Tag: public schools

Boys aged just 11 to be sent on ‘anti-misogyny training courses’

Schoolboys aged just 11 will be sent on “anti-misogyny training courses” as part of a new Labour scheme to “protect women and girls”.

Secondary school pupils in England displaying “worrying behaviour” could be enrolled in the programmes in a pilot scheme which may even be expanded to include primary schools down the line.

The courses would be led by teachers or external contractors alongside normal lessons.

Girls would also be eligible if they display “harmful” behaviour – but Labour’s focus is on boys.

Ministers are to unveil the initiative on Thursday as part of a broader strategy aimed at cutting violence against women and girls by half within ten years.

All secondary schools will be required to deliver lessons on healthy relationships.

Teachers will receive specialist training to discuss topics including consent with their students.

A new helpline will offer support to teenagers worried about their own behaviour in relationships.

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10 Major Laws Taking Effect In California In 2026

The new year is right around the corner, which means a new batch of laws will soon take effect.

From banning masks for law enforcement officers and requiring gender-neutral restrooms in schools, to enhancing artificial intelligence regulations and completely banning plastic bags in stores, here is an overview of some major laws Californians can expect next year or late this year.

Law Enforcement Masks

Senate Bill 627 will ban law enforcement officers at the local and federal levels from wearing a face mask when operating in the Golden State.

It also requires agencies to create policies limiting the use of facial coverings. According to the bill, face coverings excluded from this ban include clear face shields that don’t obscure the person’s facial identity, medical masks, motorcycle helmets, or masks necessary for underwater use.

The federal government had sued the state over this new rule, saying it threatens the safety of officers who could be harassed if their identities are known. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a Nov. 17 statement that “California’s anti-law enforcement policies discriminate against the federal government and are designed to create risk for our agents.”

The mask ban is slated to take effect on July 1, 2026.

School Policies

Senate Bill 760 will require schools to provide at least one all-gender restroom available during school hours and school functions.

The bill allows schools to convert their existing restrooms to comply. The state will reimburse local agencies and school districts for the costs.

The new bathroom policy applies to both public and charter schools and will take effect on July 1, 2026.

Assembly Bill 495 will broaden who can approve school-related medical procedures.

Distant relatives and temporary legal guardians designated by a parent in a family court will be allowed to sign a child out of school and authorize medical care.

Supporters have said the move protects families that have been divided by deportation due to illegal immigration. But opponents said it could lead to kidnapping and child trafficking if someone other than the parents has authority over a student.

Taking effect Jan. 1, 2026, the law will also prohibit daycare providers from asking for or keeping immigration-related information about students or their parents.

AI Regulations

Senate Bill 243 will make California the first state to require safety regulations specifically targeting companion chatbots.

Chatbots are described by the Federal Trade Commission as artificial intelligence (AI) technology that can “effectively mimic human characteristics, emotions, and intentions, and generally are designed to communicate like a friend or confidant, which may prompt some users, especially children and teens, to trust and form relationships with chatbots.”

The new law requires a technology operator to make it clear and obvious to users that the chatbot is not a real human.

It also requires the operator to maintain a protocol for preventing the chatbot from producing content involving suicide or self-harm for the user. Details of the protocol need to be published on the operator’s website to comply with the new law.

The new chatbot regulations will take effect on Jan. 1, 2026, and chatbot operators will be required to submit annual reports on suicide-prevention protocols beginning on July 1, 2027.

Senate Bill 53 creates new regulations for frontier AI models, which include OpenAI’s GPT-4 and -5, Google’s Gemini, and xAI’s Grok.

Frontier AI models are defined as “a foundation model that was trained using a quantity of computing power greater than 10^26 integer or floating-point operations,” according to the bill.

Under the new law, large developers will have to publish their “frontier AI framework” explaining risk management practices, mitigation strategies, and evaluations by a third party. They will also be required to release transparency reports detailing risk assessments prior to introducing updated AI models. Non-compliance would result in up to $1 million in fines.

