Of course, I'll be alseep by ten.
The Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton uses electric shocking devices similar to this for many of its students. (JOHN TLUMACKI/GLOBE STAFF/FILE 2006)
This from the Boston Globe.
Hamilton County high school students share their thoughts about the incident involving Fishers High School Principal Scott Syverson:Charges may yet be filed in the case of Fishers High School Principal Scott Syverson, who a week ago was stopped and then driven home by a Fishers police officer, even though police said Syverson failed roadside sobriety tests.
Hamilton County [Indiana] Prosecutor Sonia Leerkamp [told the Indianapolis Star] Friday that she could complete her investigation by the end of next week. The prosecutor and the Hamilton Southeastern School Board and superintendent initiated investigations after Fishers police revealed Thursday, following inquiries from news media, that the principal was considered to be drunk when a police officer stopped his weaving car just after 1 a.m. Dec. 22 and then drove him safely home. There was no arrest and no police report of the incident.
Board President Jeff Sturgis said the board's investigation shows Syverson had left a party hosted by Superintendent Concetta Raimondi two hours before his traffic stop and continued drinking elsewhere....
...Superintendent Raimondi, who is leading the district's investigation into Syverson's conduct that night, was out of town Friday and could not be reached for comment.Sturgis, the School Board president, said members recognized the potential conflict involved with the superintendent's investigation into drinking that may have occurred at her home.Sturgis said he and the board members also are gathering information, however, including the details that show Syverson had been drinking elsewhere, too.
• "It sends a message that is against what they tell us we can and can't do. I'm shocked that the police let him go. I'm wondering what was up with that. . . . It seems that something should happen to him, even if he wasn't arrested. . . . I talk to him a lot, and he is one of the administrators I like the most. But everyone is going to give him a hard time after this."Kevin Schlatter, 16, Fishers HighFor many Hamilton County high school students, Friday's lesson was hypocrisy -- with an introduction to irony.
• "Just by him getting away with it shows that he tried to use his power. If he tries to send that message to us, I don't know if anyone can take it serious anymore," especially considering how alcohol and drug warnings are frequently given to students. "They have us attend these convocations about drinking and drug use before the prom, so it's kind of ironic that this would happen."Craig Murray, 17, Fishers High
• "I've heard a bunch of students from HSE (neighboring Hamilton Southeastern High School) making jokes about it."Josh Heltsley, 17, Fishers High
• "I think it is unfair that he got off because anyone else would have gotten a DUI, and yet they let him go because of who he was."Chris Rogers, 16, Hamilton Southeastern High, Fishers
• The lesson was that "if you know certain people, you will get off. . . . Now, maybe kids who are better off will think they can get away with things, too."Daniel Porter, 16, Carmel High School---
Daniel Porter, 16, who attends Carmel High School, said his classmates had heard
about it, too. The lesson, he said, was that "if you know certain people, you will get off." "Now, maybe kids who are better off will think they can get away with things, too."
It's day three of our undercover investigation here in Bowling Green, Kentucky -- population 50,000. Our first guest arrives at noon, right on time. Jeremy Todd West, 27, pulls in the driveway and our decoy invites him in.
Decoy: Hey.West: How's it going'?Decoy: Good. How are you?West: Tired.
Calling himself bandit8077, he starts chatting online with a decoy posing as a 13-year-old girl. After only about 20 minutes he says he'd like to meet. Two days later he asks her this...
During the first attorney general sting in Louisville about a year ago, seven men were arrested. All were convicted of a felony.
During the second sting last April -- again with Dateline not present –- 11 men arrived at this house in northern Kentucky.
And all 11 were arrested.
One man has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial. The other 10 have pleaded guilty.
Greg Stumbo: We know that-- that predators are now saying, "We're not coming to Kentucky. They're watching for us. So Kentucky’s kids are safer.”
