Hugging banned at Illinois school

Claiming it clogs up the hallways, an Oak Park, Ill. high school has banned hugging:

"Last year we would see maybe as many as 10 students on one side (of the hallway), 10 on the other and then, going in opposite directions, would sort of have a hug line going on and you could see where that would be a problem," said Victoria Sharts, principal of Oak Park's Percy Julian Middle School.

So this year Sharts decided to draw the line on hug lines by banning all hugging among students within the building.

Sharts said, "Hugging is really more appropriate for airports or for family reunions than passing and seeing each other every few minutes in the halls."

When teachers started enforcing the new policy last month all hallways and classrooms in the 860-student school became hug-free zones.

Green interviewed on 50th anniversary of Little Rock integration

This year marks the 50-year anniversary of the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., one of the civil rights events students in my communication arts classes at South Middle School study each year.
Today's Washington Post features a profile and interview of Ernest Green, the first African American student to graduate from Central High School:

He spends his days negotiating multimillion-dollar deals as managing director of public finance for Wall Street stalwart Lehman Brothers with clients including the City of New York and the State of Connecticut. He has a big house in Northwest Washington, "a beautiful wife, three wonderful kids" and a lot of gratitude for the circumstances that catapulted him from segregated Little Rock into U.S. history as one of nine students to integrate Central High School 50 years ago today.

"It has been a tremendous boost for me," said Green, who turned 66 on Saturday. "It provided me with opportunities I never would have otherwise had. I had a tremendous window into the last half of 20th century."

Green returned to his home town this weekend for events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the desegregation of Central High. Five decades ago, Green and eight other students were escorted into the school by the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division under orders from President Dwight Eisenhower after Gov. Orval Faubus used the state's National Guard to block the integration effort.

New tardies policy creates problems for Jefferson City students

Students at Jefferson City High School are not happy with a new program designed to cut down on tardies:

After talking with area and state school officials, school administrators decided to go with a program known as “Start on Time.”

Offered by the group Safe and Civil Schools of Eugene, Ore. - which produces programs to help improve student behavior - “Start on Time” seeks to increase hallway safety and classroom climate, increase student and teacher interaction and decrease class interruptions.

High School Assistant Principal DeLinda Fitch, who worked on implementing the program for Jefferson City High School, said it looked like the program could reduce tardies by more than the 75 percent they initially predicted.

When the bell rings, the classroom doors are locked and teachers start teaching immediately.

Teachers who are in the hallway are known as the “Positive Sweep Team.” They gather the students left in the hallway after the bell rings, then take those students to a central location where administrators work with the students and give them either a warning or detention.

Then, a sweep team member escorts the student back to classroom to let the teacher know where he or she has been.

Luther said district officials believe that the high school tardy policy was put in place to maximize time in the classroom and to make the school a safer, more secure environment.

Students face prison terms for cheating

Nine New Hampshire students may go to prison for cheating on exams. The story was featured in this morning's Boston Globe:

School cheating scandal divides N.H. town
Criminal charges too harsh, some say

By Sarah Schweitzer, Globe Staff | September 19, 2007

HANOVER, N.H. - Academics is serious business in this well-to-do town, where life revolves around Dartmouth College. Ivy League credentials rank alongside Subaru wagons and restored farmhouses as status symbols, and high school students are expected to excel and land acceptances to prestigious universities.

So, as final exams loomed and pressure built last June at Hanover High School, some students hatched a scheme for acing the tests: One evening after school was out, a group of students entered the school building, authorities say. While some stood sentry in hallways, others entered a classroom and used stolen keys to break into a teacher's filing cabinet and steal exams for advanced math honors, advanced math, Algebra II, and calculus. Five days later, another group stole chemistry finals. In total, some 50 students are suspected of participating in the thefts, either helping to plan them or receiving answers from stolen exams.

Rather than issuing suspensions or grade demotions, school officials notified police. And after a seven-week investigation, the police prosecutor handling the case brought criminal charges against nine students. Last week, the prosecutor notified the nine students' parents that if they chose to take the cases to trial, he could raise misdemeanor charges to felonies, which carry possible prison terms of 3 1/2 to seven years.

Parents of the accused are furious and frantically trying to reduce charges to violations that carry no criminal penalties, penalties they say could harm their children's chances of attending college or securing employment. The scandal has divided the community, with some residents laying blame squarely on the nine accused students - dubbed "the Notorious Nine" - while others have questioned whether the intense competitiveness of 750-student Hanover High forced students into positions of having to cheat.

