Free Republic

he mother of a shooter who killed four students at a high school in Oxford, Mich., in 2021 was found guilty Tuesday on all charges of involuntary manslaughter. Jennifer Crumbley, 45, had pleaded not guilty to four involuntary manslaughter counts, and the jury found her guilty after 10 hours of deliberation, per CNN. Her son, Ethan Crumbley, was sentenced to life in prison in December after he pleaded guilty in 2022 to two dozen charges, including terrorism and first-degree murder.

A New Jersey teacher who had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old female student evaded prison time last week after her former students sent letters of support to the court ahead of her sentencing. Ex-Fair Lawn High School graphics arts teacher Christine Knudsen was placed under lifetime parole supervision and forced to register as a sex offender, but won’t see a day behind bars if she doesn’t violate the terms of the sentencing, according to the Bergen Record.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona says schools should not be shutting down due to surges in COVID-19 and expressed worry about government overreach. “I worry about government overreach, sending down edicts that will lead to school closures because either folks are afraid to go in or are infected and can’t go,” Cardona told The Associated Press in an interview. Despite the new wave of COVID-19 cases, “schools should be open, period,” Cardona said, according to the AP.

In June, 157-year-old Antioch College decided to "suspend operations" at its flagship campus despite a push from alumni to rescue the flailing institution. At that point, only 60 students were enrolled, and their $40,000 per year tuition was being heavily subsidized by Antioch's five newer campuses. Antioch Chancellor Toni Murdock said the plug had to be pulled. "It was a downward spiral where fewer students led to fewer professors, and eventually the deficit was projected to be so large that the other schools no longer wanted to subsidize their mother school." They may soon have company. Home builders and banks...

The New York City teachers’ union filed a federal lawsuit on Friday claiming that a policy banning political pins and signs in schools violates teachers’ First Amendment rights by blocking them from political expression. The lawsuit comes nearly two weeks after the Department of Education sent a memo to principals directing them to enforce the longstanding regulation, which requires that all school staff members show “complete neutrality” while on duty. The policy also prohibits teachers from using school property to promote a candidate. Randi Weingarten, president of the union, the United Federation of Teachers, said that while the policy has...