Tag Archives: School District

More Insanity In Our Public Schools

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Yesterday John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog about the oppressive nature of mathematics. Barbie said that math class was hard, but I don’t remember her using the word oppressive.

The article reports:

The Seattle public schools have developed a new “ethnic studies” curriculum that tells students that mathematics is a tool of oppression. Sure, some of us thought that back in junior high school, especially when we didn’t get around to doing our homework. But to have this view endorsed by the schools is remarkable. Robby Soave reports at Reason:

The [Seattle public school] district has proposed a new social justice-infused curriculum that would focus on “power and oppression” and “history of resistance and liberation” within the field of mathematics. The curriculum isn’t mandatory, but provides a resource for teachers who want to introduce ethnic studies into the classroom vis a vis math.

Why, exactly, would you introduce “ethnic studies” into mathematics? This is from Education Week:

If adopted, its ideas will be included in existing math classes as part of the district’s broader effort to infuse ethnic studies into all subjects across the K-12 spectrum.

Again: why would a school district do this, unless it is deliberately trying to foment ethnic division? The rot, sadly, is not confined to Seattle:

“Seattle is definitely on the forefront with this,” said Robert Q. Berry III, the president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. “What they’re doing follows the line of work we hope we can move forward as we think about the history of math and who contributes to that, and also about deepening students’ connection with identity and agency.”

Why is it the mission of the public schools to “deepen students’ connection with identity and agency”? If “identity” means ethnic identity, which I understand it does, I would think the public schools should be trying to do the opposite.

For whatever reason, our education system and our political leaders are more focused on emphasizing the things that divide us rather than the things that unite us. Why not encourage all students to identify as Americans?

Insanity In Our Schools

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Hot Air posted an article today about a 12-year-old girl who is facing felony charges because she allegedly made a gun shape with her hand and pointed her finger at four students before pointing her finger at herself. Yes, you read that right.

The article reports:

Police hauled her out of school in handcuffs, arrested her and charged the child with a felony for threatening.

Shawnee Mission school officials said they could not discuss the case, citing privacy laws, but did say it wasn’t the district that arrested the child.

According to the Kansas City Star, the incident unfolded in a classroom at Westridge Middle School.

The person said that during a class discussion, another student asked the girl, if she could kill five people in the class, who would they be? In response, the girl allegedly pointed her finger pistol — like the ones many children use playing cops and robbers.

Because of that gesture, The Star was told, the girl was sent to Principal Jeremy McDonnell’s office, and the other students involved were also talked to. The school resource officer recommended that she be arrested, the source said. She was detained by police and later released to her mother.

It gets even worse. According to Star columnist Toriano Porter, there were two kids in the same school district who recently brought real guns to school that aren’t facing felony charges for their actions. Toriano Porter also states that pointing a finger gun at classmates and then yourself is a cry for help — not a criminal act of violence.

The article concludes:

I’m not even going to go so far as to say that this 12-year old was exhibiting a “cry for help.” She could have just been a 12-year old who wasn’t thinking that responding to a dumb question by a classmate was going to end up with her in handcuffs. What’s next? Arresting kids playing “Kiss, Marry, Kill” at lunch for making threats?

The 12-year old girl is now living in California with her grandfather, and will hopefully be able to put this incident behind her, but if the laws in Kansas need to be changed to prevent idiotic situations like this from taking place in the future, I hope legislators in the state will see to it that there are no more felony charges for finger guns in the future.

Did whoever decided to call the police on the child consider the emotional trauma to the child? If this was viewed as a cry for help, why did the authorities choose to make the child’s emotional situation worse? I know a lot of adults who played with toy guns and toy soldiers as children who grew up to be respectable non-violent citizens. The way this child was treated is totally unacceptable–and she didn’t even have a gun!

If You Are A Parent, This Is Frightening

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Life Site News posted an article on Wednesday about what I would consider a serious violation of parental rights by the government.

The article reports:

The Minnesota mother whose son was maneuvered through a “sex change” by county officials has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review her case. She is charging the government with usurping her parental rights when its agents provided her son with transgender services and narcotic drugs against her wishes.

The Thomas More Society petitioned the High Court Wednesday on behalf of Anmarie Calgaro, arguing that Calgaro’s due process rights were “trampled on” when St. Louis County and its referred health providers “ended her parental control over her minor son without a court order of emancipation.”

“It’s a parent’s worst nightmare,” Thomas More Society special counsel Erick Kaardal said. “Anmarie Calgaro’s child, while a minor, was steered through a life-changing, permanent body altering process, becoming a pawn in someone else’s sociopolitical agenda and being influenced by those who have no legal or moral right to usurp the role of a parent.”

Calgaro sued state agencies and health providers in federal court in 2016 for terminating her parental rights without due process after her minor son was given elective medical services for a so-called “sex change” without her consent or a legal order of emancipation.

