The offending MySpace page depicted an school principal as a sex addict and pedophile. His alleged motto: “Kids rock my bed.”
A Pennsylvania middle school wants to suspend the girl who created the Web site, but the American Civil Liberties Union says that she enjoys free-speech rights. The MySpace page was created at home on her own time. The Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in the case this week, the Associated Press reported.
Lawyers for the school board of the Blue Mountain district argued that the parody could have a devastating affect on the principal’s career. “At the very least, it creates an impression that this man is unstable,” said lawyer Jon Riba.
But the ACLU says the principal doesn’t have much to worry about. The site, it argues, was clearly juvenile and satiric.
The girl would have received the same two-week punishment if she had brought a gun to school. The Fairfax County, Va., teenager was hauled to the principal’s office after someone saw her taking a prescribed birth control pill during lunchtime.
The girl’s mom knew she was taking birth control pills, but the school didn’t. So school officials consider the pills contraband. Oakton High School, like many others across the country, has a zero-tolerance policy on drugs — no drugs of any kind unless previously approved by the school nurse.
The teen and her mother, whose names were not published by the Washington Post, say the policy is too harsh. “I realize my daughter broke a rule,” the mom told the Post. But “the punishment does not fit the crime.”
School officials say they’re concerned about liability and safety. How can they enforce the rules if some students were allowed to take certain pills, but not others?
The honors student now faces a hearing to determine whether she’ll be expelled. She and her mom say that they’re embarassed that a personal decision to take birth control pills is now known among the girl’s teachers, not to mention other students.
William and Janis Mohat are accusing a Ohio high school for not doing enough to stop the constant harassment that their son endured from other students. Eric Mohat, 17, shot himself on March 27, 2007. His parents recently filed a federal lawsuit against Mentor High School, located in the Cleveland area.
Eric wrote about the torment on his MySpace page. He said that he had had been pushed and elbowed in the hallways and was constantly called names like “fag” and “queer.” The lawsuit claims that on the day that Eric killed himself, a student said in front of other kids, “Why don’t you go home and shoot yourself? Nobody would miss you.” At least one administrator saw Eric crying in the hallway, but made no effort to help, according to the court filing.
The school system declined comment on the lawsuit, but said in a statement that it “takes all claims of bullying and harassment seriously and continues to train staff and students using a robust anti-bullying program.”
A lawyer for the Mohat family told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that bullying was a factor in the suicides of two other teens at Eric’s school. William Mohat said that the family would drop the lawsuit if the school system required reports of bullying to be written up and parents quickly notified in writing and tougher punishment for bullies. Read about other teen suicides caused by bullying here.
Fourth-grade teacher Amber Carter took a half-day of sick leave on Tuesday. Soon after skipping class, she was arrested in a sex sting at the Super 8 Motel in Bellefontaine, Ohio, northwest of Columbus.
Carter, who has taught school for 13 years, was booked on charges of prostitution and unauthorized use of school property, the Columbus Post-Dispatch reported. She may have used her school computer to set up her extracurricular work. She allegedly posted an ad on Craigslist. A sergeant from the Logan County Sheriff’s Office started e-mailing her after receiving a tip, Channel 10 TV News reported. Officials said she was arrested after she showed up at the motel and took money from the sergeant.
A substitute has now taken over Carter’s class at Western Intermediate School. Schools Superintendent Larry Anderson said that Carter has had no disciplinary citations in her teaching career and was a popular teacher. It’s unclear how long she might have been working the side job.
His death has been ruled a suicide, although it’s not known why he decided to take his own life. A janitor found the body of Aquan Lewis, a fifth grader, in a bathroom on Tuesday afternoon at a suburban Chicago elementary school, police said.
A community activist who served as a spokewoman for Aquan’s mother said that the child had been in “good spirits” when he had left for school on Tuesday morning, the Associated Press reported. She does not believe her son’s death was a suicide. Angel Lewis did not talk to reporters, but at a news conference, she kept saying, “He should have been accounted for.”
Police in Evanston, Ill., declined to give details about Aquan’s death. A school official said that it was still unclear when the boy left his class to go to the bathroom.
Among 10-year-olds, about 10 kids a year commit suicide, according to government statistics. The risk rises as they become teenagers. There is an average of 75 suicides a year among 13-year-olds and 250 among 16-year-olds. For resources on youth suicide prevention, please click here.
