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The mother of a seven-year-old boy was told to sign a school form admitting he was racist after he asked another pupil about the colour of his skin. Elliott Dearlove had asked a five-year-old boy in the playground whether he was ‘brown because he was from Africa’. His mother, Hayley White, 29, said she received a phone call last month to say her son had been at the centre of a ‘racist incident’. She was then summoned to a meeting with Elliott, his teacher and the deputy head of Griffin Primary School in Hull. Ms White, an NHS healthcare assistant,...

In a move that has attracted outrage from many local parents, an overzealous principal has accused a six-year-old of sexual assault. Levina Subrata’s son was playing tag in his Californian school playground when he was accused of touching his best friend’s upper thigh and groin.

Across the Washington area, black students are suspended and expelled two to five times as often as white students, creating disparities in discipline that experts say reflect a growing national problem. An analysis by The Washington Post shows the phenomenon both in the suburbs and in the city, from the far reaches of Southern Maryland to the subdivisions of Fairfax, Prince George’s and Montgomery counties. In Washington area, racial gaps in school discipline Study exposes myths about school discipline Most students suspended, expelled at some point Police presence in schools spur Miranda questions View all Items in this Story School...

No running in the halls -- and no Tebowing either. That's what one Long Island administration said Wednesday when it suspended a group of high school athletes for replicating Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow's popular pose in the hallway at school. Jordan Fulcoly, Wayne Drexel and brothers Tyler and Connor Carroll of Riverhead High School were all handed a one-day suspension Wednesday, after three days of taking a knee with their foreheads resting on their fists, the same way Tebow does in the end zone and on the sidelines. The news was first reported by Yahoo! Prep Rally earlier Thursday....

Alabama's illegal immigration law will go into effect this Thursday, but protesters in Montgomery are pushing forward to have their voices heard in opposition to what's considered the toughest crackdown on illegal immigration in the country. Hundreds gathered at the capitol steps to oppose Alabama's new illegal immigration law, which will go into effect in just four days. The majority of the people in attendance were families and some said they are worried that this new law will break up their family. "I don't like this law, because I think it is going to tear my family apart," Edward E....

Title and link only -- Gannett stationhttp://wusa9.com/news/article/161065/158/Woodpecker-Saving-Daughter-Costs-Mom-500

Never let a good deed go unpunished. An 11-year-old Virginia girl trying to rescue a baby woodpecker instead earned her mother a $535 fine when it turned out the bird was a protected species. Skylar Capo saved the bird from the clutches of a cat which was about to turn the feathered friend into lunch. "I've just always loved animals," Skylar told WUSA-TV. "I couldn't stand to watch it be eaten." When she was unable to find the baby's mother, she asked her own mother if they could adopt the orphaned bird. "She was just going to take care of...

A stunning report today on the utter failure of so-called 'Zero Tolerance' programs in Texas public schools. 1200 WOAI news reports that after a decades long experiment in punishing students for even the smallest infraction, with policies which have allowed dopey school administrators to expel honor students for bringing aspirin or bottle openers to class, or for young deer hunters to have unloaded deer rifles in the trunk of their car in the school parking lot, the Council of State Government's Justice Center says the programs have given us a generation of expelled students, and schools which are not any...

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - When 18-year-old Tyell Morton put a blow-up sex doll in a bathroom stall on the last day of school, he didn't expect school officials to call a bomb squad or that he'd be facing up to eight years in prison and a possible felony record. The senior prank gone awry has raised questions of race, prosecutorial zeal and the post-Columbine mindset in a small Indiana town and around the country, The Indianapolis Star reported in its Tuesday editions. Legal experts question the appropriateness of the charges against Morton, and law professor Jonathan Turley at George Washington University...

Graham Dennis was handcuffed, fingerprinted and charged with possession of a deadly weapon. He was also suspended from school for 10 days. Casey Edsall was accused of having an explosive on school property. He got a one day suspension. The Eaton High juniors play lacrosse. The explosive device was a lighter. The deadly weapon was a pocket knife. Both are tools the boys use to maintain their lacrosse sticks. “I tore a couple white strings on the side and I had to replace them with black strings,” said Dennis. “I cut them and burn them there. If I don't cut...

