Free Republic

Police say they thwarted a plot involving two 14-year-old Middlebury Union Middle School students to carry out a shooting this week on the school’s campus. Dennis Wygmans, the Addison County state’s attorney, said Tuesday evening that the investigation is ongoing and if any charges are filed, they “most likely” would be brought in juvenile court. “We believe there is no longer a threat, but folks should remain vigilant,” the prosecutor added. “If they do learn of anything, they should contact Middlebury Police.” Because the case involves juveniles, authorities say they are not releasing the names of the students involved. The...

A federal judge says Broward schools and the Sheriff’s Office had no legal duty to protect students during the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom dismissed a suit filed by 15 students who claimed they were traumatized by the crisis in February. The suit named six defendants, including the Broward school district and the Broward Sheriff’s Office, as well as school deputy Scot Peterson and campus monitor Andrew Medina. Bloom ruled that the two agencies had no constitutional duty to protect students who were not in custody. “The claim arises from the actions of...

California ranks No. 1 among the 50 states for the percentage of its residents 25 and older who have never completed ninth grade and 50th for the percentage who have graduated from high school, according to new data from the Census Bureau. Texas ranks No. 2 for the percentage of its residents 25 and older who have never completed ninth grade and 49th for the percentage who have graduated from high school. 9.7 percent of California residents 25 and older, the Census Bureau says, never completed ninth grade. Only 82.5 percent graduated from high school. 8.7 percent of Texas residents...

Last month, the New York State Education Department made a crucial decision: Commissioner MaryEllen Elia handed authority to local school boards to veto the right for private schools to operate. Those school boards must now determine whether private schools provide an education "substantially equivalent to that received in district public schools." According to Jewish educators Elya Brudny and Yisroel Reisman, "The state government now requires private schools to offer a specific set of classes more comprehensive than what students in public schools must learn." This isn't a problem for Jewish schools alone -- Catholic schools in New York have bucked...

This story actually popped up last week but somehow got lost in my inbox for a while. Down in Florida, in the school district where the horrific shooting took place at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the Stoneman Douglas Commission finally sat down to take a vote on one of many measures being considered to provide additional security for students and teachers in the event of future mass shooting attempts. The subject at hand was the concept of arming teachers who volunteer to undergo rigorous training and carry firearms at work.Given the outrage expressed over the idea by many student...

CATHOLIC schools will have to teach children about gay, lesbian and transgender relationships – even though it is against their ethos – under plans for the overhaul of sex education. A draft report from the Oireachtas Education Committee, which has been seen by the Irish Independent ,is calling for radical changes in how sex education is taught to children in both primary and secondary schools. Under the new plans, school children would be educated about gay, lesbian and transgender relationships “without distinction as to their heterosexual counterparts”. It also recommends changing legislation to ensure that schools must teach the new...

Dinesh D'Souza described Michelle Obama's college thesis as "illiterate and incoherent." The far-right author and filmmaker launched a scathing attack on the former first lady after she claimed that people at the most powerful organizations in the world were "not as smart" as some portrayed them to be. "Anyone who has read Michelle's college thesis - a document so illiterate and incoherent that it was written, as Christopher Hitchens put it, in 'no known language' - will chuckle heartily at this one," D'Souza wrote on his Facebook page, sharing a link to a Newsweek article that reported Obama’s remark. [Snip]...

PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, Md. (ABC7) — David Murray is one of seven school board members in Prince George’s County now calling for Colin Kaepernick to sign with the team. This week, they sent out an open letter to owner Daniel Snyder and other leaders. “Knowing that we have the most dire need for him, we want him signed right now,” said Murray. “He can do a lot of great work to support our schools and our county if he comes here.” “Signing Kaepernick would send an even more powerful message today; that a person can peacefully protest for causes that...

Hollywood despises President Donald Trump for dozens of reasons, but one stands out. He’s too crude and rude to be our commander in chief. Tinsel Town has a point. While Trump’s admirers relish his pugnacious spirit, only the most ardent Trump Train passengers cheer his worst rhetoric. So why can’t Hollywood stop upping the ante on it? How can we forget Robert De Niro, one of the greatest actors of his generation, crying “F-word Trump” at the last Tony Awards? It doesn’t get more crude than that. Even Hollywood’s “activists” embrace profanity to smite the commander in chief. Kathy Griffin...

