Education

An Arizona Jr. High School bans hugs lasting longer than 2 seconds to try to squelch increasing public displays of affection, but the students aren’t going to take this with their arms folded…

The “no-hugging” rule had previously been in the student handbook. After many students began expressing concern about public hugging and kissing in the hallways, the school began reinforcing the guideline by punishing huggers, which led to Friday’s protest.

Prior to the demonstration, the district said the principal and students brokered an agreement to clarify the “no-hugging” rule. According to the guidelines, small hugs, less than two seconds, are permitted but longer ones and kissing are not.

“We can only hug two seconds? That’s ridiculous,” Branham said. “It’s barely even a hug.”

More Teachers Gone Wild™! Melissa Moss, an English teacher at Barat Academy (we totally read that as Borat Academy, which would be an interesting school) in Dardenne Prairie — a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri — has been charged with taking topless photos of herself and emailing them to a 15-year-old boy in her class. The boys parents found the naughty pics and reported the teacher to the school and the police. And we’re sure the boy didn’t share the photos with *any* of his friends….

We talked with the Robert and Kelly Pfeiffer- their son was in Moss’ class.

They say they thought she was a great teacher and they’re stunned by the charges.

“It is very disturbing and you know it’s kind of a sign of the times the way we live with a lot of internet access and Face book and things like that. As a parent you have to be on constant vigil to make sure, you have to know what your kids are getting into,” said Robert Pfeiffer.

His wife, Kelly, added, “I was kind of shocked because I worked with her a lot as far as one on one talking to her you know about his grades and keeping up with them and I thought she was a really nice teacher. So when this came about, it really shocked me.”

Barat Academy is a private, independent catholic high school that opened last September.

Diana Mijares, a Houston mom, got suspicious when her normally mild-mannered 4-year-old, Megan, was suspended four times from preschool for bad behavior. So she did what any normal parent would do, and she bugged her daughter’s backpack. What she heard didn’t go over so well:

Megan Mijares’ digital tape recorded mostly mundane moments at Memorial Elementary School’s prekindergarten class, but then it captured the teacher yelling at the group of 4- and 5-year-olds. All of it happened without Megan’s or her teacher’s knowledge.

“You’re just a bad kid,” the teacher says on the six-hour tape. “You’re mean to me, so I get to be mean to you.”

The teacher, who was not identified, continues to harshly scold the children.

“You are all just stupid kids. I swear to God,” the teacher says. “You are just all stupid kids.”

Mijares said at that point the teacher was responding to a boy who was moving slowly.

Maybe we should start giving teachers hazard pay. The latest story of a student allegedly run amok comes from Milford, Connecticut, where one classroom had a hot-head teacher — and no, we don’t mean he had a bad temper:

Milford officials have expelled a Jonathan Law High School student accused of lighting her science teacher’s hair on fire during class.

Police say the girl was arrested after she ignited the ponytail of George Lardas with a lighter.

A police spokesman says Lardas did not require medical attention, but his hair was singed.

We would recommend Mr. Lardas cut off his ponytail to avoid such further incidents, as well as a visit from the fashion police.

Oh, for crying out loud, with all the problems occurring in our nation’s public school system, should administrators really be making a priority how a mom cuts her kid’s hair? Really, who gives a shit?

A kindergarten student with a freshly spiked Mohawk has been suspended from school.

Michelle Barile, the mother of 6-year-old Bryan Ruda, said nothing in the Parma Community School handbook prohibits the haircut, characterized by closely shaved sides with a strip of prominent hair on top. The school said the hair was a distraction for other students.

“I understand they have a dress code. I understand he has a uniform. But this is total discrimination,” she said. “They can’t tell me how I can cut his hair.”

An administrator at the suburban Cleveland charter school first warned Barile last fall that the haircut wasn’t acceptable. The school later sent another warning to her reiterating the ban.

Mohawks violate the school’s policy on being properly groomed, school Principal Linda Geyer said. Also, the school district’s dress code allows school officials to forbid anything that interferes with the conduct of education.

Do any of you feel that a child with a mohawk in your kid’s class would be a “distraction” to their education?