The new regulations will take effect on Jan. 1, 2026.

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Minnesota High School Threatens to Suspend Students Who Talk Positively About ICE

A Minnesota high school has threatneed to suspend students who talk positively about Immigration and Customers Enforcement (ICE) agents.

Paul Paetzel, the principal at Edina High School in Minnesota, has warned that making reference to the work of ICE agents and President Trump’s policy of mass deportations goes against the “culture” that his school is trying to foster.

He wrote in a letter parents:

I want to speak directly and proactively about the culture we are committed to creating at Edina High School.

As we continue to grow as a community, it is essential that we are clear about the expectations we hold for language and behavior that honor the dignity of every student.

Making light of immigration threats or referencing ICE in ways that cause fear or humiliation is a serious offense and not representative of our core values.

Behavior of this nature fundamentally violates our commitment to providing a safe and equitable learning environment free from harassment.

Such language and behaviors directly contradict Edina Public Schools’ vision and mission, and what we expect of our students.

If this type of behavior occurs, we will honor the discipline policy and move forward with consequences up to and including suspension.

Our responsibility is to protect every student’s right to feel safe, respected, and valued at school.

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School Board In Maine Upholds Trans Team Ban As Well As Bathroom Ban

According to Campus Reform, “In a bold move aligning with federal directives, the Regional School Unit 24 school board in Sullivan, Maine, voted to reaffirm a policy that limits bathroom access and athletic participation to students’ biological sex.”

This demonstrates that utilizing the power of the federal government to ensure normalcy and basic rights is effective.

“The decision, originally made in October, echoes President Trump’s executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” and places RSU 24 among a growing number of districts nationwide reinforcing sex-based distinctions in public education.”

WABI is reporting that around 100 community members filled a meeting on Tuesday night with people both for and against this common-sense policy.

“Despite ongoing legal threats from the Maine Human Rights Commission, the board stood firm and secured legal representation to defend its stance.”

“Superintendent Michael Eastman acknowledged the intensity of the debate but said the board remains committed to careful consideration and communication as it moves forward.”

This is a critical move in the fight for normality and common sense in America.

“At RSU 73, a similar legal fight is playing out over transgender students’ ability to access spaces and activities restricted to members of the opposite biological sex. The school board there is paying defense attorneys upwards of $275 an hour, according to documents reviewed by WGME.”

Sadly, this is an issue that has to be debated, as until recently, it was common sense that there are two genders and they should have separate spaces.

The federal government should continue to ensure basic rights for Men and Women are not violated by the  Trans community.

This is a civil rights issue of our time, and it’s something the Trump administration is right to enforce.

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Segregation, quotas and gender ideology: Minnesota’s schools are going backward

We expect it in California and New York, but Minnesota has become one of the most aggressive states in reshaping education. Defending Education has documented the statewide leftward shift, and it is a civil-rights crisis.

In October, Defending Ed filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education over Minneapolis Public Schools’ racially segregated classes, which appeared to be available only to black students, in violation of Title VI and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

We settled this question in 1954. In Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court made it clear that segregating students by race in public schools is unconstitutional.

In that same Minnesota district, students in a required Ethnic Studies class conduct a “structural analysis of racism and colonialism,” viewing everything through a race-based, anti-capitalist and Marxist lens.

The course cites Critical Race Theory, promotes the ideas of Karl Marx and peddles the notion that capitalism and Western culture are to blame for slavery, genocide, colonialism and white supremacy. Teachers then ask students to “challenge the ‘white savior’ narrative” and complete a Youth Led Participatory Action Research project that pushes them into activism.

In 2023, lawmakers required that by 2026 every high school add an ethnic studies course that can count toward graduation along with history, geography, economics and civics.

Ethnic studies is touted as a curriculum to promote tolerance and cultural understanding, but we’ve documented how it is a trojan horse for activism in the classroom, framing society as divided between oppressors and the oppressed.

