News Briefs

NEWS BRIEFS

UTAH
Oct 27, 2008 - The retrial of Arielle Beck, 29, is scheduled to begin April 20. Beck was sentenced to prison in 2003 for sexually abusing Kelly Sowell. The girl, who was 14, committed suicide two years later. In 2007, the Court of Appeals overturned the conviction and the Utah Supreme Court upheld that decision.
TT entry for Beck

OKLAHOMA
October 27, 2008 - A substitute teacher was arrested Friday at Edmond Memorial High School for public intoxication at the school. Charlene Banks. 48, reportedly smelled of alcoholic beverage, her speech was slurred and she was unsteady on her feet.
No entry. No followup.
Most likely they will take her off their substitute list. They did.

MISSISSIPPI
October 27, 2008 - Madison police are investigating allegations of sexual misconduct involving a student and a female employee at Madison Central High School. Police were made aware of the allegations last week. (The comment from a teacher at the story will make your eyebrows flutter. And the follow-on comment is equally mind boggling.) Also mentioned in the story are two other teacher/employee misconduct cases.
TT entry for Loni Marie Folks
TT entry for Rebecca Dawn Bogard

FLORIDA
Bubba Nall's name is on the docket to appear Tuesday where the judge will hear possible guilty pleas. Guy Bubba Nall was arrested September of 2007 on an incest charge and was indicted by a Coffee County grand jury in October 2007 on seven incest charges. Incest is a Class C felony. He's also known as Bubba Guy, the name on his Florida teacher's certification.
TT entry for Guy Bubba Nall (With some interesting comments.)

Evanston, ILLINOIS

The district thought Frazier had been "rehabilitated," she said.

In February, police found guns, drugs and stolen goods in a middle school janitor's basement.

October 22, 2008 - After $100,000 in stolen goods was found in a drug raid, Haven Middle School janitor Rengay Frazier, 37, was arrested. Along with two brothers who were arrested for stolen goods found in a house they shared. Police found ten guns during a drug raid on the house. Rengay faces drug charges from the raid. Burglary charges are pending.

That's when parents found out about his criminal record. He was convicted of battery in 1996, according to records. In 1988, Frazier was found guilty of felony criminal damage to property. He had also been charged with retail theft and burglary twice, but had never been convicted.

Despite that, he was hired by the school in 2004. Superintendent Hardy Murphy told the board the district was aware of Frazier's record when they hired him, said board member Bonnie Lockhart. At the time of his hiring, the district thought Frazier had been "rehabilitated," she said.

Parents aren't happy. Rengay Frazier was arrested in February. All attempts to get the board to change any polices, have not been successful. Despite,

In January 2005, a Kingsley Elementary School janitor was arrested after a 7-year-old student found his loaded gun in a grocery bag on the floor of a school bathroom.

Three months earlier, in October 2004, a Lincolnwood custodian was charged with selling cocaine on school property.

And in September 2004, the president of the district's teachers union was arrested when he arranged to meet for a sexual encounter with an undercover police officer whom he thought was a teenage student.

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TT - The school board isn't without other controversies.

Evanston is on CNN's Best Places to Live list.
(Look at the personal and property crime index.)

SCHOOLS
Total per pupil expenditures in this school district is $12,498, compared to a state averge of $8,340.
Source: GreatSchools.net

Normandy, MISSOURI

NEWS ITEM

HIV October 23, 2008 - As many as 50 students at Normandy High School, a suburban St. Louis high school, are being offerred HIV tests after one indvidual tested positive for HIV. The Health Department has not released the name of the indvidual or how the 50 students could have been exposed to the virus

The possibilities, a Health Department spokesman said, include sexual activity, intravenous drug use, piercings and tattoos.

Students are being tested at the high school gymnasium. They may decline the tests.

So far, the district has met twice with parents, and begun to ask ministers in the community to stress the importance of responsible behavior.

Students in grades four through 12 already take classes that discuss the consequences of risky behaviors - including HIV, Lawrence said.

See Up to 50 students may be infected at Normandy H.S. n testing underway
QUOTE The burning question n whether that first HIV-positive person was still at the school - is the one health officials are forbidden to answer by state and federal law. UNQUOTE

The St. Louis American article above also notes that the tests are voluntary. There is no evidence of malicious exposure.

Taxpayer Revolts

Local and state government spending soared in the last five years with the higher property taxes in the swelling real estate market. Now it's time for reality and a little taxpayer revolt.

MASSACHUSETTS
August 31, 2008 - Taxpayers in Newton, Massachusetts, turned down a $12 million property-tax increase in May. As a result, (and, no doubt, to punish parents) the school will no longer use substitutes when teachers call in sick.

When teachers call in sick at the two high schools, students in the affected classroom will go to the cafeteria and study on their own.

Last year, the high schools had four to six substitutes available on any given day to fill in for absent teachers. By dropping daily subs at the schools, the district cut $185, 337 from the budget.
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DISTRICT INFO:
The Newton School District rates a 9, with 10 being highest, at GreatSchools.net
While the state spends $12,808, Newton spends $15,517 per pupil.
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CONNECTICUT
August 23, 2008 - Taxpayers in Connecticut are showing, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal, "growing disenchantment with the price of government, especially of public education."

