Schools

Schools, Weird Tales

Teenager Convinces School Officials He’s a State Senator 

UPPER SANDUSKY, Ohio — An 18-year-old who duped Mohawk Local Schools officials, the Wyandot County sheriff, and a car dealership’s general manager into thinking he was a newly appointed state senator said he did it to prove a point about school security.

“These country schools think it can’t happen to them,” said Izaha Akins of Marion. He said he planned to write a paper about it.

Mr. Akins rendered Wyandot County red-faced after he was allowed to speak to a high school American Government class while using his own name and claiming to have been appointed to replace state Sen. David Burke (R., Marysville), who, he told officials, had resigned because of illness.

Authorities said Mr. Akins got a tour of the school and addressed the class at Mohawk High School in Sycamore on Dec. 15.Mohawk Schools Superintendent Ken Ratliff said the young man fooled the teacher, the principal, and apparently everyone else he came in contact with that day.

The fraud only came to light when Senator Burke showed up as scheduled Jan. 14, Mr. Ratliff said. He said they kept the investigation quiet….

Via Man who pretended to be senator charged @ Toledo Blade.

Federal Government, Government Spending, Schools

L.A. schools give up their Federally-funded military weapons

The weapon collection included grenade launchers, a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicle and rifles.

On Feb. 5, the department returned the last of the weapons it had obtained through a Defense Department program that stocked local police departments with surplus weapons and equipment. The district sent the letter to the Labor/Community Strategy Center, a civil rights group, and provided it to The Times.

But on Tuesday, a handful of activists commandeered an L.A. Unified school board committee meeting to demand proof. 

Via L.A. schools have given up the last of their Defense Department-issued rifles @ LA Times.

Schools

Zero Tolerance Madness

Two Escondido, California, high school students—ages 16 and 18—could see their whole lives derailed because they committed the crime of keeping fishing supplies in cars they parked on school property.

The elder teen, Brandon Cappelletti, had three knives in his car: the remnants of a family fishing trip. The knives were used to cut lines and filet fish. The younger teen, Sam Serrato, had a pocketknife in his glove compartment. His father had left it there.

Both teens are facing expulsion. Cappelletti, a legal adult, could serve jail time if convicted of weapons charges, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.…

Via Zero Tolerance: 2 Teens Face Expulsion, Jail for Fishing Knives, Advil in Their Cars @ Hit & Run : Reason.com.

Assault Awareness & Prevention, Crime, Education, Lawsuits, Misconduct, Schools

Public University Mistreats Another Sex Assault Survivor

Second federal complaint against UW-Whitewater in eighteen months:

Raechel-liska-650-jpg
Raechel Liska, aged 22.  Photo from Channel 3000.

“I got assaulted twice,” Liska said. “Once by my attacker, which was the traumatic, horrific part, but again by the school, which was the betrayal.”

Liska said UWW Dean of Students Mary Beth Mackin violated her civil rights by refusing to interview two witnesses and by not accepting either the police report or her medical records stemming from the incident. She also asserts Mackin did not issue a no-contact order against her alleged attacker, even as he retaliated and intimidated her after she spoke to authorities. Further, it was the Army that stepped in and removed her assailant from her classes three months after the incident in question, even after she’d asked the university to do the same multiple times, only to be rebuffed.

“The reason I filed my complaint is because something here needs to change,” she said. “I thought the dean of students would be protecting the students, protecting me. She’s the dean of students. I thought I’d be her priority, but I walked out feeling like protecting the school was her top priority.”

Via Sex assault survivor claims discrimination by university @ WISC-TV Madison, Channel 3000.

Police, Police Brutality, Police Misconduct, Schools

Sheriff’s Deputy Inflicts Pain, Trauma on Disabled Students

A federal lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Children’s Law Center alleging that a deputy sheriff handcuffed two small elementary school students who have disabilities, resulting in pain and trauma, according to a federal lawsuit filed today.

In an extremely disturbing video, school resource officer, Kenton County Deputy Sheriff Kevin Sumner, can be seen handcuffing a sobbing 8-year-old boy, referred to in court documents as S.R. The child is so small that Sumner has to lock the child’s biceps together behind his back. What makes the case even more appalling is that the child has a history of trauma and has been diagnosed with ADHD.

Via The Free Thought Project.

See, also, S.R. V. KENTON COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE @ ALCU.

Food, Regulations, Schools

Demand finds a way

“Kids in a school district in Indiana have created a black market in salt packets, which they trade and sell to help mitigate the disgusting taste of the so-called healthy lunches mandated under federal guidelines. These guidelines were championed by First Lady Michelle Obama. Like so many other clumsy government attempts to make people healthier…

Culture, Free Speech, Schools

Robust speech and its doubters

“Some of the people who support creating such “safe spaces” consider themselves feminists, but I regard them as bad or corrupted feminists at best. Brian Leiter has been calling the current campus culture the New Infantilism. I think it’s an apt term. We’re treating college students as if they were  infants who must be protected,…

Liberty, Nannyism, Photography, Schools

School Bullies Young Photographer

“It turns out that the school’s “acceptable use policy” (AUP) doesn’t clearly apply to the situation at hand. The Lewisville Texan Journal has a wide-ranging account of the mess (which is ongoing) and has posted damning documents of the school’s bullying tactics. The school district’s communications person hasn’t gotten back to folks with pertinent information.…

Crime, Schools

Government makes money (millions) from impoverished children

“Failure to attend school has also become a revenue stream for Texas. In fiscal year 2014, the state assessed fines and court costs of $16.1 million for truancy convictions, even though 79.4 percent of cases that year involved economically disadvantaged students, according to an analysis by the Austin-based social and economic justice advocacy group Texas…

Education, Police, Police Brutality, Schools

“Does tear gas belong in schools?”

The answer is supposed to be no. It’s a question now in court because not everyone sees as much: On Jan. 20, a federal court in Birmingham began hearing arguments in a class-action lawsuit alleging that school-based police officers used excessive force in spraying disabling chemicals on teenagers. The eight lead plaintiffs, all former Birmingham…