Minnesota is also fighting the Trump administration’s “Gender Ideology” and “Sports Ban” orders as unlawful rewrites of Title IX. At the same time, under the banner of a group called Gender Justice, school board candidates published a joint initiative supporting “the full inclusion of transgender and nonbinary students in school athletics,” which they claim Title IX protects.

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HS Senior Escorted from School for Following Doctors’ Orders and Skipping Vaccine Booster

A high school senior in a western New York school has been banned because she did not get a vaccine booster that causes her to have serious side effects.

Depew High School senior Kayci Rae was escorted out of school on Oct. 16 because she did not get a meningitis booster shot, according to WKBW-TV.

“I just sit and scroll, there’s really not much else I could do,” she said. “It’s more emotional with it being my senior year. I feel like I’m shunned from Depew.

“They wouldn’t let me say goodbye to teachers, they wouldn’t let me go into the classroom,” Rae said. “I was in tears. It was hard, it was truly devastating, honestly.”

She is now in limbo, because the email she used to connect with the school was recently disabled.

“She had leg pain,” Andrea Billi, Rae’s mother, said. “You know, when you’re younger, having growing pains? That’s what we thought, then it progressed. Her legs will turn purple and go numb.”

Kayci’s aunt Shannon told WBEN-AM that at first, “We kind of almost ignored it, because we were like, ‘Is [she] just trying to get attention for it?’ But then she started showing us her legs when she would get these flares, her legs started to mottle. I don’t know if anybody knows what that is, it’s almost like a marbling of your skin, and essentially it’s a vasospasm of your legs. So her legs would blanch, turn colors, and she would get this pain.”

“It’s disabling for her,” Shannon said, indicating the problems have not gone away.

“She’s had her friends give her piggyback rides because her legs would literally hurt her. There was a time where she collapsed at her softball game, which the school nurse was her softball coach and her softball coach witnessed all of this,” she said.

“And she was in softball two, three years ago, and she would actually have to sit out mid-game because her pain would start to flare from the high intensity activity. And her teammates would be there rolling their bats on her legs,” Shannon said, adding that the school was told of this.

Billi said her daughter has had multiple tests that have come up empty.

“The only factor that we came to a conclusion on was this all started after she got the vaccine,” she said.

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Left-Wing Vermont School District Raises Somali Flag Next to American Flag

A woke Vermont school district hoisted a Somali flag on Friday, as Democrats around the country defend Somali migrants amid President Trump’s immigration crackdown and a growing fraud scandal in Minnesota’s Somali community. 

“We are raising the Somali flag this week in honor of our Somali youth and families in Winooski and Vermont,” the Winooski School District posted to Facebook. “On Monday, we will be gathering to celebrate together and to learn more about our civil rights.”

The Winooski School District told OutKick the Somali flag was raised on one of its three flagpoles. The American flag is on the highest mast, in accordance with the United States Flag Code, and the Vermont state flag is on the second mast, the district said. The Somali flag was raised on the third mast, which the district said is “for affinity groups.”

The school district’s website was unavailable as of 2:00 p.m. on Monday. The district instead put up a temporary page saying its website is “currently removed from public view” as the district works to “address and mitigate an unprecedented volume of illegitimate traffic targeting our services.”

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Health Department Investigating School That Vaccinated Child Without Parental Consent

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said on Dec. 3 that it has launched an investigation into a school that officials said illegally vaccinated a child without parental consent.

HHS did not name the school. The department said it is in the Midwest and acted illegally in part because it ignored a religious exemption for the vaccination that had been filed pursuant to state law.

The HHS Office for Civil Rights will be looking into the matter to ascertain whether the school failed to comply with a requirement under the federal Vaccines for Children Program. The program, which provides vaccines to various institutions, mandates that immunization providers comply with state law surrounding exemptions from mandated vaccines.

“To protect the integrity of the investigation, HHS cannot share additional details at this time,” an HHS spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.