Her suit said the state’s entities decided on their own that the then-17-year-old boy was emancipated.

The defendants handled Calgaro’s son as an emancipated minor even though there had been no court action to that effect, the Thomas More statement says. Neither the school district, the county, nor any of the medical agencies named in the lawsuit gave Calgaro any notice or hearing before ending her parental rights over her minor child.

A district judge dismissed Calgaro’s lawsuit in May 2017, admitting that the boy was not legally emancipated by a court order but ruling that Calgaro’s parental rights “remained intact.” The Thomas More Society says the judge decreed that the de facto emancipation of Calgaro’s minor son by the county, school, and medical care providers did not constitute an infringement of constitutionally protected parental rights.

The case was appealed in July 2017 and the district court ruling upheld by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in March of this year.

St. Louis County decided without any basis that Calgaro’s son was emancipated and could receive government benefits, even though Calgaro was a “fit parent” who objected to their actions, the legal non-profit’s statement on the Supreme Court filing said.

The article concludes:

“And the St. Louis County School District in Minnesota has a custom and practice of barring a parent from involvement in the child’s education for more than two years after a child is deemed by the school principal, not by a court order, to be emancipated,” he said. “This is an unacceptable situation for any parent and a serious violation of parental and due process rights.”

Minnesota’s language regarding emancipation is vague, and state law presents no procedural due process rights for “fit parents,” according to Kaardal, even though it does so for those deemed unfit.

“Why wouldn’t we make this same effort for fit parents?” he asked.

Kaardal said he was concerned in particular about the conflict in Minnesota’s legal statutes.

“The U.S. Court of Appeals ignored the major disconnect in the District Court decision where the mother’s parental rights are admitted but not honored, and the ridiculous claims that the agencies which have violated Calgaro’s rights did nothing wrong,” he stated. “The United States Supreme Court now has the opportunity to untangle this incompatible and untenable scenario; so, nationwide fit parents can keep parenting without governmental interference.”

“Under federal law, the right to parent is considered an unenumerated right, protected from governmental interference by the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments,” said Kaardal. “The “liberty” of the Due Process Clauses safeguards those substantive rights “so rooted in the traditions and conscience as to be ranked as fundamental.”

The U.S. Supreme Court reconvenes in October.

 

Child Abuse In Our Schools

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Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article today about a lawsuit filed by some parents against an Oregon school district. The case began with an 8-year-old boy with a stomach issue and ends with that child being encouraged to be a girl.

The article reports:

Parents in Woodburn said their 8-year-old son was held back from recess multiple times for one-on-one conversations about his gender identity – and they had no idea.

The mother and father in Woodburn are now suing a school district for nearly a million dollars after they say a second-grade teacher singled out their son by asking him if he was transgender. The parents say the teacher had inappropriate conversations with the child at school without their permission. …

The parents say this all started when their son started using the staff restroom because of a stomach problem. They say their son was uncomfortable using the boy’s bathroom because of his medical condition. However, they believe the teacher assumed their son was uncomfortable because he was transgender.

“Still today, a year later, if he plays with my niece, he’s a girl in that moment… if he plays with my nephew, he’s a boy,” said the mother.

The mother says her son was left confused and hurt after being singled out. Now, a year later, the 9-year-old is taking anxiety medication and going to therapy, according to his parents. The family says the boy’s confusion and emotional distress has also affected the entire family. The father says he’s suffering from panic attacks and the mother says she’s now on medical leave, suffering from anxiety and depression, and staying home from work.

It is entirely possible that the panic attacks and anxiety on the part of the parents might be something of an overreaction, but their complaint is certainly valid.

The article notes:

There’s video at the link, but it’s not embeddable here. Bear in mind that this wasn’t a teenager, which might be bad enough, but an eight year old with a stomach problem. Even granting the best of possible intentions, why wouldn’t the first step in dealing with suspicions of gender dysphoria be to contact the child’s parents? It’s not as if the parents in this case are social neanderthals, at least from the perspective of Academia. They tell reporter Bonnie Silkman in the video that they aren’t concerned about what identity he chooses as long as he chooses it, and not get indoctrinated into it by an activist teacher.

The article concludes:

The most impressively loco part of this story is that the teacher still works at the school — a full year after the school confirmed the parents’ story. The only correction the teacher received was to be reminded of the district’s policies on “controversial issues” and to notify parents and the school when she “alters a student’s regular school day.” Meanwhile, this family will be dealing with the aftershocks of her actions for years.

The school district declined to comment on the story because of the lawsuit, but they might owe an explanation to the other parents in the district, especially to those whose children are within this teacher’s supervision. How many other children has she attempted to indoctrinate into transgender identities? And how many of the parents in this school district — and elsewhere — might start considering private schools or home-schooling to protect their children from predatory behavior?