Four boys at the Hickory Middle School in Chesapeake, Virginia were suspended and may be expelled for handling a baggie full of oregano at the school. The ill-fated prank was held to be “unacceptable mockery of the school’s ‘zero tolerance policy’” by the school administration. “While oregano isn’t a banned substance, per se, I mean we use it home-ec classes, placing it in a small plastic bag and passing it to another student is the same thing a student would do if it were,” said Vice-Principal Jesse Twitman. “It’s an act of disrespect and defiance toward school authority. If there’s...

Readers — As you know, Free-Range Kids is about trust, community and common sense. All of which a Virginia middle school student displayed the other day when he held open the door for someone he knew. For this, he was given a day long suspension. The reason? The school had just installed a $10,000 + security system, and his action violated it. Voila: According to an anonymous e-mail sent to The Tidewater News, the “A” student opened the door for a woman he knew, who had her hands full. The e-mail also indicated the student received a one-day, out-of-school suspension....

Teen's medical marijuana fight escalates as school says he cannot come back to class after going home for medicineFather appeals to legislators for helpThe saga of a Colorado Springs teenager struggling with a rare neurological condition best controlled with medical marijuana lozenges became a little more surreal when Harrison School District 2 informed the student’s father that the child cannot return to school on any day that he consumes medical marijuana.“They say if he takes his medicine he cannot come back to school,� the teenager’s father told The Colorado Independent. The boy attends Sierra High School.The child missed most of...

Andrew Mikel II admits it was a stupid thing to do. In December, bored and craving attention, the 14-year-old used a plastic tube to blow small plastic pellets at fellow students in Spotsylvania High School. In one lunch period, he scored three hits. "They flinched. They looked annoyed," Mikel said. The school district saw it as more than a childish prank. School officials expelled him for possession and use of a weapon, and they called a deputy sheriff to the scene, said Mikel and his father, Andrew Mikel Sr. The younger Mikel, a freshman, said he was charged with three...

Spotsylvania, Va., high school freshman Andrew Mikel has been suspended for the school year and has been placed in a "diversion program" by police for blowing soft plastic pellets through a pen at three classmates. "I am currently working with the Rutherford Institute, fighting the insane madness of our local school administration and board," wrote the boy's father, also named Andrew Mikel, to WND. "In early December, my son shot what amounts to a spitwad. They classified the spit wad as a weapon, expelled my son from school the rest of the year, filed assault charges on him with the...

GRAVILLE -- School administrators are investigating a young student's "kill list" containing the names of 62 schoolmates in the Granville Central School District. Police say the 12-year-old girl confessed to writing the list. She has been charged with misdemeanor aggravated harrassment, and was suspended from school for five days. The schools Superintendent Mark Bessen tells CBS6, "It was a group of students that she felt made her life difficult in school or she felt she had issues with." He went on to say, "It's 2011. If you have a 'Kill List' you have to deal with it in a safe...

The U.S. Justice Department went into a public high school on Tuesday with a message for students: If you’re “different,” if you’re gay, and if you’re being bullied – don’t feel alone, don’t be ashamed, and don’t hesitate to call on the federal government for help if your school doesn’t stop the bullying. “If you have been targeted for harassment or bullying because of your sexual orientation, because of your gender identity or expression, or simply because your classmates see you as different, I am here to tell you that the Civil Rights Division will not stand for it,” Tom...

Zero tolerance common sense. UPDATE: School responds, I Google. On its face, this looks like it’s an asinine decision which is probably the product of a culture that makes lawsuits possible in every breath we take. How else to explain what the school principal has done here? It’s either the school’s fear of a lawsuit, or a total lack of common sense among the school’s leadership, or there’s something we don’t know about all this that hasn’t shown up in the media reports. I’m not discounting that third possibility, but based on what we know from media reports, this is...

Can't be linked... Gannett

This morning, if accounts in Kalispell and Missoula newspapers are accurate, 16-year-old Demari DeReu should be back in class at Columbia Falls High School after the School Board last night showed the good sense that this column accurately suggested – “for the sake of argument” – would be the case. There are several lessons to be learned by educators throughout the Northwest, including right here in Washington, where the story has gotten considerable reaction from members of the Hunting-Washington forum. Chief among lessons to be learned from these Montana school officials is that common sense and compassion should always trump...