Martin Reynish, a teacher in Wales, UK, told members of a disciplinary hearing that an attack by a student “permanently changed his attitude to his job”, and that is why he was unable to stop pupils from continuously setting off firecrackers in his classroom — the incident that may lead to his dismissal for professional incompetence.

The school where he worked, Bryn Celynnog Comprehensive, in Beddau, near Pontypridd, had become more like an inner city secondary than a small rural one, [Reynish] said.

The hearing, resumed after two months, is the first of its kind held by the General Teaching Council for Wales to look at the competence of a teacher. The GTCW usually considers issues of suitability or misconduct only.

When the hearing opened last November Mr Reynish’s teaching methods came under scrutiny as the panel heard allegations of bad behaviour by pupils and his inability to control them.

Pupils let off firecrackers, took mobile phone calls and used games consoles during his lessons, the panel heard.

Giving evidence yesterday, Mr Reynish said he felt “victimised and stressed” by a local education authority capability process to assess his ability as a teacher, which forced him to present lesson plans to be externally monitored.

Asked why he might have started to find his job harder, Mr Reynish said, “With the benefit of hindsight I can remember an incident when I was physically attacked by a Year 9 pupil (aged 12 or 13), who ultimately went on to be excluded.

Facing an increase in teacher-student romances coupled with an increasingly litigious society, colleges are getting stricter with their policies after a number of sexual harassment lawsuits have been filed against them:

A string of student-teacher affairs have led to legal action at the University of California, William & Mary in Virginia and Ohio Wesleyan University.

“The student-teacher relationship is inherently an uneven one and fraught with peril,” Boston education lawyer Paul Lannon told ABCNEWS.com.

“But they don’t always go awry and get lawyers involved,” he said. “A lot pass under the radar and work out well.”

This month, faculty at Vermont’s Middlebury College will vote on new language for its handbook — one that discourages, but does not actually ban, relationships between students and their professors.

A new survey indicates that while both parents and teachers agree that homework is important, there’s a big divide over the specifics:

The survey, commissioned by the insurance giant MetLife, found a big disconnect between teachers and parents when it comes to homework. Veteran teachers said homework is crucial to students’ academic success in school. Most assigned homework to help students build skills like reading comprehension or to help them prepare for tests. One out of four teachers rated the quality of their homework as “excellent.”

But one-third of parents rated the quality of homework only “fair to poor.” Parents also complained that there’s too much homework — that it takes up way too much time and deprives their children of sleep.

After a principal was arrested for allegedly molesting a 13-year-old boy, the South San Antonio Independent School District had the good sense to fire his ass. Sorry, but anyone in a position of authority over our kids doesn’t always get the benefit of the doubt — schools need to err on the side of caution and not wait several years until our slow moving justice system happens to find them guilty. A school administrator of even modest character would never even find themselves in such a situation.

“We had no choice,” board President Manuel Lopez said. “We had to do what’s best for the district and the community.”

[Michael] Alcoser, 41, was arrested and charged with aggravated sexual assault on Jan. 29. He has worked as teacher, vice principal and principal in the district since 1989.

Police said Alcoser abused the boy between January 2004 and May 2006. An affidavit submitted by prosecutors said the boy was fondled and photographed in his underwear, sometimes in Alcoser’s office.

Man, teachers soon are going to start requiring hazard pay. Just a week after a Cleveland teacher was beat up by her students, five kids at a McAllen, Texas, “alternative school” put the smackdown on their teacher:

The incident began with a confrontation between a student and the teacher at the Mercedes Discipline Alternative Education Program, then the other four joined in, Mercedes Independent School District Interim Superintendent Walter Watson said.

“It wound up that five boys beat him up rather badly,” he said.

The teacher was taken to a hospital and received stitches for a cut over his eyebrow, Watson said. He also had other small cuts, scratches and bruises.

The students, ranging in age from 14 to 16, were to be detained at the Hidalgo County Juvenile detention center for about two weeks before a hearing, Watson. It was not clear what charges they would face.

We have a fourth-grader of our own, and as we sit here trying to maintain our sanity while he’s home for a snow day, we can perhaps understand how dealing with a room full of them day after day can make you snap.

