Free Republic

FULL TITLE: BREAKING NEWS: Former Tennessee teacher is arrested and his 15-year-old student is found safe in northern California Former Tennessee teacher Tad Cummins was arrested in northern California overnight and 15-year-old Elizabeth Thomas whom he was alleged to have kidnapped was found safe. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation broke the news in a tweet shortly before noon local time on Thursday and promised to release additional details during a press conference scheduled for 3pm. Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Kelly Giordano in California said Cummins' Nissan Rogue was found Wednesday night near the Oregon border. Scroll down for video

In the latest incident of anti-gun hysteria to erupt in a school setting, officials overseeing a school district in Alabama have expelled a 16-year-old girl for an entire year because she had a water gun at school. Prior to her yearlong expulsion, the student, Sara Allena "Laney" Nichols, attended Prattville High School Prattville, a town of 35,229 just northwest of Montgomery. [Snip] Nichols and her mother, Tara Herring, say the teen girl did not bring the water gun to school. Instead, the mother and daughter claim, a male classmate gave Nichols the water gun to Nichols "as a joke."...

SALT LAKE CITY -- The Salt Lake City School District has placed Edison Elementary Principal Laurie Lacy on leave, and Salt Lake City Police have launched an investigation, following an incident that police said ended with DCFS getting involved. Police and the school district would not give exact details of the incident, but a source close to the situation told Fox 13 that Lacy told a student to pull his pants down in her office as a punishment.

Liberals have spent decades screaming about the separation of church and ‘state’, but now they’ve made a huge exception for Islam. The San Diego School District will start having school calendars showing Islamic holidays and begin to teach students about Islam in social studies classes and school district will create safe places on campuses for Muslim students as part of a multi-tiered approach to combat ‘Islamophobia’. This plan doesn’t include classes on Christianity, Judaism, or any other religion. The school district conducted a survey to see how much bullying occurred because of student’s Islamic faith and found only seven instances...

As lawmakers consider a myriad of bills to curb the epidemic of inappropriate student-teacher relationships, the Texas Education Agency has opened over 150 investigations into the issue this school year, according to data obtained by mySA.com. The agency has opened 159 cases so far in the 2016-17 school year, which began in August, said TEA spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson in an email.

TULSA, Oklahoma, April 12, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — An Oklahoma mother allowed her daughter to go on an educational field trip only to have her return with a three-year chemical contraceptive implant inside her arm. Langston Hughes Academy hosts an annual sex-ed class by Youth Services of Tulsa. When Miracle Foster's daughter wanted to learn more, she allowed her to visit the clinic. But Youth Services of Tulsa is part of the Tulsa Area Teen Pregnancy Prevention Collaborative, whose PregNOT program began in 2010 with $1.5 million in tax funding from the Obama Health and Human Services' Office of Adolescent Health....

FULL TITLE: Elementary school accused of putting young special needs students in a 'JAIL' box made of dry wall as punishment An elementary school in Florida is accused of punishing young special needs students by putting them in a so-called 'discipline box' made partially of drywall. The parents of a 3-year-old with cerebral palsy filed a lawsuit against Duval County Public Schools, in Jacksonville, claiming their child along with hundreds of other students were abused in their preschool classroom. The 37-page lawsuit explains that students knew the box as 'jail', and if they were sent to jail, it was a...

FULL TITLE: Elizabeth Thomas: Las Vegas YouTuber Captures Man And Girl On Camera, Is It the Missing Teen and Tad Cummings? Has Elizabeth Thomas been spotted in Las Vegas? A YouTube poker vlogger captured what might be the missing Tennessee teenager and her alleged abductor walking past the camera in a crowd, and commenters are convinced that this is a promising lead in the ongoing investigation into her disappearance. As the Tennessean reports, 15-year-old Elizabeth Thomas, of Tennessee, has been missing since March 13. She is believed to have either voluntarily left with or have been abducted by her former...

CALIFORNIA — Police were responding to an ‘active shooter’ threat at North Park Elementary School in San Bernardino Monday. The scene is at 5378 N H Street. Students and staff were told to shelter-in-place as police moved in. Fire officials reported “multiple gunshot victims,” although, the exact number is unclear.

In a classic 1984 "Saturday Night Live" sketch, Eddie Murphy goes undercover to investigate what life is really like for a white man in America. From the spontaneous breakout of cocktail parties on public buses following the departure of the black passengers, to the seemingly limitless amounts of free money given out at the bank, "Mr. White" discovers that life for white people in America can be pretty darn great. While the satirical skit is clearly a sensationalized dramatization of the privileges white Americans enjoy, to many on the left and in the grievance community, the premise is not that...

