Free Republic

FULL TITLE: Principal Who Screamed at Pro-Life Teen: “I Don’t Give a S— What Jesus Says” Says His Life’s Been a Wreck Ever Since Earlier this year and assistant principal at a Pennsylvania high school was caught on video yelling profanities at pro-life teenagers who are holding signs demonstrating against abortion. The teenager, Conner Haines, was part of a Christian group called Project Frontlines that was hosting a “holocaust of abortion” display on the public sidewalks outside the school. The pro-lifers showed photos of aborted babies and other information to help educate the public about abortion. Haines and his sister...

An assistant principal at the prestigious Downingtown STEM Academy has been placed on paid leave after being video-recorded cursing at two teenage anti-abortion protesters on school property, telling them that aborted fetuses were “cells,” that he was gay and didn’t “give a [expletive] about Jesus," and then loudly singing "I Love a Parade," apparently to drown out the pair. On April 21, Zach Ruff, 40, dean of academics and student life, confronted the protesters while cars were leaving school at the end of the day. Connor and Lauren Haines, brother and sister, do not attend the academy and are thought...

Zach Ruff is an assistant principal in Downington, Pennsylvania and he really doesn’t like people who are pro-life, or Christian. Like, not at all. On Wednesday, one of Ruff’s students, 16-year old Conner Haines, decided to express his opinion that abortion was wrong on the PUBLIC sidewalk that runs in front of his High School. Conner was joined by his 19-year old sister and the two held pro-life signs while telling passers-by that abortion was a murder but that they could find forgiveness in Jesus. Soon after they began their completely legal demonstration, Ruff appeared and the situation immediately grew...

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...

Connor Balthazor, 17, was in the middle of study hall when he was called into a meeting with his high school newspaper adviser. A group of reporters and editors from the student newspaper, the Booster Redux at Pittsburg High School in southeastern Kansas, had gathered to talk about Amy Robertson, who was hired as the high school’s head principal on March 6. The student journalists had begun researching Robertson, and quickly found some discrepancies in her education credentials.

Well, what do you know? An official who doesn’t deserve her job in a public school actually won’t have it. Last week, Manhattan Judge Manuel Mendez tossed the reinstatement petition of Marcella Sills, a former principal who was fired for being chronically late to school. Why did the judge do that? Because Sills filed her petition . . . late.

Many Woodview Elementary School students were on edge after the election on Wednesday. The school, located in Spring Branch ISD, is about 80 percent Hispanic, and parents say a sizable chunk of those students are undocumented. Their parents were stunned when their children told them the school’s principal took to the loudspeaker Wednesday morning to praise the results. Principal Pamela Pennington reportedly broadcast her excitement about President-elect Donald Trump’s victory and the changes he can bring to the country. Steven Brunsman, a spokesman for the district, said staff investigated and could not find evidence that the pro-Trump statements were made...

A Bronx principal ordered her teachers to give up their desks last week, and had the furniture dumped at the curb — telling staff she doesn’t want them sitting in class. Donna Connelly, principal of PS 24, the Spuyten Duyvil School in Riverdale, also told teachers to empty their filing cabinets, which she then discarded. With class in session, teachers were told to push their desks and cabinets into the hallway. Custodians then hauled them outside and piled them like trash on the blacktop of a school across the street.

(NEWSER) – On Tuesday, a Florida school board approved a $600,000 payout to the families of three students who died after being hypnotized by their high school principal, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports. The bizarre case started in 2011 when 16-year-old North Port High School student Wesley McKinley hanged himself after being hypnotized by principal George Kenney multiple times. Friends say McKinley couldn't remember his own name after hypnosis sessions to improve his guitar playing.

Jackson Hole High principal Scott Crisp blamed the results of a student survey and his concerns that some students may feel excluded if they see an American flag for the administration’s decision to cancel “America Pride Day.”

On November 12, 2013, Amy Lacey, the principal of Texas’ Hempstead Middle School, was placed on administrative leave and subsequently fired when she made a simple request to students: speak English. Now that the gag order has expired, Lacey is speaking out about what happened that day, dispelling rumors that she banned Spanish from the school’s campus. “I informed students it would be best to speak English in the classrooms to the extent possible, in order to help prepare them for [state] tests,” she wrote in a letter to the Houston Chronicle explaining her side of the story. “It is...