Don’t send them to the corner if they’re acting up. Instead, let them go outside and play.
A new study published in the February issue of Pediatrics journal advocates a daily school break of at least 15 minutes a day. Researchers examined data on 11,000 third-graders whose classroom behavior was assessed by their teachers in a questionaire. Classes that had some recess scored significantly higher in behavior than those with none or minimal playtime.
The study, by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in New York, backs up what doctors recommend. Free unstructured play helps kids manage stress, become resilient and keeps them healthy, says the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Unfortunately, many schools that serve low-income children in urban areas are cutting back recess. The emphasis on testing has also meant that time playing kickball takes a backseat to filling out worksheets. “When we restructure our education system, we have to think about the important role of recess in childhood development,” says lead researcher Dr. Romina Barros, a professor of pediatrics, in a news release. “Even if schools don’t have the space, they could give students 15 minutes of indoor activity. All that they need is some unstructured time.”
Photo by AM Images
The sexy dance demo was an effort to inspire teens to exercise. And it got the kids moving, alright. The students at South Devon College in England, ages 14 to 19, were so busy texting and emailing photos and videos of the stripper-like routine that they couldn’t pay attention to their afternoon classes, their teachers said.
During the lunchtime program earlier this month, about 1,000 students watched Sam Remmer gyrate, grind and glide around a pole. She was dressed in a sports bra, shorts and legwarmers; pole dancers say that if they wear too many clothes, they slide off the pole too easily.
Remmer’s dance set off a huge controversy in Britian after she posted the videos on YouTube recently. School officials have declined to comment, although Remmer says that they told her to take out any references to the school in her videos. Remmer, 32, defends her act, saying that there’s a difference between fitness pole dancing and lap dancing.
Remmer, a professional pole-dancing instructor, told the Daily Express of London that she will not be cowed by the uproar: “If anything, my classes empower women and encourage them to be in control of their bodies.”
Photo by Amber Rhea
The ruse was up when a test monitor discovered that the name on the test and the person taking didn’t match, authorities said. Deandre M. Ellis, 17, was charged on Tuesday with one felony count of burglary, because he entered a place he wasn’t supposed to be intending to commit a crime.
Deandre was a former student at Schenectady High School in upstate New York; he was allgedly taking the state exam for a girl who is a current student at the school, the Daily Gazette reported. Monitors walk the classroom at the beginning of the exam to check identities. It was not reported how Deandre masqueraded himself as a girl.
The school is investigating what actions to take against the female student, who was not identified.
Hey, he just made a mistake, don’t sue him. Cheerleading is a “contact” sport so participants can’t take their teammates to court for every injury, the Wisconsin State Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
That means Brittany Noffke will have to find some other way to make herself feel better. In 2004, the cheerleader at Holmen High near La Cross, Wisc., was lifted up to stand on the shoulders of a fellow student when she fell backwards. She hit her head on the floor, and promptly blamed a 16-year-old teammate who had lifted and then failed to catch her.
Brittany and her family sued the boy and the school district. They said the coach should have had a second spotter there and provided safety mats.
According to Wisconsin judges, getting hurt during somersaults, flips and other stunts is to expected. “Cheerleading involves a significant amount of physical contact between cheerleaders that at times results in forceful interaction between participants,” according to the court decision, reported by CNN. The boy may have messed up, but did not act “recklessly.”
Lewin Carlton Powell III beat his mother to death with a baseball bat and hid the body in the garage of their suburban Baltimore house, authorities said. When his father came home, the teen tried to kill him, too. The older man was spared after he told his son that he would give him money to escape.
On Monday, Lewin, 16, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, the Associated Press reported. Prosecutors are seeking a sentence of life in prison.
After his arrest, Lewin told police that his parents had pushed him too hard and he couldn’t take it anymore. On May 13, Donna R. Campbell-Powell had picked Lewin up from a school bus stop. She told him that she had received a call from his prestigous prep school about his academic performance, and that’s when the two began arguing, police said.
Lewin had been a sophomore at the McDonogh School in Owings Mill, Md., where tuition runs about $20,000 a year. He had been taking honors classes and had no history of violent outbursts.