So maybe it’s not such a surprise that Susan Romanyszyn, a fourth-grade teacher in Warminster, Pennsylvania (a suburb of Philadelphia) is being accused by police for issuing threats against Longstreth Elementary School, where she works. They say she left disturbing drawings around the school, as well as a makeshift pipe bomb and nails in the teacher parking lot.

Romanyszyn was charged in connection with a series of threats made against Longstreth that had students, teachers and parents on edge for weeks.

Police said the threats left at the school included references to bombs and quotes such as “Die Today, Kill Em All, You Won’t Catch Me I Have A Gun, You’re So Stupid I Have To Kill You And I Won’t Stop Til You All Die.”

Romanyszyn has been teaching here for several years, sources said. She has been on a leave of absence since late October.

A 14 year old, high school girl was going to her locker when a boy ran up and started stabbing her in the back with scissors.

Obviously, this country does not have enough systems in place to identify and deal with the mentally ill, from infancy to adulthood. Something needs to be done to identify mentally ill students, especially in Colorado, where they seem to breed ‘em.

LONGMONT, Colo. (KMGH) - A 14-year-old girl was stabbed seven times in a crowded hallway at Silver Creek High School as her classmates watched in horror.

The girl, who has not been identified, was transported to Longmont United Hospital with minor, non-life-threatening injuries.

Students and staff members who witnessed the incident subdued a 14-year-old boy until police arrived at the scene. He is currently in police custody, facing charges of attempted first-degree murder, attempted first-degree assault and second-degree assault.

A teacher from Elmira, New York has been arrested for public lewdness after he did some naughty things at a local rest stop:

Police say Chris A. Troncone, 40, of Lawrenceville, Pa., exposed himself, committed a lewd act and made obscene comments in the presence of a rest area attendant while inside the men’s room at the rest area. The attendant said at least one other person entered the rest room but left quickly while Troncone allegedly was engaged in the lewd behavior.

Troncone, who is a first-grade teacher at Diven Elementary School in Elmira, has been suspended pending the outcome of the police investigation, Elmira City School District spokesperson Kristin Butler said.

Gotta watch out at those rest areas and forest preserves! And yes, the teacher has been suspended, but his firing is not a sure thing even if he is found guilty:

Letters from Superintendent Dr. Raymond Bryant are being sent home with all Diven students Wednesday explaining that Troncone was arrested off of school property for an incident that did not involve children. The letter also says that administrators have no reason to believe Troncone has done anything in the classroom to cause concern.

And here we were chastising Utah for having to pass a law to get pervy teachers out of the classroom. Sorry, Dr. Bryant, but while we agree with you up to a point in terms of private sector jobs, Troncone’s unfettered access to children requires a person of the utmost character. Certain behaviors a teacher engages in off of school property absolutely reflects on their worthiness of being in the classroom (and lest you think we’re prudes, we don’t think, say, racy pics on MySpace is an actionable offense).

We caused our substitute teachers some grief back in the day (and we still feel guilty about it), but it usually just involved smartass comments and spitball throwing. But the kids at the Robert K. Fulton Public School in Cleveland are hard core:

Witnesses tell Fox 8 News, the trouble started when [substitute teacher Laura] Fritz attempted to refer several students to the principal’s office for misbehavior.

They responded by throwing objects at the teacher and soon other students joined in.

“The class became disorderly, unruly and once the injury happened to the teacher, a number of other students began to act out.” said Cleveland Schools Police Chief Lester Fultz.

“They were just throwing stuff, they hit the teacher with the marker, the papers were flying around, everything, it was terrible.” said a student who witnessed the riot.

According to Cleveland Police Lt. Thomas Stacho, 18 students were arrested for the incident, three were charged.

By the way, these were 7th GRADE STUDENTS. Gah! Paging Tom Berenger!

The only thing really noteworthy about this story is that it took an act of legislation to put this in place — really, shouldn’t the various school boards already be taking this sort of action?

The [Utah] House Education Committee on Tuesday unanimously passed HB286, which would permanently revoke the license of any teacher who molests a student or any other child. Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman, said he sought the bill after Frank Laine Hall, a Riverton teacher, was convicted of molesting his students.

He said the odds of Hall returning to teaching already are miniscule. The Utah State Board of Education revoked Hall’s license for 25 years.

But Wimmer wants to make sure there is no chance of that happening.