Some have also questioned the motives of police, suggesting they are using the incident to show that children of privilege - the parents of the accused include a physician, a business school professor, a hospital president, and a columnist at a local newspaper - are not above the law.

Christopher O'Connor, the prosecutor, said in a telephone interview that he is treating the students as he would anyone who had committed a crime of similar magnitude. Although 17-year-olds are treated as adults in criminal cases in New Hampshire, he said he had opted to charge them with Class B misdemeanors, which carry maximum penalties of $1,200 fines, rather than Class A, which carry possible prison terms.

"What I look at from my office . . . is whether someone should be held accountable for their actions and whether charges are consistent with the charges of other kids their ages," O'Connor said.

Nancy Gray, the Grafton County attorney who would handle the cases if O'Connor chooses to upgrade them to felonies, said the crimes the students allegedly committed are serious and deserve serious consequences.

"The parents need to be reasonable," she said. "This is technically a Class B felony offense. How can you reduce that to a violation-level offense - which is for something like spitting on the sidewalk? Although you don't want to hammer them, you want them to know this is serious."

But parents of the accused students say the charges are a draconian punishment for 17- and 18-year-olds.

"They are charged with watching their friends commit stupidity," said John Arbogast, whose son is charged with serving as a lookout.

"What's frightening as a parent is that a 17-year-old makes one little mistake and he's going to have a potential prison sentence," said Jim Kenyon, a columnist for The Valley News, whose son is also accused of acting as lookout and now attends private school.

Particularly troubling, parents interviewed said, is that the school turned the matter over to police; they said the incident should have been handled internally, where punishment would never have resulted in a criminal record.

"This always should have been a school matter," said Debbie Hadley, a nurse whose two sons have been charged.

School officials said that they are planning to conduct an investigation of the cheating allegations but that the alleged breaking and entering and theft portion belonged in the hands of police.

"We have never called the police for a cheating incident. But there is never a time when we would not call the police when someone breaks into our building," said Wayne Gersen, superintendent of School Administrative Unit #70, which oversees Hanover High School.

Gersen said that before the cheating scandal revelations, school officials had discovered two screens cut and teachers had reported keys missing for the science and math resource centers. The day before the alleged theft of the chemistry exam, a guidance counselor had witnessed three male students climb through a school window. The boys had told the counselor they were trying to retrieve notebooks to study.

"Hanover High students are very diligent and study very hard for exams. So it seemed a plausible explanation," Gersen said.

The school's investigation of the cheating has been delayed by the nine students' attorneys, who have advised their clients not to speak to the school until the criminal charges are settled. The school last week sent a letter to parents of the students promising that anything they say about the alleged cheating and theft would not be relayed to the police.

Gersen said that once the school concludes its investigation, students found to be involved will face school sanctions, which could include three-day suspensions for taking part in the theft and a zero grade on any exam where stolen information was used.

In addition, he said, school guidance counselors will make note of the cheating findings on the students' college applications.

Parents interviewed declined to allow their sons to speak publicly, citing the criminal cases.

In Hanover, efforts to stem cheating are underway. A committee of high school students, teachers, school board officials, and community members, with input from an ethicist, is discussing a reformulation of the cheating policy for Hanover High. A local church held a forum last Sunday to discuss the moral implications of the scandal, while the school principal last week called a meeting for the senior class to discuss the impact on the school.

Among Hanover High students, opinions about the scandal remain mixed.

"I think they should be given another chance because they made a mistake," said Tariku Foster, a sophomore who is friends with some of the accused students.

But others said the issue is clear cut.

"They're cheating. They're breaking into the school. They deserve what they got," said Hannah Stone, a freshman.

Only 20 percent of New York schools have newspapers

Is the school newspaper vanishing?

A survey of New York high schools indicates only about 20 percent have newspapers, though some are now starting to publish online news:

Of existing papers, critics are quick to point out that some are skimpy newsletters or quarterlies, too often little more than publicity pages for the school. "If you look at the papers you'll see that many have little to them. They don't write about anything going on in the school. They don’t seem to give people a way to be serious school citizens," says Leslie Seifert, an editor at Newsday who began a high school newspaper at Middle College High School in Queens in 1994. The Middle College High School News was entirely uncensored and covered controversial topics like drug addiction and violence at school.

Even at top-tier schools, papers like the one Seifert produced are often impossible. While these schools have been recognized for superior writing and production, censorship remains a problem. In 2005, the editors-in-chief of the Science Survey at Bronx Science wrote an anonymous article condemning the censorship of their paper by the school principal and distributed the article off school grounds. "Don't let the administration's obsession with conserving our school's 'impressive' reputation dampen your creative spirit," they wrote.

