Free Republic

LANDIS — A Rowan County school bus driver remains in jail today after Landis Police say he allowed students to smoke marijuana on the bus. Police say it wasn’t the first time he allowed students to smoke on the bus. Brian Davis Overcash, 30, was charged with four counts of misdemeanor contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The incident occurred Feb. 20 after Corriher-Lipe Middle School assistant Principal Matt Krome contacted authorities. Krome told officers with the Landis Police Department that Overcash, who drove bus No. 162, told the assistant principal that several students were on the bus smoking...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Officials at a Northern California high school acted appropriately when they ordered students wearing American flag T-shirts to turn the garments inside out during the Mexican heritage celebration Cinco de Mayo, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the officials' concerns of racial violence outweighed students' freedom of expression rights. Administrators feared the American-flag shirts would enflame the passions of Latino students celebrating the Mexican holiday. Live Oak High School, in the San Jose suburb of Morgan Hill, had a history of problems between white and Latino students on...

Nevada education officials are making it easier for students to pass a math proficiency test that's required for graduation but has proved tough for high schoolers. State board of education officials announced Wednesday that they would implement a pass score of 242 on the 500-point math portion of the high school proficiency exam.

MARINETTE - Lori Saunier is one of nearly a dozen parents who have expressed their displeasure over a game played at Marinette Middle School. “This kind of stuff, I mean, this can’t happen again. These are our little kids. We’re parents. We should’ve been protecting them. You should’ve gave us the benefit of the doubt of contacting us,” said Saunier, mother of 7th grade student. On Wednesday, fifth through eighth grade students played the game called “Cross the Line”. Parents say their children were asked personal questions like, do your parents drink and has anyone in your family been in...

Students who attended Catholic high schools were approximately twice as likely as students who attended public high schools to go on and graduate from college, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. According to the report, 61.9 percent of Catholic high school students went on to earn a bachelor’s degree or higher by the time they were 8 years out of high school. By contrast, only 31.1 percent of public school students had gone on to earn a bachelor’s degree or higher. …

Would you let your child be tested like this? There is now a bill in the New York State Assembly that would require every child in public school to have a psychological examination before they could go to school

Parents are threatening legal action against a Southern California school district after their six-year-old son was told he could not pass out candy canes with religious messages taped to them because "Jesus is not allowed in school." Isaiah Martinez, a six-year-old student at Merced Elementary School in West Covina, Calif., arrived to school on Dec. 13, planning to pass out candy canes with religious messages to his fellow students in celebration of the upcoming Christmas season. After the boy's teacher consulted with the school principal, he reportedly told the student that he could not pass out the religious messages because...

A Chicago Public Schools technology coordinator stole more than $400,000 in school funds before fleeing to Mexico, where he was later found dead, according to a just-released Chicago Board of Education Office of the Inspector General annual report. [snip] In a separate case, two CPS employees — including a high school principal — enrolled “ghost students” in an attempt to qualify for more staff. In another case highlighted in the report, CPS employees allowed a vendor to provide “inferior, substitute products,” costing CPS nearly $100,000 in unnecessary charges. The inspector general’s office received a total of 1,460 complaints this year...

<p>A southwest Ohio teacher who allegedly responded after a black high school freshman said he wanted to become president that the nation doesn't need another black president has been disciplined.</p> <p>The Fairfield board of education this week suspended teacher Gil Voigt (VOYT') without pay. The Hamilton-Middletown Journal-News reports (http://bit.ly/1ilf5qv) that board president Dan Murray said the suspension is the first step in the termination process. The teacher has 10 days from formal notification to appeal before the school board.</p>

A group representing 5,000 U.S. professors has endorsed an academic boycott of Israeli colleges and universities. The American Studies Association says it voted for the boycott "as an ethical stance." "It represents a principle of solidarity with scholars and students deprived of their academic freedom and an aspiration to enlarge that freedom for all, including Palestinians," a Dec. 4 statement said. According to The New York Times, which reported the boycott Monday, the action — the first time the group has called for an academic boycott of any nation's universities — makes the group the largest of its kind to...