FULL TITLE: New York City principal, wife-cheater lavishes mistress with gifts bought using nearly $30G in school money: probe A former Bronx principal stole nearly $30,000 in school funds to shower lavish gifts upon his mistress, officials said. Robert Hannibal worked at JHS 145 — also known as the Toscanini School — in the South Bronx. He pleaded guilty Thursday to felony grand larceny for withdrawing $29,244.55 from 2010 to 2012 — nabbed after an unidentified tipster dimed him out.

Update: The principal and four teachers at Cayuga Elementary School in Philadelphia's Hunting Park section have been charged with fostering a culture of cheating on standardized state tests there over a 5-year period, Attorney General Kathleen Kane announced Thursday. Kane said the educators changed student answers, provided test answers to students and improperly reviewed Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) test questions before giving the tests. After the cheating stopped in 2012, the schools test scored dropped dramatically, Kane noted. In 2008-09 state proficiency tests, Cayuga's fourth graders excelled: 88.8% pass math and 83.9% pass reading. By 2012-13, the most...

Kindergarten show canceled so kids can keep studying to become ‘college and career ready.’ Really. By Valerie Strauss April 26 at 11:59 am An annual year-end kindergarten show has been canceled at a New York school because the kids have to keep working so they will be “college and career” ready. Really. That’s what it says in a letter (see below) sent to parents by Ellen Best-Laimit, the interim principal of Harley Avenue Primary School in Elwood, N.Y., and four kindergarten teachers. The play was to be staged over two days, May 14 and 15, according to the school’s calendar....

The Dept. of Education said Tuesday it will fire notorious “School of No” Principal Marcella Sills, quickly responding to a probe that found she blatantly lied about her attendance at Far Rockaway’s PS 106 — all the while collecting a full paycheck for the no-show work.... The swift DOE action came as Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon issued a 13-page report recommending Sills get the ax and that she and an assistant principal who has since resigned, never be allowed to work for the Education Dept. again. Condon’s investigation was spurred by The Post’s exclusive Jan. 12 report that...

**SNIP** “It is the recommendation of this office that Marcella Sills’ employment be terminated,” Condon wrote in his 13-page report, adding that his finding have been turned over to Queens District Attorney Richard Brown for further investigation and “whatever action he deems appropriate.” Condon said in his report that the probe of Sills and her assistant-principal, Tonya West, was sparked by The Post’s reporting. The investigation found that Sills flat-out lied about her attendance at the school, didn’t keep a timecard – and then tried to get underlings to fudge or produce fake timecards to cover her tracks.

**SNIP** Sills, 48, was a graduate of the DOE’s “Leadership Academy,” which trains principals, and had little teaching experience. Insiders said she lacked literacy skills, noting her invitation to a Nov. 23, 2005, holiday buffet “in honor of my gradutitude” to employees, including “security personel” and “custodially staff members.” Sills ruled by threats and intimidation, ex-staffers complained. She “yells at a volume that resounds throughout the building, slams doors and uses foul language,” a 2006 letter to Condon claims. That letter also accuses Sills of racism: “She has hired only black teachers and has targeted white teachers and a secretary.”...

**SNIP** Hardworking parents of kids at the notorious Queens “School of No” — many of whom live below the poverty line — are compelled to pay $150 to rent tuxes at Men’s Wearhouse and buy gowns at David’s Bridal, plus kick in $110 for the prom-like charade. Video from last June’s function shows Principal Marcella Sills, on a dais, in a shoulderless white dress that could pass for a wedding gown, smiling as she surveys the boys and girls parading across a ballroom floor. “She acted like it was more about her,” said one dad, Robert Oyola. “I thought it...

MCCANDLESS, Pa. — A Pittsburgh Public Schools principal has been placed on leave after police charged him with exposing himself to a 17-year-old boy in a health club sauna, and asking if he could perform a sex act on the youth. The teenage boy told police on Monday that he was in the sauna of the L.A. Fitness on Duncan Avenue Aug. 12 when a man, later identified as Alfonzo DeIuliis, came into the sauna and removed his towel. The boy said the man began to touch himself inappropriately, then touched the boy on the leg and asked if he...

A Fluvanna County Middle School principal’s effort to instill discipline on the first day of classes has sparked a social media outcry among parents and an Internet effort to get her removed. An online petition says Yardley Farquharson “yelled and screamed” at students, barred them from talking in hallways and suspended their bathroom privileges for the first and last 10 minutes of classes. Some 200 county residents had signed the petition by Wednesday afternoon, asking the Fluvanna County School Board to remove Farquharson from her job. Parents referred to her behavior as bullying. Others, including some parent volunteers and school...