Officials also released a letter on Dec. 3 to doctors and others, informing them that they must generally provide parents access to the medical records of children, with limited exceptions. The letter warned that HHS was making access to minor records a priority and that the agency will use tools it has at its disposal, including fines, to ensure compliance.

“Today, we are putting pediatric medical professionals on notice: you cannot sideline parents,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement. “When providers ignore parental consent, violate exemptions to vaccine mandates, or keep parents in the dark about their children’s care, we will act decisively. We will use every tool at our disposal to protect families and restore accountability.”

Jim O’Neill, deputy HHS secretary and acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the Vaccines for Children Program “should never circumvent parents’ rights.”

The program, which began operations in 1994, sends vaccines to providers to administer to children at no cost. The program “reduces disparities in child vaccination rates, ensuring that any child can access recommended vaccines regardless of income or geography,” the CDC states on its website.

Schools across the country mandate multiple vaccines for school attendance, based on the CDC’s immunization schedule.

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Chicago Public Schools Blew $23.6 Million on Luxury Trips. The Full Story Is Far Worse.

Public school districts exist for one purpose: educating children. They are entrusted with public dollars, charged with preparing the next generation for citizenship and the workforce, and expected to manage resources responsibly. 

But in many major districts, that mission has collapsed under political control, financial irresponsibility, and a refusal to prioritize students. Few places illustrate this breakdown more clearly than Chicago Public Schools.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, a recent report from the CPS Office of Inspector General detailed $23.6 million in improper or wasteful travel spending—dollars that should have gone directly toward recovering from historic learning losses. 

Instead, district employees used public funds for high-end hotel suites, airport limousines, first-class airfare, and “professional development” conferences that resembled vacations more than training. One staff member extended a four-day seminar into a weeklong stay at a Hawaiian resort costing nearly $5,000. 

Another principal booked a luxury suite on the Las Vegas Strip and quietly extended the trip to celebrate an anniversary. In one school alone, 24 employees billed taxpayers $50,000 to attend a single Las Vegas conference.

The abuses extended overseas. CPS employees charged more than $142,000 for travel to South Africa, Egypt, Finland, and Estonia—complete with hot-air balloon rides and game-park safaris. These trips took place while Chicago families were told that there wasn’t enough money to fully address learning gaps or chronic absenteeism.

Most troubling, the waste accelerated when federal pandemic relief funds flooded district budgets. 

Of the $23.6 million identified, $14.5 million was spent in just 2023 and 2024. 

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House Democrats Vote Overwhelmingly Against Crackdown on Foreign Influence in American Schools

Two separate bills were voted on in the House of Representatives on Thursday which were aimed at cracking down on foreign influence in American schools. They both passed, but more than 160 Democrats voted against them.

Why would Democrats vote against these bills? What are they trying to protect? Do they want more foreign influence in our schools?

It’s just amazing that whenever something comes up that is aimed at putting Americans first, Democrats always seem to be against it.

FOX News reports:

More than 160 House Dems vote against crackdown on foreign influence in US schools

More than 160 House Democrats voted against a pair of bills Thursday aimed at keeping foreign influence out of U.S. schools.

Both pieces of legislation passed with bipartisan support, though Democrats’ top ranks opposed each one.

“We just want to educate our children, focus on reading, writing and arithmetic, developing a holistic child, giving the ability to them to think critically,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told Fox News Digital when asked about the pushback.

“We’re not going to be lectured by a group of Republicans who are dismantling the Department of Education in real-time. Literally 90% of the Department of Education as it existed last year is now gone.”…

One of the two bills was led by House GOP Policy Committee Chairman Kevin Hern, R-Okla., and would block federal funds from elementary and secondary schools that have programs, cultural exchanges or other class-related activities that get dollars from the Chinese government…

The second piece of legislation, led by Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., would require every public elementary and secondary school to notify parents that they have a right to request information about any “foreign influence” in their child’s school.

The House GOP put out this video highlighting the bills and raising awareness about the influence of China’s Communist Party in American schools.

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