Junior highs are cracking down on truancy across the nation. Some Oklahoma school are going even so far as handcuffing middle schoolers and taking them to the slammer according to NBC 16 WNDU.Muskogee Public Schools arrested a 14-year-old in Tulsa, OK at school after he missed too many classes. His mother is outraged and says the arrest was an act of abuse. via NBC 16 WNDU"It’s my fault! Exactly! It’s not my 14 year old sons fault. He doesn't have a car to get himself there."Stephanie - who doesn't want to use her last name - says she's upset her...

On Nov. 20, Commissioner MaryEllen Elia issued guidance empowering local school boards to evaluate private schools and to vote on our right to continue educating our students. The state government now requires private schools to offer a specific set of classes more comprehensive than what students in public schools must learn. Our schools must offer 11 courses to students in grades 5 through 8, for a total of seven hours of daily instruction. Public schools have less than six hours a day of prescribed instruction. Private-school teachers will also be required to submit to evaluation by school districts. At a...

In an effort to demonstrate its "commitment to inclusivity," Washington State University has begun stocking men's restrooms with free menstrual products. The initiative is one of many focusing on "improving the transgender community experience on campus," and is currently being tested in three restrooms on the Pullman, Wash. campus. The university is in the process of "assessing similar needs" at other WSU campuses to determine which men's rooms will receive new accommodations. Additional changes include allowing students to choose a name other than their legal name for their student identification card and a new policy requiring all new buildings to...

A Los Angeles college student who sued his school for allegedly curbing his right to free speech after it prevented him from passing out copies of the U.S. Constitution was vindicated in court this week. The Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD), which represents nine schools, including Pierce College, agreed on Wednesday to settle a lawsuit filed against them last year by student Kevin Shaw after he was barred from passing out copies of the document because he wasn’t in the school’s designated “free speech zone,” which measured 616 square feet or about the size of three parking spaces. As...

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A judge has rejected a deputy's claim that he had no duty to confront the gunman during the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Refusing to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the parent of a victim, Broward Circuit Judge Patti Englander Henning found after a hearing Wednesday that ex-deputy Scot Peterson did have a duty to protect those inside the school where 17 people died and 17 were wounded on Feb. 14. Video and other evidence shows Peterson, the only armed officer at the school, remained outside while shots rang out. The negligence lawsuit was filed by Andrew Pollack, whose daughter...

Students at a public high school have demonstrated their support for a Christian teacher fired from his position because he refused to refer to a trans-identified student by their preferred pronoun. Less than 24 hours after the West Point, Virginia school board unanimously voted to terminate high school French instructor Peter Vlaming, a large group of students walked out of their classes to protest the decision. “He's an amazing man,” student Wyatt Pedersen told WWBT News. “I think he really was going with what he believed was right and it's really unfair that he’s being punished for that, especially in...

This year, 113 people have been killed or injured in school shootings in the United States. That's the sobering finding of a project to count the annual toll of gun attacks in schools. At the beginning of 2018, Education Week, a journal covering education in the US, began to track school shootings - and has since recorded 23 incidents where there were deaths or injuries. With many parts of the US having about 180 school days per year, it means, on average, a shooting once every eight school days. Another database recording school shootings says 2018 has had the highest...

A teacher at West Point High School in Virginia was fired recently over his religious objections to using male pronouns when referring to a student who is biologically female but identifies as male.The West Point School Board unanimously voted 5-0 Thursday to dismiss 47-year-old French teacher Peter Vlaming following a four-hour hearing. They argued that he was in “willful violation of school board policy.”“We do not and cannot tolerate discrimination in any form, or actions that create a hostile environment for any member of our school family,” they said in a statement. “Mr. Vlaming was asked repeatedly, over several weeks...

Students at Coral Glades High School in Coral Springs, Florida, were given a rather shocking assignment: to take a quiz about whether or not Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz "deserves to die." To make matters even worse? Coral Glades is only a 10 minute drive from Stoneman Douglas so this should hit close to home.Images of the quiz made its way around social media. Parkland survivor Cameron Kasky said the school board should be ashamed: This worksheet was given to students in @BrowardSchools. I cannot begin to express how pathetic I find this. Our schoolboard should add this...

If the world doesn’t make “rapid” and “unprecedented changes in all aspects of society,” a UN report warned this month, the effects of climate change will be dramatic and far-reaching - and not in some distant future, in the next 20 years. Even now, though, in most schools, climate change is still just starting to make its way into classrooms, and many teachers don’t have the training or the resources they need to teach it. On a hot, sunny day, right in the middle of August, a couple of teachers from Martha’s Vineyard sat at picnic tables in the shade...