Free Republic

The Chicago Public Schools will pay 6.39 percent — an extraordinary interest rate by short-term lending standards — to borrow $275 million it needs to make a mandatory payment for retiree pensions before a June 30 deadline. That’s more than four times the interest rate a typical government would pay on the same borrowing deal ... It’s yet another sign of the dire financial condition of the nation’s third-largest public school system, which for months has had a “junk” credit rating from Wall Street financial institutions. CPS officials secured the $275 million on Monday from J.P. Morgan. It’s the final...

A twitter exchange between an Arizona high school teacher and the president of the school district ended with the president calling him and “anti-American Trump hating troll” and the teacher filing a Change.org petition to get her fired. The exchange started when Barry Goldwater High School teacher Aude Odeh, a Palestinian Muslim, responded to a tweet by Deer Valley Unified School board president Kim Fisher in which she regarded an article about President Trump as deceptive on her personal twitter page.

A North Carolina woman is in hot water after an investigation revealed that she had sex with three male students. Twenty-five-year-old Erin McAuliffe, a math teacher at Rocky Mount Preparatory School, was fired on May 8 following tips from administrators that she might be engaged in sexual misconduct with students

Students at Louisiana's top public high school rushed to respond after a teacher used a racial epithet in class Thursday (May 4). Ben Franklin High Principal Patrick Widhalm confirmed the authenticity of several videos that students posted on social media. In them, a white teacher told a black student it was OK for the teacher to use what is universally considered the most offensive slur against African-Americans. The teacher is a permanent substitute and was not on campus as of 3:30 p.m., Widhalm said. The school is investigating, which will take several days, and will take appropriate action, he said....

DURHAM, North Carolina -- A Durham woman was arrested after throwing lighter fluid on her son's Eno Valley Elementary School kindergarten teacher and threatening to burn the building down, according to an arrest warrant. Durham police said that teacher Megan Jones had arranged a parent-teacher conference with Shequella Sheala Leonard, who became irate at accusations of her son's behavior. About five minutes into the meeting, the school principal told Leonard that she needed to leave the building, and the group, which included Leonard's son, exited into a hallway, police said. Once in the hallway, Jones told police that Leonard pulled...

COLLINSVILLE -- A special-education teacher has been removed from the classroom after allegedly forcing students to remove their underwear. According to a letter sent to parents earlier this week, the teacher observed feces on the classroom floor at Webster Elementary School on March 30. To determine which student had soiled his pants, the teacher had each child go into a private bathroom stall by himself, remove his underpants, put his clothes back on and exit the stall to show his underpants to the teacher. "The teacher was not present in the bathroom stall and at no time was your child...

The Tennessee teacher charged with abducting his 15-year-old student skipped town with Cialis pills and went shopping for KY Jelly and chocolate while on the lam for more than a month, according to new court papers. Tad Cummins, 50, filled a prescription for Cialis at a Columbia, Tenn., pharmacy on March 10 — three days before allegedly blowing town with student Elizabeth Thomas, the federal complaint filed Thursday says. His wife, Jill, told investigators that he was prescribed the drug, which treats erectile dysfunction and prolongs sexual performance. Three days later, the pair was spotted at a Walmart in Guymon,...

15 year old found safe.

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.

A coach for Taylor High School's varsity softball team is accused of having a sexual relationship with a student. Kendall Lucas, 25, is charged with improper relationship between educator and student, a second degree felony. Police say the female student was 17 years old at the time of the offense.

A married middle-school English teacher and cheerleading coach is accused of having sex multiple times with an 15-year-old student and is now pregnant... Harper is now pregnant, but it's unclear from the affidavit whether the boy is the father of the child. 'She's about eight months pregnant, so if we go back in time it's around when that event took place, but she is married, we believe, still. So we're not sure what that leads to,'

LOCKHART, TX (WTNH)– A 27-year-old Texas teacher, who is accused of having sex with one of her students, is trending after her smiling mugshot went viral. According to the Mirror, married science teacher, Sarah Fowlkes, was arrested for having an “improper relationship” with a 17-year-old student of Lockhart High School in Lockhart, Texas. The investigation began on March 10th after a tip from officials at the high school. This led detectives to the student who admitted to being in contact physically and by messages with Fowlkes. The Mirror reports that Fowlkes was charged after turning herself into police, just hours...

