Tag: public schools

Police report reveals Rocky River intermediate school principal’s text conversations about sex, drugs, and alcohol with kids as young as 17

Shocking details have been revealed as part of the investigation into the Rocky River School District principal who was placed on administrative leave in June after a complaint was filed by the parent of a former high school student. 

Dr. Heath Horton continues to be on leave from his post as Kensington Intermediate School principal and is barred from school district properties during the investigation. 

Earlier this week, the Rocky River Police Department released a redacted 66-page report detailing a long series of text messages between the 42-year-old Horton and 17 former students with ages ranging from 17 to 23. In those messages, Horton said “we can never share our relationship through education.” He said he had to be viewed “as their uncle or family friend.”

From June 27, 2022 to May 11, 2023, Horton sends several text messages to a male asking for sexual videos. One interaction outlined in the report has Horton saying, “Don’t tease me with a three-second video. I want a longer video.” He adds, “Get me a good nut on face or ass vid/pic.”

The report also mentions a “Boom Room,” described as an extra bedroom at Horton’s house. Horton allegedly brought former students to his house, including minors, to drink alcohol and smoke cigars. In several text messages, Horton is seen propositioning people to “visit the Boom.”

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Chicago Teachers Union Boss Sends Son to Private School

The head of the Chicago Teachers Union who has described school choice as “the choice of racists” sends her son to a private school. 

Stacy Davis Gates, who was elected as president of the Chicago Teachers Union in 2022, has long derided school choice—a wide range of policies that make it easier for parents to send their children to schools other than their local public school, often by getting back some of the government funding that would have followed their child to public school—as inherently racist.

“*School choice* was actually the choice of racists,” Gates tweeted in August 2022. “It was created to avoid integrating schools with Black children. Now it’s the civil rights struggle of our generation?”

In a letter she wrote earlier this month, Gates explained her decision to enroll her son in a private school while her other two children remained in Chicago Public Schools (CPS).

Chicago classrooms are “struggling to recover from waves of school closings and disinvestment under previous mayors. Public and charter high schools in our Black and Brown neighborhoods are living and breathing examples of inequality,” she wrote. “For my husband and me, it forced us to send our son, after years of attending a public school, to a private high school so he could live out his dream of being a soccer player while also having a curriculum that can meet his social and emotional needs.”

This excuse misses key context. While Gates is right that school systems across the nation, including in Chicago, are still reeling from pandemic-era setbacks, she herself led the charge to keep Chicago Public Schools closed sporadically as late as early 2022. When CPS announced a two-week shutdown in January 2022, Gates told The New York Times that the closure was necessary for schools to “get themselves together.”

Gates also frames CPS as underfunded, describing “decades of systemic underinvestment in marginalized communities.” However, over the past five academic years, CPS’ operating budget has actually skyrocketed—increasing from $5.92 billion to $8.49 billion, despite enrollment dropping by nearly 40,000 students over the same period. 

Further, in consistently framing school choice advocates as racist, Gates also ignores the fact that minority parents are often the strongest supporters of school choice. According to a RealClear Opinion Research poll from earlier this summer, 73 percent of black respondents supported school choice, the highest of any demographic group. At least 70 percent of other demographic groups also support school choice policies.

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Texas school suspends Black student more than two weeks for purportedly lengthy dreadlocks

Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, Texas punished a Black student named Darryl George with more than two weeks of in-school suspension — for having dreadlocks.

“School officials said his dreadlocks fell below his eyebrows and ear lobes and violated the district’s dress code,” reported Cheyanne Mumphrey and Juan Lozano for the Associated Press. “George, 17, has been suspended since Aug. 31 at the Houston-area school. He was in tears when he was suspended Monday despite his family’s arguments that his hair does not violate the dress code, his mother Darresha George said.”

“He has to sit on a stool for eight hours in a cubicle,” the mother told the AP. “That’s very uncomfortable. Every day he’d come home, he’d say his back hurts because he has to sit on a stool.” She added that her son has grown dreadlocks for over 10 years and the family has never been harassed or received complaints about it until now.

This incident comes just as Texas enacted its own state version of the CROWN Act, a law that prohibits discrimination based on various racially-associated hairstyles like dreadlocks, braids, or Afros. The Georges pointed out the new law to school officials, but the principal and vice principal reportedly said that the law does not protect the length of hair.

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‘Empty shelves with absolutely no books’: Students, parents question school board’s library weeding process

Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.

