Category Archive for ‘School News’ at The Core Knowledge Blog

Archive for the 'School News' Category

Immigration Raid Causes School Chaos

Published by Robert Pondiscio on May 15, 2008 in School News. 2 Comments

It’s described as the largest immigration raid in U.S. history Monday at a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa–nearly 400 people arrested. EdWeek’s Mary Ann Zehr files a strong piece on the raid’s impact on the local school.

“All of the Latinos [from the school district] were impacted,” said David Strudthoff, the superintendent of the 600-student Postville Community School District. “About 220 students in the Postville school system are from immigrant families, he said, and many children were separated from parents or siblings employed at the plant.

“Mr. Strudthoff is also pondering the fact that more than a month ago, his district was served with a subpoena from the Iowa Division of Labor Services to provide detailed personal information about Postville students and some school employees,” EdWeek reports.

Zehr notes undocumented students have the right to a free public education, and school employees aren’t permitted to ask students about their immigration status.

Crime and Punishment

Published by Robert Pondiscio on May 7, 2008 in School News. 0 Comments

James Born spends his weekdays teaching English at Pennsylvania’s Harbor Creek junior high school. He spends his nights at the Erie County Community Corrections Center. No, he’s not teaching inmates to read. He’s doing time — 30 days to six months with work-release privileges.

The Erie Times-News quotes Harbor Creek schools Superintendent Rick Lansberry who says the situation is “not something the district is happy about” but was advised legally to allow Born to keep working in the classroom after he violated his estranged wife’s order of protection
“He is here today doing an effective job teaching,” Lansberry said of Born. “At this point, our primary concern is performance.” The paper reports Born “is the same teacher who was accused of sexually assaulting two female students in his 11th-grade English class during separate incidents in January 1999 and March 1999. A jury found him not guilty of all charges — two counts of indecent assault, two counts of corruption of a minor and one count of luring a child into a motor vehicle — in May 2001.”

School for Bounty Hunters

Published by Robert Pondiscio on May 1, 2008 in School News. 2 Comments

A suburban Ohio school district has begun offering $100 for tips on children who aren’t supposed to be attending the schools because they live outside the district.

The crackdown was prompted by bus drivers in the Copley-Fairlawn district outside of Akron, who saw students getting off in front of vacant buildings or parents in cars dropping off students at the bus stop. Since September, 45 illegal students have left and six others stayed and paid the annual nonresident tuition of $7,614, according to the Associated Press. At least four $100 bounties have been paid out.

An Big Brotheresque notice on each of the district school’s websites doesn’t mention the $100 payment, but makes the point impossible to miss: “If you know of children attending the Copley-Fairlawn City Schools that are not living within our school district, please call the Board of Education Office at 330-664-4800 and report their names, addresses, and the information you have that would indicate that they do not live within our district. Information supplied will be kept confidential.”

Obama Ate My Homework

Published by Robert Pondiscio on April 23, 2008 in School News. 0 Comments

A pair of Scranton, PA high school students have been suspended, and one of the pair claims he was forced to resign as class president, for leaving the campus to see Barack Obama at a campaign stop near their school. They took pictures with the candidate and even had Obama sign excuse notes for their teachers, to no avail.

Unchartered Waters

Published by Robert Pondiscio on April 16, 2008 in Parents, School News and Testing. 0 Comments

“Supporters of a breakaway charter school in the high-achieving Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District have dropped the effort, at least for now,” the Los Angeles Times reports. The charter was supposedly proposed “as an alternative to the standardized-testing culture of district schools.”

Something about this story doesn’t quite sound right. First of all, charter schools are subject to testing too. It’s also baffling that the parents felt the only way they could make a statement about testing was to start their own charter. Testing is seldom the problem. The mischief is in the test prep and endlessly sweating children to perform. It strains my credulity to think that the principal of a “high-achieving” school wouldn’t feel accountable to parental pressure to back off if that was the problem. Push comes to shove, the parents could make an even more effective statement with a testing boycott.

Hands On Learning

Published by Robert Pondiscio on April 15, 2008 in School News. 0 Comments

An elementary school in England has won praise for an innovative program aimed at curbing bad behaviour in the classroom. “The Mab Lane Primary School in Liverpool has recently introduced 20-minute massage sessions for its pupils,” the Daily Mail reports.

Pupils at the Mab Lane Primary in Liverpool take part in the 20-minute massage sessions twice a week and these are now going to be stepped up ahead of exam preparations.

“Headteacher June Todd is now urging parents to make use of its special chillout room, called the Quiet Place, which has a supply of aromatic oils and music is piped in to relax users,” the Daily Mail reports.

Quite a contrast with what’s happening here in the colonies…

Lunch Line Economics

Published by Robert Pondiscio on April 14, 2008 in School News. 0 Comments

“Sharp rises in the cost of milk, grain and fresh fruits and vegetables are hitting cafeterias across the country, forcing cash-strapped schools to raise prices or pinch pennies by serving more economical dishes,” the Washington Post reports. “Some school officials on a mission to help fight childhood obesity say it’s becoming harder to fill students’ plates with healthy, low-fat foods.”