WISN 12 News ✔ @WISN12News Janesville council approves $75K settlement for former teacher who was drunk on school trip http://bit.ly/2dGqoPf 7:01 PM - 25 Oct 2016 1 1 Retweet 1 1 like It didn’t take long for the other teachers to realize that Maria Caya, one of the chaperons on a school field trip to a bowling alley, was seriously drunk. As elementary-school students bowled in June 2013 in Janesville, Wis., Caya tried to order more drinks from the bar, city officials said. At one point, Caya disappeared, worrying school officials. They found her in the bathroom, passed out. Alarmed,...

Rahm Emanuel needs a few things about America explained to him. For example, "Mayor" is not synonymous with "Dad." And being coerced into doing what the government wants you to do with your life is not so compatible with liberty: Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has proposed a new policy that won't allow students to graduate from high school unless they present a plan to the government on what their post-graduation plans are. The proposal would require students to prove that they're entering some sort of educational or vocational program after graduation; a job offer or entering the military would also...

NASHVILLE, TN (WSMV) - The family of missing teen Elizabeth Thomas has filed a new court order. homas disappeared nearly four weeks ago. Investigators believe she was kidnapped by her teacher Tad Cummins. Thomas’ family said witnesses are not being forthcoming about what they know. They have now filed a petition in an effort to change that.

Muslim safe spaces, increased lessons on Islam during social studies classes, and other measures will be adopted by San Diego Unified School District to combat bullying. The Council for American-Islamic Relations and school officials in southern California collaborated on a “holistic” approach to bullying that will likely be implemented this fall. The changes, which include adding Muslim holidays to school calendars, are the result of a study directed by the San Diego school board in July 2016.

ITHACA, N.Y. — The Ithaca City School District and Tompkins County Office of Human Rights have sent out a joint statement reassuring the community that transgender students will be protected in schools. They issued a statement this week in objection to the decision by the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice to withdraw federal guidelines regarding transgender students in schools. "Please know that we remain committed to the vigorous support for a student’s right to be respectfully treated according to their gender identity and to be free from discrimination, harassment, and bullying. We encourage all school districts in Tompkins County...

FULL TITLE: New Pittsburg, Kan., High School principal resigns after student journalists question her credentials Days after student reporters at Pittsburg High School in Kansas dug into the background of their newly hired principal and found questionable credentials, she resigned from the $93,000-a-year job. “She was going to be the head of our school, and we wanted be assured that she was qualified and had the proper credentials,” said Trina Paul, a senior and an editor of the Booster Redux, the school newspaper. “We stumbled on some things that most might not consider legitimate credentials.” Minutes into a closed special...

FULL TITLE: Tennessee woman claims former teacher accused of kidnapping teen groomed her when she was just 15 A Tennessee woman has come forward saying she now thinks a teacher accused of abducting one of his teenage female students exhibited 'grooming' behavior with her when she was 15 years old. Destany Parrish, now 19, described one instance where Tad Cummins, who is accused of aggravated kidnapping and sexual contact with minor Elizabeth Thomas, 15, sang her a 'love song' in the Culleoka Unit School music room. Cummins, 50, and Thomas both disappeared on March 13 and were last seen together...

A Florida high school math teacher made a miscalculation when she let a 14-year-old drive her to Waffle House while she was drunk, authorities said. Terra Virgin, 32, was arrested Sunday night on charges of child neglect and permitting an unauthorized minor to drive after her car was pulled over in Tampa with the teen behind the wheel. Virgin, a teacher at Freedom High School, had five beers but had a craving for a meal and convinced the teen to give her a ride, authorities said. "The adult that was in the car was quite inebriated and she was aware...

Tuesday on The View, host Whoopi Goldberg was adamant that schools needed to provide free birth control to teenagers without parental consent, because they “don’t teach sex education at school.” Whoopi first made this strange allegation on a February 2 show, when she said that a school shouldn’t have to notify parents before putting condoms in the boys' and girls' bathrooms. . . . Whoopi shared an angry mother’s story where the woman found out her 16-year-old daughter received a hormonal birth control implant while on a school trip to a health clinic. While the mother apparently gave her consent...

The wife of the former Tennessee teacher accused of absconding with 15-year-old Elizabeth Thomas wants to end her marriage of 31 years, according to court filings. Jill Cummins, who has pleaded with her husband to bring Elizabeth home, filed the documents last week, citing irreconcilable differences and alleging that Tad Cummins is "guilty of inappropriate marital conduct."