Montana honor student faces expulsion over gun in trunkPosted: Dec 8, 2010 7:24 AM by Andrea Lutz - Montana's News StationUpdated: Dec 8, 2010 8:00 AM COLUMBIA FALLS, MT - Demarie DeReu, a 16-year-old honor student at Columbia Falls High School, is facing expulsion after leaving her hunting rifle in her vehicle on school grounds. DeReu, who is also a member of the Student Council and a varsity cheerleader, told Montana's News Station that she had no intention of breaking any rules or laws, or harming anyone. She went hunting over the Thanksgiving holiday with her family and forgot to...

Are minority students disciplined more harshly? Obama administration to issue suspension guidelines Published: Thursday, October 07, 2010, 12:06 PM Dave Murray | The Grand Rapids Press Are minority students disciplined more harshly than white students? The Obama administration thinks so, and is planning to make addressing racial disparities in school discipline a high priority, reports Education Week’s Mary Ann Zehr. The administration intends to “release guidance” on school discipline this winter, presumably telling local schools how they should deal with problem students, Zehr reports. The U.S. departments of Education and Justice held a conference late last month and Zehr quoted...

JAMESBURG, N.J. (AP) -- Officials suspended a fifth-grader in New Jersey who found a lighter on his way to school. Jamesburg school superintendent Gail Verona told The Home News Tribune of East Brunswick the lighter had the potential to compromise student safety. But the 11-year-old boy's father questioned why school officials consider the lighter a weapon.

Parents want their child back in school. School board says no way Print Share Buzz up!62retweetTOP1K5diggsdigg Samuel Burgos has fond memories of his friends at school, but he only gets to see them in pictures now. The 8-year-old boy hasn't been in school for a year and will likely miss another year if the Broward County School Board has its way. Burgos was suspended from school in November after a teacher found a toy gun in his backpack. But when the boy went to register to go back to Pembroke Pines Charter School, he was told he will be expelled...

Parents want their child back in school. School board says no waySamuel Burgos has fond memories of his friends at school, but he only gets to see them in pictures now. The 8-year-old boy hasn't been in school for a year and will likely miss another year if the Broward County School Board has its way. Burgos was suspended from school in November after a teacher found a toy gun in his backpack. But when the boy went to register to go back to Pembroke Pines Charter School, he was told he will be expelled for this school year, too,...

TROPHY CLUB, Texas - Administrators at Byron Nelson High School in Trophy Club suspended a 16-year-old boy on Tuesday because his eyes were bloodshot and they thought he might have been smoking marijuana.The teen said he was not high. Instead his eyes were red because he had been grieving the loss of his murdered father.Kyler Robertson’s father was stabbed to death on Sunday. His mother honored his wishes and let him go to school on Tuesday to be with his friends.“I am sure he had a lot on his mind going to school. I had asked him not to go...

Salon's got a blood-boiling interview with Aaron Kupchik, author of Homeroom Security: School Discipline in an Age of Fear, a close look at four very different US schools. Each school has a different demographic and different location, but the thing they all share is a set of zero-tolerance policies that turn them into Kafka-esque nightmares: (snip) "...We're teaching kids what it means to be a citizen in our country. And what I fear we're doing is teaching them that what it means to be an American is that you accept authority without question and that you have absolutely no rights...

Our cameras caught a City of L.A. employee lighting up and smoking something out of a pipe while on duty and earning your tax dollars. What was he smoking? That is what we wanted to know. David Goldstein: "What are you smoking here? You smoking pot or you smoking crack?" City employee: "No I'm not. It was a cigarette." David Goldstein: "No, it was a pipe. You were smoking out of a pipe." City employee: "No it wasn't." The man is a gardener for the Port of Los Angeles Harbor Department. He makes good money -- $46,000 a year plus...

Christan Morales says her son just wanted to honor American troops when he made a hat decorated with an American flag and small plastic Army figures. But the hat ran afoul of the district's no-weapons policy because the toy soldiers were carrying tiny weapons. "His teacher called and said it wasn't appropriate because it had guns," Morales said.

A Rhode Island mother says her 8-year-old son's school would not let him wear a patriotic hat she says he designed for a project to honor Army troops because the school thought it was inappropriate. --- SNIP --- Morales said the principal at David's school called her to say the hat wasn't appropriate because it had guns, which violated a school ban on weapons and toy weapons.