Schools reconsidering cell phone bans

An article in today's Washington Post indicates schools across the county are reconsidering previous bans on cellphones:

School boards everywhere are revisiting decade-old bans against portable communication devices in the classroom. Enacted with dire visions of drug dealers plying their trade, the rules have instead become an impediment to lacrosse moms trying to negotiate pickup times. Parents are also vexed by the notion that their children might not be allowed to call home during an emergency, the very scenario for which many such phones are purchased.

Chairman suggests changes be made in No Child Left Behind

Those of us who think the federal No Child Left Behind law leaves a lot to be desired were heartened Monday when Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., said changes need to be made in order for the law to continue:

But Miller said yesterday that schools should be able to include measures besides the reading and math tests in determining progress, such as graduation rates or the number of students passing Advanced Placement exams. "Many Americans do not believe that the success of our students or of our schools can be measured by one test administered on one day, and I agree with them," he said.

Jefferson City students to wear uniforms

Students at a Jefferson City High School
will wear uniforms for the first time when the 2007-2008 school year begins:

The uniform - developed by a committee of three students, three parents, three faculty members and the dean of students, Stan Ochsner - is extremely versatile.

Male students will stick with the traditional khaki dress pants. Female students can wear khaki slacks or plaid skorts. All students will wear either polo shirts or button-down collar dress shirts embroidered with the Crusaders logo.

The polo shirts come in navy, white or sunflower, both in long and short sleeves; the dress shirts in white or light blue only in long sleeves. They may also wear navy sweaters or sweater vests along with navy or gold crew neck sweatshirts, all embroidered with the Helias logo.

All shirts, sweaters, sweatshirts and skorts are purchased directly from Helias. Pants can be purchased by the students from an approved list which Helias keeps updated on its Web site. Students will also wear sturdy, leather dress shoes (closed heel and toe).

The concept of moving to a uniform came when Ochsner and other administrators had to re-define the dress code every year.

"With changing styles and students seeking loopholes, it was becoming more and more difficult to make the dress code professional," said Ochsner. "The decision was easy because we knew a fool-proof dress code was a battle we couldn't win."

Carthage student receives one-year suspension for shooting air soft gun

The parents of Carthage High School student Stefan Hukill, suspended for one year for shooting an airsoft gun at school are protesting the suspension:

In a letter to Hukill's mother, Superintendent Gary Reed said the student had violated school policy by possessing and firing an airsoft gun at another student on or adjacent to school property. He said district policy called for a 10-day suspension, with a recommendation for long-term suspension or expulsion. He said Kandy Frazier, then assistant principal, had suspended the student for 10 days, starting May 10, and would recommend an additional suspension.

"Based on the serious nature of Stefan's misconduct, the potential danger to himself and other students, and the possession and use of a weapon," Reed said he had affirmed the 10-day suspension and extended the suspension to one year. In addition, he said he had determined that Stefan "poses a continuing danger" and barred him from school pending the outcome of a disciplinary hearing.

In information prepared for the appeal hearing, Lasley said the decision meant that Hukill missed final examinations his junior year. He said the yearlong suspension was unreasonable and, if upheld, would mean that his client would be prevented from attending his senior year and graduating with his classmates.

Lasley said the incident was "a prank," and that Stefan shot a friend one time with a plastic, spring-operated airsoft gun that shoots round, plastic or rubber balls about the size of a pencil eraser. He said the incident happened on Main Street near the high school during the open lunch period. He said the friend was not hurt and lodged no complaint, and that no report on the incident was made by Sgt. Vann Bennett, school resource officer with the Carthage Police Department.

Lasley said the incident "is not on a par with a firearms violation,"
and that an airsoft gun is not listed among the weapons cited in school policies and regulations. He said the gun is see-through plastic, and the barrel is tipped in orange to distinguish it from a real weapon. He said the gun "obviously is not a firearm as described in school regulations and by the gun-free requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act."

School time down for everything except math, reading

One consequence of No Child Left Behind has been the decrease of time allotted to all subjects besides math and reading, according to an article in today's Washington Post:

The report by the District-based Center on Education Policy, which focuses on a representative sample of 349 school districts, found recess and physical education the only parts of the elementary school day holding relatively steady since enactment of the No Child Left Behind measure in 2002.

The survey provides grist for critics who say the federal testing mandate has led educators to a radical restructuring of the public school curriculum in a quest to teach to new state tests. But backers of the law, which is up for renewal this year, say that without mastery of reading and math, students will be hampered in other areas.