Get Me Rewrite!

Published by Robert Pondiscio on April 9, 2008 in School News. 0 Comments

Columnist Eugene Kane is upset by the performance of Wisconsin’s black 8th graders on the recently released NAEP Writing results. He’s just as upset with how his paper, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel played the story.

“State black 8th-graders rank worst in nation in writing,” the headline read.

“There’s always plenty of blame to go around when things get this dismal,” Kane writes. “I’m talking teachers, principals, politicians, business leaders, and of course, the parents of all those low-achieving students. But don’t worry about blaming the kids. They already got theirs in that screaming headline.”

“Any story about failing black kids always includes the usual comments from adults embarrassed by the situation who insist things can get better. The problem is too many people are already way too familiar with the below-par performance of black students in Milwaukee to believe anybody cares,” he concludes.

Kane’s kicker delivers a kick in the teeth:

“To be fair, the headline should probably be more inclusive next time, naming Wisconsin as the home of “the worst teachers and parents of black eighth-grade students in the nation. Doesn’t feel too good, does it?”

Suspension of Disbelief

Published by Robert Pondiscio on April 8, 2008 in School News and Weekly Roundup. 1 Comment

First there was the Washington Post story about elementary school kids getting tagged as sexual harassers. Yesterday, Joanne Jacobs posted a story about an 8-year old in Colorado suspended for sniffing a Sharpie marker. It made us wonder what else students are getting in trouble for these days. A quick survey of suspension-worthy offenses making in news in the last week range from serious offenses to seriously strange.

Two girls were suspended from a Pennsylvania high school for writing a “murder list” with the names of 48 students and teachers on it; a boy in Palm Beach, Florida did something similar. A South Carolina 8th grader was suspended for wearing a KKK t-shirt, while a couple of Cleveland area middle schoolers were sent home for putting racially inflammatory posts on You Tube. A Chattanooga 7th grader hid a gun (real) in his locker, while three teenagers in Ontario, Canada were suspended for pointing a machine gun (fake) out of a car window in their school parking lot. A 8th grader in Phoenix realized he had left a knife in his knapsack over Spring Break and, mindful of the school’s strict weapon policy, reported himself to school officials. He was suspended anyway. A 7-year old in Maryland may be expelled for bringing his uncle’s gun to school, thinking it was a toy. In Florida, a 15-year old was charged with a felony for poisoning a teacher’s water with Visine because “he didn’t like the class or her.” Six Florida baseball players were suspended from the team after an alleged hazing incident. A large group of middle school students in James City, Virginia were caught texting each other to plan a cafeteria food fight. School officials thwarted the plot, suspending 15 miscreants. Meanwhile an even larger group of West Virginia high school students got ten days each for breaking into the school and moving about 600 desks into the hallways. They also hid thousands of dollars worth of telephones and calculators, but didn’t damage any of them, and ignited a book in a microwave.

A female high school student in Massachusetts wore the wrong color sweater to school and refused to take it off. A St. Louis freshman wore shorts on a recent 70-degree day and was suspended for violating a rule that prohibits them between November 1 and April 31. A Haverhill, Massachusetts 11-year old accused of sexually harrassing two girls claimed he was only quoting the TV show South Park. A case of suspended animation in Alaska, where a fifth-grade boy got in trouble for drawing Anime-style pictures of nude females. His parents say it’s artwork. Finally, a first grader in Brockton, Mass was suspended for three days after school officials said he sexually harassed a girl in his class by allegedly putting two fingers inside the girl’s waistband while she sat on the floor in front of him.

For the record, it’s not just the kids. A Santa Ana, California elementary school teacher was busted for having a gun in school, and the coach of the Marblehead (Mass.) High School football team drew a two-game suspension for chewing tobacco while coaching.

Thou Shalt Not Cross Dress

Published by Robert Pondiscio on April 8, 2008 in School News. 0 Comments

A Wisconsin elementary school raised the ire of a national Christian radio network over what they thought was a harmless bit of fun. Students in Pineview Elementary in Reedsburg had been dressing in costume all week as part of “Wacky Week,” an annual tradition at the school. On Friday students voted to come to school dressed either as senior citizens or members of the opposite sex. The Voice of Christian Youth America heard about it from a local resident and issued a call to general quarters.

“This is tax-funded. This is not a dress-up party in somebody’s house,” said Jim Schneider, the host “Crosstalk,” the network’s ironically titled program. ”There are parents, taxpayers…who do not appreciate the imposition of a particular lifestyle being portrayed as a normal lifestyle for the kids.” The show’s listeners flooded the school district with protest calls. District Administrator Tom Benson said the district was not attempting to promote cross-dressing, homosexuality or alternative gender roles with the dress-up day.

“The promotion of transgenderism — that was not our purpose,” Benson told the local paper. “Our purpose was to have a Wacky Week mixing in a bit of silliness with our reading, writing and arithmetic.”

Update: If they were upset about Wacky Week, wait until they hear about this.