Johnny Jones who attends school in Fawn Grove, Pa., was suspended from school for a day after he made an imaginary bow out of his pencil, pulled back an imaginary string and shot his imaginary arrow. That was back in October and now his parents are deciding on whether or not to bring legal action. Ten-year-old Johnny Jones was disciplined under the school's zero-tolerance weapons policies. Apparently he asked the teacher for a pencil and while he was walking back to his seat, a classmate held his folder up like an imaginary gun and "shot" at Johnny. Johnny played along...

6-Year old boy suspended for kissing girl on cheek.Their war on little boys in elementary schools continues unabated. Little children are being punished with suspensions, expulsions, and permanent damage to school records based on standards of conduct carried into elementary schools from the adult world. Typically, but not exclusively, the insanity is directed at little boys for alleged violation of zero tolerance gun and sexual harassment policies. KRDO reports: A Canon City school six-year-old boy has been accused of sexual harassment and the school suspended him for kissing a girl on the cheek and hand. **snip**The Principal is defending the...

The school lunch drama continues, this time in Manitoba, Canada. Close on the heels of a federally sponsored preschool in Virginia disallowing homemade lunches without a doctor’s note, a mom in Manitoba was given this note and a $10 fine when her children’s preschool felt that the lunch she sent from home required “supplemental” Ritz Crackers.

Authorities in Pennsylvania are to file criminal charges against three students involved in a brutal beating on a school bus on Wednesday - and the bus driver who did nothing to stop the attack and didn't allow the two victims to flee from the vehicle. Police in Chester acted after they viewed video posted onto Facebook that shows one student on the Delaware County Alternative High School bus allegedly hitting 17-year-old Dylan Fonner in the face repeatedly. The grainy video which shows Fonner's face being bloodied, lasts seven minutes and was posted on the Facebook page belonging to one of...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - Hollywood’s Obamacare ZombiesPosted By Matthew Vadum On October 15, 2013 @ 12:54 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 6 Comments If you’re sick and tired of TV news broadcasts spewing pro-Obamacare propaganda, get ready to be inundated with even more progressive health care proselytizing in the dramas and comedies that follow those news shows.For this you have the left-wing California Endowment to thank. The radical philanthropy is in the news because it is funding Obamacare public outreach efforts.As Newsmax reports, the Obama administration is “turning its focus on prime time television series, using the influential...

A classroom of 14 and 15-year-old Illinois high school students was assigned the task of deciding the fate of ten fictional characters in an exercise that critics called a lesson in death panels. The assignment was part of a sociology unit for freshmen and sophomore students at St. Joseph-Ogden High School in St. Joseph, just east of Champaign. The story was first reported by Champion News. The lesson involves 10 people who are in desperate need of kidney dialysis. “Unless they receive this procedure, they will die,” the lesson states. But there’s a problem. The local hospital only has enough...

Some parents at Leeds Elementary Public School in Alabama were in for a shock when their kids brought home a permission slip for corporal punishment. It stated that failure to return the form would be considered authorization for school personnel to administer the punishment. Corporal punishment is legal in 19 states in America. …

The principal at Marina High School in Huntington Beach had made a vow before one of his students – a transgender teen – was crowned homecoming queen Friday night. "If Marina High School is to make high-profile news during its homecoming week this year," Principal Paul Morrow said before the ceremony, "then we are proud that the message is one of equity and individual respect." Cassidy Lynn Campbell, who was born male but told The Times she always felt like a girl, broke down in tears during the homecoming ceremony at the school’s football game.

On Thursday, Ken Shepherd at NewsBusters noted that Kansas University journalism professor David Guth, in the wake of Monday's Navy Yard murders, tweeted, "The blood is on the hands of the #NRA. Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters. Shame on you. May God damn you." In an update which now also includes a defense of Guth by a former student, Ken noted that he has placed on administrative leave. Yesterday, I noted that the headline at the Associated Press's national site after Guth's suspension ("KU Professor Takes Heat Over Twitter Comment") avoided mentioning KU's discliplinary action against...

Children should not start primary school until they are six or seven years old, according to a coalition of education experts who warn of the damaging pressure to perform in class at a young age. A letter written by 130 teachers, academics and authors said the UK should follow the Scandinavian model and put off formal lessons for two years. Under the UK’s current system, children start full-time schooling at the age of four or five. Experts say this is causing “profound damage” in a generation which is not encouraged to learn through play. …