Final Joplin signing set for Devil's Messenger

What is expected to be the final Joplin signing for South Middle School eighth grade communication arts teacher Randy Turner's second novel, Devil's Messenger, will be held 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday, July 28, at Hastings Books, Music and Video in Joplin.

Mr. Turner's first novel, Small Town News, was published in 2005. He is working on a third book, this one non-fiction, this summer.

New study indicates misinformation has been given about Internet dangers

A new study indicates sharing personal information does not increase the chances of teen internet users becoming victims:

victimization is more likely to result from other online behavior, such as talking about sex with people met online and intentionally embarrassing someone else on the Internet.

"For a long time, we really didn't know," said Michele Ybarra, one of the study's authors. "It made sense if you post or send information you increase your risk. It's also a very easy message: Don't post personal information and you'll be safe."

But Ybarra, who is president of the nonprofit Internet Solutions for Kids, warned that parents and educators must now reassess the lessons, saying resources may be wasted on tips that do not address the underlying problem.

Instead of discouraging children from communicating, she said, the better approach is to teach them about what at-risk behaviors to avoid and warning signs to spot.

"We now need to be a lot more specific and accurate in our message," she said.

The research, published in February, was based on telephone surveys of 1,500 Internet users ages 10 to 17.

In a separate study of 2,574 law-enforcement agencies, researchers found that online sex crimes rarely involve offenders lying about their ages or sexual motives. The 2004 study, published in Journal of Adolescent Health, said offenders generally aren't strangers, and pedophiles aren't luring unsuspecting children by pretending to be a peer.

"Most of these sexual-victimization (cases) happen at the hands of people they know, and a lot happen at the hands of peers," said Janis Wolak, co-author of both studies and a researcher with the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center.

Study: 60 percent of young people don't follow the news

A Harvard study indicates 60 percent of young people do not follow the daily news:

Researchers interviewed 1,800 people between January and March and found that 28 percent of Americans between the ages of 12 and 17 said they pay almost no attention to news every day. Another 32 percent said they pay only casual attention to one news source a day.

"News is not something that gets a lot of time or attention or interest from teens," said Thomas Patterson, a professor of government and the press at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Among people aged 18 to 30, the poll found 48 percent said they are inattentive to daily news. Only 23 percent of older Americans said they largely ignore news.

In general, soft stories about celebrities interest young people more than hard news stories like congressional votes or developments in Iraq.

One reason teenagers may pay less attention to news than older Americans is only one in 20 young people rely heavily on a daily newspaper, according to the survey, which had a margin of error of 2 percent to 3 percent.

The poll was released amid tough times for many American newspapers, with falling readership and advertising revenue.

Even the Internet, the preferred way for teenagers and young adults to get news, is not stimulating interest in current affairs, Patterson said. Internet-based news, receives about the same attention from older adults as it does from younger ones, the survey found.

Unsuccessful cheerleader candidate sues school

A Victoria, Texas, teenager who failed to make the junior varsity high school cheerleading squad is suing the school:

Incoming freshman Wycoda Fischer was cut after tryouts were held for six positions on the squad. Seven girls tried out. The family contends that because an exception was made for the varsity cheer squad, nine girls were allowed on instead of the eight called for in the high school's cheerleader constitution, that an exception should also be made for allowing Wycoda on the squad. The high school principal and cheerleading sponsor approved the expanded JV squad, but superintendent Deborah Kneese ordered tryouts.

The Fischers, Billy and Wysenda, took their grievance to the school board on Monday, but the board upheld the superintendent's decision with a 5-1-1 vote.

According to testimony during the grievance hearing, the varsity was expanded to nine members because the sponsor made a mistake and told eight of the cheer candidates they had made the squad and there would be no tryouts, because it was believed the ninth candidate had withdrawn. She had not, and was allowed on the squad.

Kneese told the school board, "There was an error with regard to the varsity cheerleading tryouts. The decision was made to allow nine cheerleaders on the squad despite the provision in the constitution. The district was not going to penalize the student for its own error. No such mistake was made during the JV

tryouts. The mistake concerning the varsity squad has no bearing on the JV squad."

The threat to students' liberty

New York schools are coming under fire for violations of students' Constitutional rights as they increase security, according to a column by writer Nat Hentoff:

One of the many stories in the report concerns Wadleigh, a Manhattan public high school, where "every student, in order to enter the building [as at other schools], was required to walk through the metal detectors [and be searched]."