Those are all examples of books Reina Takata says she can no longer find in her public high school library in Mississauga, Ont., which she visits on her lunch hour most days.

In May, Takata says the shelves at Erindale Secondary School were full of books, but she noticed that they had gradually started to disappear. When she returned to school this fall, things were more stark.

“This year, I came into my school library and there are rows and rows of empty shelves with absolutely no books,” said Takata, who started Grade 10 last week. 

She estimates more than 50 per cent of her school’s library books are gone. 

In the spring, Takata says students were told by staff that “if the shelves look emptier right now it’s because we have to remove all books [published] prior to 2008.” 

Takata is one of several Peel District School Board (PDSB) students, parents and community members CBC Toronto spoke to who are concerned about a seemingly inconsistent approach to a new equity-based book weeding process implemented by the board last spring in response to a provincial directive from the Minister of Education. 

They say the new process, intended to ensure library books are inclusive, appears to have led some schools to remove thousands of books solely because they were published in 2008 or earlier.

Parents and students are looking for answers as to why this happened, and what the board plans to do moving forward.

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Triggered: Woke Alabama School Suspends 6-Year-Old Over ‘Finger Guns’ During Cops And Robbers Game

A six-year-old Alabama boy was suspended from school and had his “permanent record” threatened for making ‘finger guns’ during a game of cops and robbers.

“They labeled my six-year-old as a potentially violent and dangerous student because he was being a little boy and playing cops and robbers with another student (who was also suspended) and using his fingers like a gun,” said the boy’s father, Jarrod Belcher, in a statement released on Friday, Sept. 8.

According to the Epoch Times, a Jefferson County Board of Education “Due Process Referral for Class III Infractions” form released by Gun Owners of America (GOA) reads that Belcher’s son was “using gun fingers to shoot at another student.”

The boy was subsequently suspended from school pending a hearing with his parents.

According to the letter, on Sept. 1, 2023, two boys were playing “cops and robbers” during recess at Bagley Elementary School.

“During the course of their play, the children reportedly extended their index fingers and thumbs and said ‘bang-bang’ at each other,” the letter reads.

The child, identified as J.B., was suspended and accused of committing a Class III infraction. This is the district’s most serious infraction. According to the Jefferson County School District’s Student Parent Handbook, Class III infractions include possession of guns or explosives, sexual battery, battery of a school district employee, and robbery, among others.

The boy would only be allowed back in school after a hearing with his parents and the district. -Epoch Times

Following a complaint from the Belchers, the disciplinary action was downgraded to a less severe Class II infraction, however Belcher is still calling BS.

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These Schools Across the US Have Brought Back Mask Mandates

Amid a small increase in COVID-19 hospital admissions in recent days, a handful of schools and colleges across the United States have re-imposed mask mandates—or at least started recommending them.

In the most recent example, a school in Montgomery County, Maryland, announced it would mandate masking for at least 10 days after three students tested positive for the virus in one classroom. The masking rule applies to students, teachers, and other staff in the classroom, it said.

A letter posted by the  Rosemary Hills School online said that KN95 masks have been distributed to students and teachers in the classroom. At-home rapid testing kits were also sent home.

“Additional KN95 masks have been distributed and students and staff in identified classes or activities will be required to mask while in school for the next 10 days, except while eating or drinking,” Principal Rebecca Irwin Kennedy said in a letter, dated Sept. 5.

The re-imposition of mandates is being done “to keep our school environment as safe as possible for in-person teaching and learning, and to prevent further transmission of COVID-19 in this group,” she continued.

The Montgomery County school district policy says that masks are optional, with some exceptions, according to a message viewed by local station WTOP-TV. The district said that in certain instances, “masks may be recommended or required.”

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North Texas Educator Charged with Sex Crimes Against Multiple Students

A North Texas educator has been accused of sex crimes involving multiple students.

The Arlington Police Department arrested Anthony Rashad Hawkins, 25, on Tuesday in Grand Prairie.

Police say Hawkins is a former employee of Sam Houston High School in Arlington Independent School District.

Hawkins was charged with three counts of improper relationship between educator and student—forcible rape and two counts of indecency with a child by sexual contact. All are second-degree felonies punishable by two to 20 years in prison.

According to Arlington police, detectives with APD’s Crimes Against Children Unit initiated an investigation on August 23, after school administrators were made aware of the allegations and immediately reported them to authorities.