If I had children in that school district, this article would cause me to consider seriously the option of home-schooling.

The Definition Of Chutzpah

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Chutzpah is a Yiddish word meaning shameless audacity; impudence. Every now and then, I find a really good example of the concept.

Yesterday Fox News posted a story about a group of refugees suing a school district in Pennsylvania because they feel that the district is not providing the quality of education they are entitled to.

The article reports:

“[The] Plaintiffs are refugees who have fled war, violence, and persecution from their native countries,” reads a statement from the lawsuit. “Having finally escaped their turbulent environment to resettle in America, these young immigrants yearn to learn English and get an education so they can make a life for themselves.”

The refugees hoped to enter McCaskey High School, known for its superior academic program, but instead were sent to Phoenix Academy, an alternative high school for “underachieving” students in the district. Phoenix students are subject to pat-downs, banned from bringing personal belongings like watches and jewelry and forced to wear colored shirts that “correspond with behavior.”

I would like to point out that there are also American students who were not permitted to attend McCaskey High School who attend the Phoenix Academy. Why should the refugees get preferential treatment?

The article reports:

Officials for the school district say the six students were sent to Phoenix for a special program geared towards their needs.

“[The District] believes the lawsuit is without merit,” Superintendent Damaris Rau said in a statement. “We are confident we are doing an excellent job supporting our refugee students who often come to school with little or no education.”

A special “acceleration program” at Phoenix was created for under-credited students, both refugee and non-refugee, which gives them the opportunity to earn credits toward a high school diploma by the age of 21, Rau said.  

At Phoenix, the students receive various services including remedial services, English classes for Second Language Learners, after school programs, job and computer skills as well as mentoring services, Rau added.

I wish the refugees well, but I find it rather amazing that a lawsuit would be brought when you consider that these refugees are being given a free education and whatever aid they need to help them settle here. I am sorry that they have been placed in a school that may not be the best in their city, but it seems to me that they need special classes in English and other skills that the school they are attending is providing. I really think that suing the school district is tacky.

Why We Should All Move To Texas

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Rick Perry has done it again. Politico reported on Thursday that Rick Perry has signed a bill passed by the Texas legislature that makes it legal to say “Merry Christmas.”

The bill states:

“a school district may educate students about the history of traditional winter celebrations, and allow students and district staff to offer traditional greetings regarding the celebrations, including ‘Merry Christmas,’ ‘Happy Hanukkah,’ and ‘happy holidays…“a school district may display on school property scenes or symbols associated with traditional winter celebrations, including a menorah or a Christmas tree, if the display includes a scene or symbol of more than one religion or one religion and at least one secular scene or symbol.”

It is sad that we need a bill like this to protect the religious rights of all students, but we do. Thank you, Governor Perry, for signing this bill.

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The Lack Of Logic In The American Educational System

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 A letter from a friend:
Why California Schools are the pits
 
We moved out here 2.5 years ago as a military family.  We don’t have a choice as to where we are sent, so we just go.  Our main concern was the California schools and unfortunately, they have not proved themselves to be anything but ……”messed up.”
1.  During our first year here, in order to deal with budget cuts, the schools were forced to layoff new teachers.  Their definition of a new teacher follows the” last in, first let go.”  This, however, included many teachers with 10+ years experience IN the district.  Mind you, there are teachers who are way past their teaching prime and are not adequately preparing their students for upward movement.  (This is not only an opinion shared by parents, but also by teachers.)
2.  During our second year here, we were sent a teacher who was cut from her school.  While that is not an uncommon practice, what is sad  is that she was” Teacher of the Year” in the school she was cut from.  It was definitely our gain, but is it logical?  She was once again cut from our school at the end of the second year.
3.  During our third year here, once again faced with huge budget cuts, the PTO has been asked to pay for BASIC educational tools – art, walkie talkies for our playground duties, busing for having High School students come over as teacher’s aides, Success Maker programs, field trips and a host of other literary companions to give a rounded education to our students.
In addition, the new principal noted that the 1980s decor in our front office was neither inviting or pleasing to anyone.  She took money out of her OWN pocket and proceeded to paint, add chair rail, and also refinish the countertops and cabinets.  She also plans to have the floor redone and purchase a new desk.  All from her funds!  Yesterday she was called to the School District office to be reprimanded for using her own money and volunteers to redo the office.  They stated she was taking away jobs from their maintenance employees and that she needed to apologize and discontinue the work that was being done for free and instead pay $90 an hour in labor, plus materials, to finish any and all work. 
Does this make sense?  We don’t have enough money for educational items for our students, BUT we are being forced to spend additional money on items that would have been DONATED by parents and staff at our school. 
Yes, California, your logic is a tad “illogical.”
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