Over an eight-month period last year, police confiscated more than 17,000 items at numerous schools, but only a tiny number could be considered weapons, and none were firearms. The vast majority "were cell phones, iPods, food, school supplies." A young girl with a pacemaker at Wadleigh said that she needed her cell phone in case of a medical emergency, but the phone was seized nonetheless.

Survey: Bullying occurs more often offline

A Pew survey indicates that while one-third of teenagers indicate they have been bullied online, more than double that total say more bullying and harassment take place offline.

L. A. Times column takes issue with Supreme Court ruling

The backlash from Monday's U. S. Supreme Court ruling against the student who held the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" sign continues in a column in today's Los Angeles Times:

For the last decade, I've taught a history course with that title at New York University. My students and I examine the different purposes that Americans have assigned to public schools, including:

A. to teach the great humanistic traditions of the West;

B. to develop the individual interests of the child;

C. to promote social justice;

D. to prepare efficient workers.

Over the last four centuries, Americans have struggled to balance these goals — and many others — in their schools. To Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, however, there's only one right answer:

E. to instill discipline and obedience

That's what Thomas wrote this week in his strange concurring opinion in Morse vs. Frederick, better known as the "BONG HiTS 4 JESUS" case. A banner with those words was unfurled by senior Joseph Frederick outside his Alaska high school, and he was suspended.

Ruling 5 to 4 in favor of the principal who censored the banner, the court decided that the school's interest in discouraging drug use outweighed the student's free-speech rights. But Thomas went further, insisting that the student had no right to free speech in the first place and that the history of American education proves it.

He's wrong. Simply put, the accurate history in Thomas' opinion is not relevant. And the relevant history that he recounts is not accurate.

Let's start with what he got right. As he correctly asserts, America's first schools primarily promoted discipline. "Early public schools were not places for freewheeling debates or exploration of competing ideas," Thomas wrote. The mostly male teaching force in the early 1800s brooked little or no dissent, often whipping children who challenged adult authority.

True enough. But so what? Here's the part that Thomas leaves out. From the very birth of the common school system in the 1830s, the strict discipline that he celebrates came under fire from a host of different Americans. The most prominent champion of common schools, Horace Mann, warned teachers against excessive force and the suppression of students' natural inclinations.

That's one reason Mann and his generation backed the hiring of female teachers, who were seen as more kind, tolerant and nurturing. (The other reason was that schools could pay them less.) By 1900, roughly three-quarters of American teachers were women.

The early 20th century would bring another burst of change to American schools, centered on the question of democracy. To reformers like John Dewey, schools based on strict discipline — and its pedagogical companion, rote memorization — could never give citizens the skills they needed to govern themselves. Instead of fostering mindless obedience, then, schools needed to teach children how to make up their own minds — that is, how to reason, deliberate and rule on complex political questions.

To be sure, plenty of Americans still wanted teachers to bring the kids to heel. And it's fair to ask whether schools today promote the kind of inquiry that Dewey envisioned.

The point is not that Dewey was "right" or that everyone agreed with him. Rather, history teaches us that Americans have always disagreed on the proper goal for schools.

Post editorial: Supreme Court was wrong in bong hits decision

A decision handed down by the U. S. Supreme Court Monday limiting freedom of speech for students was wrong, according to an editorial in today's Washington Post:

Issues of drug use and drug policy are matters of serious contention. High school students must be able to debate them frankly -- and that might even involve students taking the position that bong hits are not that bad.

School apologizes for removing gay kiss from yearbook

Under the category of how times are changing, officials at a Newark, N. J. school have apologized to a high school student for removing a picture of him kissing another male student:

Andre Jackson, the student, said he was disappointed that the superintendent had not delivered the apology face-to-face and in public. Because of that, he said he didn't accept it as sincere.

"I would accept an apology -- a public apology," said Jackson, 18.

The school not only apologized, but said it would pay for providing copies of the yearbook with the photo to any student who asked for one.

Maryland students use candid Facebook photos to fill out yearbook

Some students at a high school in Bethesda, Md., thought their privacy had been invaded by the yearbook staff when it used photos from their Facebook sites to fill up the yearbook:

In addition to the usual images of blurry hallway traffic, lockers and teens slumped at desks, this year's Walter Johnson Windup included scenes of student life clearly not intended for the yearbook: impromptu snapshots at house parties and random weekend gatherings; portraits taken at arm's length on cellphones; and at least one image of students at what looks like a tailgate party, drinking from telltale red plastic cups.

One student, venting in the school newspaper, said seeing her Facebook pictures in the yearbook was "kind of stalker-y."