Through the course of their investigation, detectives identified three victims.

Hawkins was booked into the Arlington City Jail on September 5 and released on a $100,000 bond ($20,000 for each offense).

State records show that Hawkins does not hold a Texas teaching certificate.

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Burn After Reading: Colorado Teachers Told To Destroy Results of an Illegal Gender Survey

Not that many years ago, I ran across this little piece of fortune cookie/Bazooka Joe wisdom: “If you have to sneak to do it, lie to cover it up, or delete it to avoid being seen, then you probably shouldn’t be doing it.” And that is good advice. That is unless you are in a pitched battle against the heteronormative, white patriarchy. In that case, sneaking, lying, and deleting are not just permissible but admirable tactics. This is war, you know. Desperate times call for desperate measures. These are, after all, the times that try ze/zim/zir souls. In Jefferson County, Colorado, a number of parents are alleging that teachers broke state and federal laws and that the local teachers’ union, the Jefferson County Education Association (JCEA), is aiding and abetting the teachers in that effort.

Having students fill out surveys about their gender and preferred pronouns violates federal and Colorado state laws as those things constitute “protected information.” But CBS Colorado reports that the school district maintains that it is unclear as to the legality of such surveys. However, there are several lawsuits over the matter, and administrators instructed the teachers not to address the issue or conduct any surveys.

Parent Denice Crawford was happy with an email she received from the district reminding parents that mandatory surveys inquiring about students’ protected information are illegal. The email said that voluntary surveys are also prohibited unless parents can opt out of them. Crawford, who has three children in district schools, was surprised, to say the very least, when her son came home with a survey asking about his gender identity. She told the TV station she was “deceived, lied to, taken advantage of.” Other parents, who are members of Jeffco Kids First, said that dozens of teachers conducted such surveys and that the JCEA instructed teachers via email on how to keep the surveys secret. The email read in part, “…if you do a questionnaire, please make it a paper and pencil activity – any digital records are more permanent and may be requested under federal law.” Teachers were also advised to make notations about students but not hold on to documents. School board member Susan Miller said that the JCEA gave teachers a way to work around the law. That could put the teachers’ jobs and licenses at risk. For her part, Crawford feels like the trust between her and the teachers has been broken. With a transgender nephew and a gay daughter, Crawford claims that she is not anti-LGBTQ and that, after reporting the survey to her son’s principal, there has been no reply.

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Maryland School Implements New Mask Mandate

An elementary school in Maryland has reinstated mandatory mask requirements, as Joe Biden appeared in front of the press wearing a face covering Tuesday.

Rosemary Hills Elementary School in Silver Spring, a wealthy DC suburb, has brought back the mask mandate for students and staff, and added that the coverings should be N95 masks.

The school sent out a letter informing parents they have taken the decision after just THREE students tested positive for COVID.

“Additional KN95 masks have been distributed and students and staff in identified classes or activities will be required to mask while in school for the next 10 days, except while eating or drinking. Masks will become options again following the 10-day period,” the letter states.

We’ve heard that one before.

“At-home rapid test kids will be sent home and made available for students,” Principal Irwin Kennedy further notes, adding that CDC guidance decrees that testing should be done “5 days after an exposure (starting day 6)” or at such time as symptoms occur.

“We will continue to reinforce good hand washing and follow cleaning and disinfection procedures,” the letter further states.

The move comes as Joe Biden donned a face diaper as he arrived at a White House gathering, before removing it altogether.

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That School Is Still Treading on Jaiden Rodriguez’s Free Speech Rights

The case of 12-year-old Jaiden Rodriguez is not quite closed. While the Vanguard School’s board of directors has declared that he may sport a “don’t tread on me” patch on his backpack, a closer look at the school district’s policies suggests that administrators are still inclined to tread all over Rodriguez’s free speech rights.

That’s according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a First Amendment advocacy organization. FIRE spoke with Jaiden’s mother, who said that contrary to the board’s public statement, a district official—Mike Claudio, assistant superintendent of Harrison School District Two in Colorado Springs, Colorado—told her that her son would only be allowed to display the Gadsden flag patch as long as no one else complained about it.

Moreover, Rodriguez is still prohibited from displaying a secondary patch that references the Firearms Policy Coalition and expresses support for the Second Amendment. The justification for this restriction is the district’s categorical ban on content having to do with alcohol, drugs, tobacco, and weapons.

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