Tag: public schools

Elementary Teacher Arrested After Allegedly Putting Girls Through Sick Game Called ‘The Cave’

“How did this go on for so long?”

That’s what one parent asked police regarding a highly regarded teacher’s failure to report a co-worker despite multiple reports of inappropriate behavior with young girls.

James Eschert, 51, was arrested in January by police in Plymouth, Connecticut, and faces five charges of risk of injury along with two charges of fourth-degree sexual assault.

Law & Crime called both charges misdemeanors, but risk of injury appears to be a felony charge and, according to Connecticut Code – Sec. 53a-73a, the latter charges are considered felonies when the victim(s) are under 16 years old.

An affidavit filed in support of the arrest warrant for Eschert and his co-workers, which does not name the alleged underage victims or their family members and refers to Eschert as “Mr. E,” details some pretty disgusting allegations.

The mother of “V11,” one of the alleged victims in the case, said she believed Eschert had been abusing his students for 20 years.

“Mom remembers her now 28-year-old niece [emphasis added] telling her how she remembers Mr. E as a touchy, feely kind of guy and recalls a time when Mr. E chaperoned a school trip to an amusement park and one of her friends went on a two-person ride with Mr. E and her friend sat between Mr. E’s legs,” the affidavit reads. “According to mom, her niece recalls her friend getting off that ride and being really creeped out.”

“I asked her why she thinks Mr. E did all of this,” the investigating detective swore in the affidavit. “She said, ‘Because he likes girls. Little girls.’”

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Pennsylvania Elementary School Training Introduces 5-Year-Olds To Transgenderism

A Pennsylvania elementary school held a training for educators to teach them how to create a “gender-inclusive” classroom and affirm LGBTQ identities, according to documents provided by No Left Turn in Education to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Fern Hills Elementary School in West Chester, Pennsylvania, hosted an Aug. 24 teacher training titled “An Intro to LGBTQ Education: Cultivating Gender Inclusive Classrooms” put on by LGBTQ activist Aneesah Smith, according to documents obtained by the DCNF. The training provided the elementary school teachers with picture books and lessons for kids as young as kindergarten on transgenderism to incorporate into their classroom.

“Why are our elementary school teachers focused on gender ideology rather than teaching our children reading, writing, arithmetic, history and science?” Yael Levin, chief communications officer of No Left Turn in Education, a group focused on parental rights in education, told the DCNF. “Why are our schools even touching on subjects that belong with the parents, especially in children ranging from 5 to 11? And more importantly, why are our children being evaluated based on whether they are using the term gender expression and if they understand the meaning of the word.”

Smith is a “queer, Christian, cisgender, woman of color” and the director of diversity equity and inclusion at Penn State Abington who has been in social justice activism for more than 12 years, according to her website. She hosts a variety of training sessions including “understanding & supporting your LGBTQ+ child” and “cultivating campus climate considering intersectionality,” a workshop on addressing unconscious bias within campus offices and programs.

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Radioactive Waste Found at Missouri Elementary School

There is significant radioactive contamination at an elementary school in suburban St. Louis where nuclear weapons were produced during World War II, according to a new report by environmental investigation consultants.

The report by Boston Chemical Data Corp. confirmed fears about contamination at Jana Elementary School in the Hazelwood School District in Florissant raised by a previous Army Corps of Engineers study.

The new report is based on samples taken in August from the school, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Boston Chemical did not say who or what requested and funded the report.

“I was heartbroken,” said Ashley Bernaugh, president of the Jana parent-teacher association who has a son at the school. “It sounds so cliché, but it takes your breath from you.”

The school sits in the flood plain of Coldwater Creek, which was contaminated by nuclear waste from weapons production during World War II. The waste was dumped at sites near the St. Louis Lambert International Airport, next to the creek that flows to the Missouri River. The Corps has been cleaning up the creek for more than 20 years.

The Corps’ report also found contamination in the area but at much at lower levels, and it didn’t take any samples within 300 feet of the school. The most recent report included samples taken from Jana’s library, kitchen, classrooms, fields and playgrounds.

Levels of the radioactive isotope lead-210, polonium, radium and other toxins were “far in excess” of what Boston Chemical had expected. Dust samples taken inside the school were found to be contaminated.