(CNN)A former Tennessee teacher has been added to the state's "Top 10 Most Wanted" list after being charged with aggravated kidnapping in the disappearance of a 15-year-old girl. Authorities say Tad Cummins, 50, kidnapped Elizabeth Thomas, a freshman at the high school where Cummins taught until this week. The girl is in imminent danger, they said.

Frightened teachers at a Sydney primary school have revealed students are showing signs of extreme radicalisation at a young age, saying they have been traumatised by threats of beheading and other violent behaviour. Students as young as in Year 5 are making the threats and pressuring peers into reading the Koran at Punchbowl Public School in Sydney's southwest, the Daily Telegraph has reported. Documents given to the newspaper reportedly reveal that at least three staff members have taken stress leave, received counselling and been paid compensation after bullying from Islamic students.

While many Michigan school districts have scoffed at merit pay for teachers, the urban school district with the worst academic performance in the nation has taken it seriously. The Detroit public school district has instituted a merit pay system that makes the vast majority of teachers eligible to earn awards, sometimes as much as $5,000. Out of 2,729 Detroit schoolteachers, 96 received awards of $1,000 in 2015-16, according to data from a Freedom of Information Act request. Michigan Capitol Confidential is reviewing the merit pay systems of the largest school districts in the state. Then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed a law...

MILWAUKEE —A fifth grade teacher who lives in Milwaukee is accused of having sexual contact with an 11-year-old boy. Katherine Gonzalez is charged with First Degree Child Sexual Assault. Prosecutors said Gonzalez and one of her fifth grade students at Atlas Preparatory Academy had been messaging on Snapchat. They eventually had contact in Gonzalez's car and at her home, according to a criminal complaint.

Pennfield Schools had just one teacher rated “ineffective” out of 124 within the Calhoun County district in 2014-15. And that ineffective teacher’s salary of $68,921 was the third-highest salary for a teacher in the district, according to documents received in a Freedom of Information Act request and the state database of teacher salaries. Teachers in Michigan are evaluated and are given one of four ratings. “Ineffective” is the worst rating. That teacher, whose name is being withheld from publication, is a good example of the problems with the union-negotiated one-size-fits-all pay scale that just about every district in the state...

Michigan’s current superintendent of public instruction claimed in a news article that first-year teachers in the state earn $28,000 a year. Superintendent Brian Whiston made his comment in an article in the Feb. 10 edition of MIRS News. If any full-time Michigan public school teacher is paid that amount, it would be an extremely rare instance. There were 540 Michigan public school districts in 2015-16, not counting charter schools. Michigan Capitol Confidential has reviewed hundreds of those districts’ union contracts and has not yet seen a starting salary under $30,000. The Michigan Department of Education didn’t return an email that...

An Ionia Public Schools teacher declared she was quitting after having an emotional meltdown in front of her second-grade students. She then abruptly walked out of the school, according to documents obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request. But after the school accepted the verbal notice as a resignation, the teacher claimed she did not formally quit, causing a monthslong battle over her employment status. Anne Purdun, a second-grade teacher at Emerson Elementary, yelled profanities in her classroom while students were present on April 20, 2016, according to charges filed by the school for a tenure proceeding, obtained through...

A Florida teacher has been reassigned after she wrote a Facebook status supporting President Donald Trump’s travel ban. Veronica Fleming was removed from her role as a computer lab teacher and assigned to administrative duties after she wrote that “glad about massive deportation” because it means there will be “less mouths to feed.” The principal at Parkside Elementary School, where Fleming works and where the students are 96 percent minorities, learned about her writing after parents called the school to complain, according to NBC 2. NBC-2.com WBBH News for Fort Myers, Cape Coral & Naples, Florida The matter was given...