White House press corps dean Helen Thomas -- on the day that the White House hosted a Jewish Heritage Celebration, no less -- said that Jews who live in Israel should "get the hell out of Palestine" and go "home." When asked where home was for Israeli Jews, Thomas offered "Poland, Germany... and America and everywhere else" from which the founding generation of the State of Israel originally hailed. Breitbart.tv has the YouTube video, which was released by RabbiLive.com (h/t Gateway Pundit). At right you can view our Eyeblast version by clicking the play button in the embed. It's been...

Today at school (a nice private school), a little girl, aged 6, daughter of a well-to-do-pediatrician who happens to be a muslim from Jordan or thereabouts, walked up to my daughter (aged 6) and told her that she was going to "cut her dirty Jew throat" and shoved her down. Out of the blue. Completely in seperate classrooms. This was in the USA, btw. No previous contact or problems that we know of. Been fun at our house today. School is involved. They don't want me to call the cops, as this is the last week of school, and I...

In a CBS news story that likely will not receive the coverage it deserves, a kindergartner was suspended on May 19 for almost bringing a knife to school. Almost. Five-year-old Josh Bejerano and his friends were on their way to school on Thursday morning when they found a pocket knife under a bush. Like all young boys–I have three myself and know how mine would have reacted–Josh excitedly put the knife in his backpack. Then, he apparently remembered that knives do not belong at school, and he took the blade out of his backpack and put it down. This is...

Memorial Beads or Gang Symbol? Student Suspended for Wearing RosaryCase Highlights First Amendment Free Speech Debate in U.S. Schools WASHINGTON, May 25, 2010 Hosier, a 13-year-old Schenectady, New York, boy, is gearing up to file a federal suit against his middle school after he was repeatedly suspended for wearing a rosary, which he says is in memory of his older brother who died in a bike accident. Students say they were singled out because they had on black T-shirts. Hosier said he has worn the rosary since September, but in the last week was suspended three times, most recently...

Matthew Whalen's suspension will stand. On Wednesday night, the Lansingburgh Central School District board of education rejected Whalen's appeal of the punishment and decided not to expunge the blemish on the record of the Eagle Scout suspended for having a pocketknife in his car while the vehicle was on the grounds of Lansingburgh High School. Whalen received a 20-day suspension in September after he turned over to school administrators a 1 1/2-inch knife that he kept in his glove box as part of a car survival kit. He returned to school in October. Whalen has said he does not know...

(May 14) -- A 14-year-old autistic boy in Georgia faces felony charges of making terroristic threats after he drew a stick-figure version of himself firing a gun at his teacher. After discovering the crudely rendered drawing that Shane Finn had made on his classwork, officials at Atlanta's Ridgeview Charter School suspended the eighth-grader and decided to pursue charges against him, Fox News in Atlanta reported.

theodp writes "A third-grader in a small Texas school district received a week's detention for merely possessing a Jolly Rancher. Leighann Adair, 10, was eating lunch Monday when a teacher confiscated the candy. Her parents said she was in tears when she arrived home later that afternoon and handed them the detention notice. But school officials are defending the sentence, saying the school was abiding by a state guideline that banned 'minimal nutrition' foods. 'Whether or not I agree with the guidelines, we have to follow the rules,' said school superintendent Jack Ellis."

A third-grader at Brazos Elementary was given a week’s detention for possessing a Jolly Rancher. School officials in western Fort Bend County are defending the seemingly harsh sentence. The school’s principal and superintendent said they were simply complying with a state law that limits junk food in schools. But the girl’s parents say it’s a huge overreaction. “I think it’s stupid to give a kid a week’s worth of detention for a piece of candy,” said Amber Brazda, the girl’s mother. "The whole thing was just ridiculous to me." Leighann Adair, 10, was eating lunch Monday when a teacher confiscated...

JEFFERSONVILLE, IN (WAVE) - The parents of a Kentuckiana seventh grade student say their young daughter was suspended from school for doing exactly what she's been taught to do for years - to just say no to drugs. ...

Trial ordered for man accused of fatally choking puppy By Kelly Wheeler City News Service March 11, 2010 SAN DIEGO - A La Jolla man accused of choking his 10-week-old puppy -- which later died -- as punishment for barking and nipping his girlfriend on the nose must stand trial on two felony animal cruelty charges, a judge ruled today. David Hale Warner, 50, faces up to three years in prison if convicted, said Deputy District Attorney Garrett Randall. The defendant was on probation for domestic violence at the time of his arrest, the prosecutor said. Warner and his girlfriend...

