same radio frequency and scanner technology that companies use to track livestock and product inventory. Similar devices have recently been used to monitor youngsters in some parts of Japan.
…
“There is a way to make kids safer without making them feel like a piece of inventory,” said Michael Cantrall, one of several angry parents who complained. “Are we trying to bring them up with respect and trust, or tell them that you can’t trust anyone, you are always going to be monitored, and someone is always going to be watching you?”
Cantrall said he told his children, in the 5th and 7th grades, not to wear the badges. He also filed a protest letter with the board and alerted the ACLU.
(more…)
Boy faces charges for violating gun rule
I’ve heard some long-winded charges before but this one takes the cake. A 12 year-old student at Girard Middle School in the Girard City School District is facing criminal charges of “delinquency by way of illegal conveyance or possession of an object indistinguishable from a firearm in a school zone”. The indistinguishable item was a laser pointer in mini-pistol replica form. He was also charged with “delinquency by way of aggravated menacing” for pointing the laser pointer at other students.
According to police reports, during the noon recess at the middle school, two boys went to the school principal, David Leo, and told him that a boy was threatening kids with a gun.
Leo went to the boy and asked if he had a gun. The boy showed the principal a laser pointer that looked like a small handgun.
“The replica was authentic looking and could be easily mistaken as a real gun,” the police report stated.
Well, sure - as long as the real gun you’re mistaking it for is 3 inches long and shoots red dots of light.
In addition to the criminal charges and immediate suspension the 5th grader will be facing an expulsion hearing for violating the school’s anti-gun policy.
Dist. 230 expels student over pellet gun
A 15-year-old freshman at Carl Sandburg High School in Consolidated School District 230 was expelled for a year for possession of an Airsoft pellet gun. Airsoft guns are 1/3 size comically styled replicas that feature a large red muzzle tip and shoot soft air pellets. The typical Airsoft gun cannot penetrate a piece of paper.
The board’s action at Thursday’s meeting stems from an incident that occurred around 6 p.m. March 9 in the Sandburg High School west parking lot.
A fellow student observed the 15-year-old male student with what looked like a weapon.
(more…)
District to require parents to attend drug seminars
Updated 28 March 2005: Board of Trustees member offers clarification. Details at bottom of post.
The Carroll Independent School District will soon require that parents of students involved in extra-curricular activities attend teen substance abuse seminars. If the parents refuse, the students will not be allowed to participate in non-academic programs.
The policy starts next school year at the Carroll Independent School District in the Fort Worth suburb of Southlake. It’ll affect the parents of students in grades seven through 12 — including those of student-athletes.
The classes will address substance-abuse trends, warning signs, prevention and district drug policies.
What is the logic behind this? Shouldn’t the district be requiring students to attend these teen seminars? Why is this rule in effect only for students attending extra-curricular activities? It’s the equivalent of saying that these activities are the cause of teen drug abuse.
District policy is set by the Board of Trustees:
Darla Reed
Dale Crane
Steve Lakin
Deborah Frazier
Erin Shoupp
John Nussrallah
Sherri Williams
(Tip credit to Mark Moss)
(more…)
VA Educators Face Lawsuit Over Fifth-Grader’s Treatment
Administrators in the Pittsylvania County School System have a warped sense of proper discipline. They are being sued for punishing a male student by forcing him to dress up as a girl.
A lawsuit alleges that fifth-grader Matthew Thornberry was the victim of assault and battery when principal Emma Austin and assistant principal Jenny Eaton put makeup on the boy last year while he was a student at Twin Springs Elementary School. Pittsylvania County School superintendent
James McDaniel is also named as a defendant in the case. The three educators have also been sued for intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, and gross negligence.
…
The suit also alleges the administrators required students to refer to Thornberry as a new student named “Mattie.” According to the attorney, the young boy may find it difficult to live down the incident in the community. “It’s a community where the person you went to fifth grade with will probably be a friend of yours or an acquaintance of yours for the rest of your life,” he says.
I wonder what he did to inspire these academians to such a ridiculous punishment. Perhaps the fifth-grader said something sexist, abusive and unforgivable like “girls are icky”.
(Tip credit to Joanne Jacobs)
Student Takes Photos Of Principal Smoking On School Grounds
Student photographs principal smoking on school grounds
Updated 24 March 2005: Student reinstated. Update at bottom of post.
Smoking within 25 feet of a school is illegal in Rhode Island. Eliazar Velasquez, a sophomore at Central High School in the Providence Public School District, took pictures of Principal Elaine Elmagno smoking just outside an open school door. Elmagno suspended him indefinitely last Friday.
“I walked right by her and acted like I was leaving as she was lighting up her cigarette and I hid behind the wall,” said Eliazar Velasquez, who was suspended. “And I just stuck the camera out behind the wall and that�s how I got the shots of her smoking.”
Velasquez took the pictures of his principal, Elaine Elmagno, who was allegedly smoking on school grounds in front of an open door, and posted them on an Internet Web site to show others the principal he calls a “hypocrite.”
Velasquez was suspended for harassing and slandering the principal and for being a disruptive influence.
Contact Information:
Principal Elaine Elmagno
Superintendent Dr. Melody Johnson
School Board President Mary McClure
School Board Vice President Milton W. Hamolsky, M.D.
School Boardmember Dilania Inoa
School Boardmember Umberto Crenca
School Boardmember Robyn Frye
School Boardmember Grace Gonzalez
School Boardmember Maila Touray
School Boardmember Robert Wise
(Tip credit to Bettina and Jack Mitcham)
(more…)