In Enfield, Connecticut, a citizen cost-cutting committee recommended replacing some public school teachers with low-cost college interns, restricting the use of school vehicles, and increasing employee contributions to benefit plans.

Over the past two and a half decades, the student population in Connecticut has increased only 10%. Yet the cost of schooling more than doubled -- to $8.8 billion in 2006, up from $3.4 billion in 1981.

Seventeen years ago, the state enacted an income tax with promises to cut other taxes. Instead, real-estate assessments soared, creating a massive income transfer from the private to the public sector, fueled in part by a state cost-sharing formula that uses taxes on residents in the suburbs to subsidize urban schools.

Helping to soak up all that money were binding arbitration laws, skewed to give teacher unions an advantage in collective bargaining negotiations.

The result is that the average teacher salary is now the highest in the nation -- $57,750 excluding benefits, according to the latest survey of the American Federation of Teachers.

Meanwhile, the American Legislative Exchange Council reports that Connecticut is one of the 10 states with the heaviest property-tax burdens.

As of the end of June, a record 85 of Connecticut's 169 municipalities had or were planning budget referenda to limit spending.
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TT - It bears repeating: Over the past two and a half decades, the student population in Connecticut has increased only 10%. Yet the cost of schooling more than doubled -- to $8.8 billion in 2006, up from $3.4 billion in 1981.

Winchester, MASSACHUSETTS

NEWS BRIEF

July 3, 2008 - A 27-year-old special education teacher's aide at a middle school attempted to lure a 13-year-old girl into the woods and into his hot tub for "naughty things." He told her that she must earn his trust and not tell anyone about what happened or he would kill her.

He's the son of the school's principal. Entry for Christopher French

We noticed

NEWS BRIEFS

Divorce granted
A judge has granted a divorce to Eric McLean, the husband of teacher Erin McLean. Eric shot and killed the student who was sexually involved with his wife. As for the children, Erin McClean fled with them late last year and is reported to be moving from state to state with the children and a young man she met over the Internet. The court appointed an attorney for the children and they will be searching for the children.

From our entry: After her husband killed the 18-year-old boy, she moved to Nashville, obtained a job using her maiden name and was fired when she had improper contact with another student.

Insane?
The attorney for James Love filed a motion in federal court asking for a psychiatric examination of his client to determine if Love is competent to stand trial. The Illinois substitute teacher and Baptist Minister is accused of drugging, then molesting four boys and facing charges of production of child pornography for photographing the two boys. His work with youth was cited when he received Bloomington's 2006 Doctor Martin Luther King Junior Award. News story TT entry

Headlines you won't see in the U.S.
When a teacher in the U.K. was arrested for having sex with a pupil and owning videos of children being raped, the headline was Pervert teacher jailed. Graham Smith, who retired from Onslow St Audrey's School in Hatfield last year, attacked the girl in an equipment cupboard, his car and while on a school trip. The victim, now in her 30s, kept the abuse secret for nearly 17 years. When she finally told police, detectives discovered Smith was also under investigation for downloading more than 10,000 images and videos of child pornography.

Libel laws in the U.K. are draconian. U.S. papers do not work under any such restrictions. Their problem is that they don't care enough to make a judgement. Even after the defendant has been found guilty, many newspapers continue to refer the victim as the "alleged victim." A guilty verdict or a guilty plea would, you would think, pretty much eliminate any doubt in everyone except a lawyer who is looking forward to appealing the verdict.

Downsize at your own risk
A teacher has sued the Plano school district for allegedly laying her off without a chance to appeal the decision, court records show. She alleges that the school district "squashed" her attempts to get a due process hearing after they cut her job as director for information management systems in a downsizing effort in February 2007. They derailed her appeal to keep her accusation of "blatant cronyism" in promotion decisions from public disclosure. Oh and her constitutional rights were violated.

Teacher-created Facebook and MySpace Profiles
In Missouri, a committee at the Missouri House of Representatives has [as part of a broader bill to bar anyone who had committed second- or third-degree sexual misconduct from being hired as a teacher] proposed a bill that would ban teachers from communicating with students via web pages that are private, including Facebook and MySpace. Essentially, any Web site that parents could also see would be OK for students and teachers to use. Anything inaccessible to third parties would be a no-no. [The intent is to allow parents to monitor pages maintained by teachers. Look who is opposed.]

News Briefs

NEWS BRIEFS

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – A state Board of Education official says West Virginia faces teacher shortages in math, science and world languages. The board voted to establish a group to review the problem and suggest ways to lure qualified new teachers. For the 2006-2007 school year, about 10 percent of openings were not filled by teachers licensed in the specific areas.

HOPEVILLE, OH - When a substitute teacher was arrested for striking a picketing teacher with his car, the school made a startling discovery. They had never hired the man. How he came to be teaching for three days in the seventh-grade social studies is anyone's guess. The district, however, is implementing new security. The strike by Harrison Hills teachers continues.

TRANSFER, PA - A teachers strike continues in the Reynolds School District. The district was hit by a teachers' strike as about 100 members of the Reynolds Education Association walked off the job Tuesday morning after contract negotiations failed to reach a new agreement. Pennsylvania puts strict limits on how long teachers can remain on strike. School districts are required to provide instruction for 180 days during the school year, and teachers can actually call two strikes during that time period.

Other teacher strikes we have covered.
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