It's handgun control in the extreme. A Michigan kindergartener's make-believe gun - which he created with just his fingers - got him suspended, the Grand Rapids Press reported. Mason Jammer, 6, who attends Ionia's Jefferson Elementary School, pointed his finger-gun at a fellow student Wednesday and got kicked out of school till Friday. School officials said they had given Mason numerous warnings over several months, and his gun play created discomfort for other kids. Mason's mom said the suspension is "too harsh" for a young boy. "He's only six, and he doesn't understand any of this," said Erin Jammer, who...

<p>PHOENIX - It was a day of reckoning for the Phoenix boy who accidentally brought a penknife to school in his backpack.</p> <p>The school was considering expelling fifth grader Zane Champion, citing its zero-tolerance policy against weapons.</p> <p>After a long night of deliberations, the school board decided not to expell Champion. The governing board met with Champion's family for nearly three hours Tuesday night at the Arizona School for the Arts in downtown Phoenix.</p>

NEW YORK (CNN) -- There was no profanity, no hate. Just the words, "I love my friends Abby and Faith. Lex was here 2/1/10 :)" scrawled on the classroom desk with a green marker. Alexa Gonzalez, an outgoing 12-year-old who likes to dance and draw, expected a lecture or maybe detention for her doodles earlier this month. Instead, the principal of the Junior High School in Forest Hills, New York, called police, and the seventh-grader was taken across the street to the police precinct. Alexa's hands were cuffed behind her back, and tears gushed as she was escorted from school...

HUNTSVILLE, AL (WAFF) - Police said a female member of the UA-Huntsville staff shot and killed three co-workers on campus. Huntsville Police, Madison County Sheriff's department and HEMSI responded to a shooting at the UAH campus at 4:00 Friday afternoon. The shooting happened in the Shelby Center, a math and science classroom building. Authorities said a female faculty member during a Biology faculty meeting learned she would not receive tenure. She then pulled out a gun and started shooting.

A New York City junior high student has been arrested for doodling on her desk with a marker. Twelve-year-old Alexa Gonzalez scribbled "Lex was here 2/1/10" on her desk Monday at Junior High School 190 in Queens. She also wrote "I love my friends Abby and Faith." The girl says the doodles could have been erased. Moraima Camacho says her daughter was released several hours after she was taken in handcuffs to a police station.

An irate Staten Island mom blasted a grade school principal Wednesday for treating her son like a pint-sized Plaxico Burress after he brought a 2-inch-long toy gun to school. "This principal is a bully and a coward, and needs to be held accountable," said Laura Timoney, 44, after her teary fourth-grader was nearly suspended for playing with the tiny toy at lunch. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/02/04/2010-02-04_big_trouble_over_this_tiny_toy_mom_fuming_at_a_lack_of_common_sense_as_son_buste.html#ixzz0eb3gUwhC

More proof gun hating liberals are sick in the head: 9 year old boy suspended from school over 1 inch LEGO toy.

A teenager expelled from his Glenn County high school for having shotguns in his vehicle, which was parked off campus, will challenge his expulsion this week. Gary Tudesko, 16, was expelled from Willows High School in November after a dog detected the guns in his pickup truck on Oct. 26, according to a news release by the National Rifle Association. Tudesko told school officials he'd gone on an early morning duck-hunting trip before school that morning and believed the guns would not be a problem if he parked off campus. Willows is a town of 6,000 surrounded by ranching areas...

A student acted responsibly—and was expelled for it By now the story of Gary Tudesko, the Willows High School junior who was expelled after Interquest search dogs sniffed out two unloaded shotguns in his pickup, has spread far and wide, thanks to the Internet. Both the National Rifle Association and the California Rifle and Pistol Association Legal Foundation have come to the youth’s aid. Like many Willows youths, Gary is a hunter, and last November he and a friend went duck hunting before school. Returning just as classes were starting, and knowing that guns weren’t allowed on campus, Gary parked...

An 8-year-old special-needs child was suspended from school and forced to undergo psychiatric counseling over a picture he drew of Jesus Christ dead on the cross for a Christmas assignment. School officials in Taunton, Mass., said the picture "violated the code of violence in the school handbook," said Toni Saunders, an educational consultant on special-needs children with the Associated Advocacy Center who is working with the boy's family. "I couldn't believe what they were telling me," the boy's father, Chester Johnson, who also works for the school system as a substitute custodian, told The Washington Times on Tuesday. "I asked...