Inhaling or ingesting these radioactive materials can cause significant injury, the report said.

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At least 269 K-12 educators arrested on child sex crimes in first 9 months of this year

Nearly 270 public educators were arrested on child sex-related crimes in the U.S. in the first nine months of this year, ranging from grooming to raping underage students.

An analysis conducted by Fox News Digital found that from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, at least 269 educators were arrested, which works out to roughly one arrest a day.

The 269 educators included four principals, two assistant principals, 226 teachers, 20 teacher’s aides and 17 substitute teachers.  

At least 199 of the arrests, or 74%, involved alleged crimes against students.

The analysis looked at local news stories week by week featuring arrests of K-12 principals, assistant principals, teachers, substitute teachers and teachers’ aides on child sex-related crimes in school districts across the country. Arrests that weren’t publicized were not counted in the analysis, meaning the true number may well be higher.

Only 43 of the alleged crimes, or 16%, did not involve students. It is not known whether another 10% of the alleged crimes involved students.

Men also made up the vast majority, with over 80% of the arrests.

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Southern California Superintendent Defends 7th-Grade Boy Masturbating In Front Of Classmates, Claims It’s Normal

A California superintendent defended a 7th-grade boy allegedly caught masturbating in front of his classmates, insisting to shocked parents that it was normal.

The superintendent, Mark McLaughlin of the Conejo Valley Unified School District (CVUSD), admonished parents for bringing up the issue during a school board meeting last month. McLaughlin disclosed that similar offenses occur at least once a year in their district, which he said normalized the incident.

“I don’t think any of you would want us up here chatting about an issue that took place with your child,” said McLaughlin. “I would say that, at least once a year, this comes up from both males and females within a school setting. And so, I don’t think this is anything outside the norm.”

McLaughlin issued those remarks in response to the testimony of Carrie Burgert, the mother of one of the alleged victims. Burgert shared that her daughter and other classmates allegedly witnessed the 7th-grade boy masturbating while in class back in May. Burgert added that the principal informed district leadership, but she has yet to hear back from the district office all these months later.

“I only know this because my daughter told me in the car when I picked her up, saying her friends were disturbed, traumatized, and scared,” said Burgert.

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Critical race theory is all about conformity

Proponents of critical race theory continue to frame resistance to it in the classroom as racist. In an interview with Education Week, Margaret Thornton, an assistant professor at Old Dominion University in Virginia, characterized opposition to critical race theory as a “whitelash” and a “racist attempt to silence educators.” She insists that in spite of these attacks, she’ll keep teaching the “truth about oppression” in the United States.

The problem with this sort of attack is that there’s a lot more to critical race theory than just teaching historical oppression such as slavery or Jim Crow. It’s this “more” that should worry parents of any race, especially parents of aspiring entrepreneurs.

Of particular concern: Critical race theory activists often reject the idea of individuality. In her blockbuster critical race theory book White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo rejects the “ideolog[y] of individualism.” What does she mean by individualism? “Briefly, individualism holds that we are each unique and stand apart from others, even those within our social groups.”

The problem is that an individualistic streak is essential to being an entrepreneur. In ” Individualism: A Deeply American Philosophy ,” Patrick Carroll and Dan Sanchez pointed out that the greatest entrepreneurs in U.S. history were deeply individualistic. They were “mold-breakers.”

This individualistic mindset was perfectly captured by Steve Jobs with Apple’s 1997-2002 ” Think Different ” ad campaign. But if you’re told that it’s wrong to see yourself as “unique” or “standing apart” from your social group, what are the odds that you’re going to grow up to think differently?

The odds get even lower when you factor in how critical race theory is actually taught. If the essence of entrepreneurship is “think different,” the core of critical race theory might be described as “make sure you think like us.”

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Ex-NYC Associate Principal Sentenced To Prison For Child Enticement

Jonathan Skolnick was sentenced today to 15 years in prison for enticing minor children to send him nude and sexually explicit photographs and videos of themselves over the Internet. On April 5, 2022, Skolnick pled guilty.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “For approximately seven years, Jonathan Skolnick abused his position of trust as an associate principal and teacher in New York City schools by posing as a teenage girl online and successfully enticing minor victims, including his own students, to send him child pornography. This lengthy prison sentence holds Skolnick accountable for his horrific crimes and the extraordinary harm and trauma he caused to many minor victims and their families.”

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School board members reported mom to employer, DOJ for criticizing COVID school closures

School board members reported a police detective to her employer and the U.S. Department of Justice for showing “disrespect,” making “over dramatic” comments about COVID-19 school policies and threatening to sue the district if it kept interrupting her at board meetings.

According to the lawyer for Michigan’s Chippewa Valley Schools, the elected school board members were just exercising their First Amendment rights as private citizens, and the board had no involvement.

Sandra Hernden filed a First Amendment retaliation lawsuit against the school board and members Frank Bednard and Elizabeth Pyden, seeking to remove qualified immunity from the individual public officials for violating “a clearly defined constitutional right.”

Even if Bednard and Pyden lose legal protection and face personal liability, Hernden won’t seek more than $1 in nominal damages, according to Holly Wetzel, director of public relations for Hernden’s lawyers at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Bednard’s Oct. 5 2021 report to DOJ came a day after Attorney General Merrick Garland promised to prosecute “harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence” against school boards, which itself followed a National School Boards Association letter implying that harsh criticism of COVID policies was “domestic terrorism.”

The board president told fellow members and Superintendent Ronald Roberts that he had forwarded to DOJ Hernden’s email, which informed the board of an appeals court ruling prohibiting restrictions on “abusive” and “antagonistic” language at public meetings.

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These Community Schools Aren’t What You Think They Are

Community School. It sounds so quaint, so nice, so comforting.

If you ask most people to describe a “community school,” they would probably create a picture of a local school in a town, a school that served the children of that community, that was paid for by local taxes, and was a matter of local pride. Parents had access to the school, volunteered there, knew the teachers, etc.

The town I live in once had such a school, The Oxford School. It has long been closed because it was too small and too expensive to keep open. But it was a true community school where kids walked to school in the morning, went home for lunch, walked back, and walked home after dismissal. My husband attended that school when he was a child. It was a community school in the truest sense.

The community schools I am going to describe for you are not that community school. They are something much more invasive and insidious. And they will cost state taxpayers millions.

The new definition of “community schools” is posted on many websites, but let’s start here in Maryland. From MSDE:

“Community schools are schools that develop and utilize partnerships that connect the school, students, families, and the surrounding community to the resources needed to thrive. They highlight the assets in traditionally underserved communities and leverage partnerships, ultimately providing students, families, and communities with essential services and support. Through strategic partnerships, community schools work to provide access to high-quality academics, health services, mental health support, academic enrichment, out-of-school time programming, crisis support, adult education classes, leadership development, and more.”

State educators like to call these “full-service schools” with “wraparound services.” Sounds great, huh?

But let’s break this down. The same school systems that cannot account for all their Covid relief funds cannot find all their students (Baltimore City can’t find 1,300 students), don’t have enough teachers and auxiliary staff for schools, and can’t get state testing scores out in a useful and timely fashion because they are SO bad, locked down and cost our children up to two years of learning, now want to provide “one-stop shopping” community schools. Even worse, these are the schools that are so focused on social justice, CRT, and SEL that they don’t adequately teach basic academic content. Yet they promise they will provide all these other services efficiently and expertly while teaching content. It’s a scam, and they know it.

Who is pushing this and why?

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Rate of sexual abuse of kids is highest among religious Zionist sector

Students in religious public schools in Israel are at a higher risk of sexual harassment and assault than any other of the Jewish education streams, a new study examining cases of sexual abuse from the religious Zionist sector by the Ne’emanei Torah Va’avodah movement has found.

“[These results] are a first step in the necessary in-depth discussions that oblige us to fight this phenomenon, recognize it, and to wake up from the illusion that a separated society [of men and women] is a guarantee of preventing harm.” Ne’emanei Torah Va’avodah’s Shmuel Shatach

Researcher Ariel Finkelstein analyzed the scope and profile of sexual abuse victims in Israeli local authorities’ social services departments in 2020, by sector or stream.

In Israel, there are a number of educational streams: Secular public school (Mamlachti), religious public school (Mamlachti Dati) and ultra-Orthodox schools, which are either private or semi-private.

The distribution of the data on sexual abuse was filtered by sector, according to the type of educational stream where the victims are currently or were educated in their childhood.

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