FRANKFORT --A 3 percent budget cut means a $34.5 million hit to the state university and community college system, which includes $10 million at the University of Kentucky.Or, one might suggest, the problem was actually caused when the legislature and the governor failed at long term planning in favor of satisfying more immediate concerns.
While Kentucky's public schools will be spared from the budget cut that Gov. Steve Beshear announced Thursday, the state's public colleges and universities will be looking for ways to trim expenses in the short term and seeking out new strategies to meet long-term goals...
...Jon Draud, the state's new education commissioner, said the cut will cause the Kentucky Department of Education to eliminate about $11.5 million that had been appropriated for grants but hasn't been spent.
Draud, a former Republican state representative from Edgewood in Northern Kentucky, said he empathized with Beshear having to grapple with a shortfall that is "not his fault or Ernie Fletcher's," referring to the previous governor, who lost to Beshear in November.
Draud said the biggest problem caused by the state shortfall is "you can't do a lot of long-range planning." ...
Today's Indianapolis Star decried the decision that excused a high school principal Scott Syverson from arrest for drunk driving. Syverson was stopped shortly after 1 a.m. Saturday while driving home from a Christmas party hosted by Hamilton Southeastern Schools Superintendent Concetta Raimondi. According to Fishers Police Chief George Kehl , he should have been arrested and taken to jail. A breath test showed him at twice the legal limit.Matter of principal: No arrestwas big mistakeOur position: The public was badly served by an officer's decision not to arrest a high school principal accused of driving drunk.No one accused of drunken driving should ever get the breaks that Fishers High School Principal Scott Syverson received last weekend.Syverson, according to Fishers Police, badly failed a roadside sobriety test after he was stopped for driving erratically at 1 a.m. Saturday. The high school educator, a leader of impressionable teens, recorded a blood-alcohol content of 0.18 percent on a portable breath test, more than twice the legal limit.Syverson should have been immediately arrested. He should have been hauled to jail. He should now be facing a court date on charges that could carry a heavy fine, possible prison time and the loss of his license.
Instead, Fishers Police Officer Kevin Kobli simply gave Syverson a ride home. He was allowed to sleep off in his own bed the evidence of a dangerous crime. Kobli even drove Syverson's wife back to the scene to retrieve the car....
Gov. Steve Beshear said the budget outlook is so dire that he's asking state agencies and universities to find ways to cut 3 percent of their budget for the rest of the year.
The move comes as state revenue projections have shrunk by several hundred million dollars over the last year, leaving the state with a $289 million gap in this fiscal year, which ends June 30.
The financial situation is "much worse than anticipated," Beshear said.
Beshear gave details about Kentucky's budget at a 1 p.m. press conference and said he would offer more about how he planned to tackle it next week. He acknowledged that he has asked state agencies to come up with ways to skim 3 percent off their current budget...
This from H-L's PolWatchers blog.
Just this morning the Courier-Journal was asking,
Apparently Beshear did not blame Fletcher. But then again, he didn't have to. Kentuckians know the score.It is possible to blame Ernie Fletcher for some of the budget dilemma that Steve
Beshear faces -- a dilemma the new governor calls "dire," and a circumstance he
rightly describes as "serious disarray." ......When Gov. Fletcher and the lawmakers did tax reform, they could have established a base that would finance essential services. Instead, they opted for "tax reform lite" and continued to pass structurally unsound budgets. The General Assembly continued to raid the trust and agency accounts, and kept right on approving each other's pet projects in order to agree on a budget bill.
It was the lawmakers who gave teachers bigger raises than Dr. Fletcher proposed, which is fine, but they didn't incorporate that and other big spending into a budget plan that really would stand the test of time or the pressure of lagging revenue. Add the looming demands of Medicaid financing and public employee pension funding and what you get is a mess...
The Center for American Progress has released a study of principal compensation which views performance pay for principals as a necessary precursor to merit pay for teachers.Principal Compensation:More Research Needed on a Promising ReformSchool reforms and improvements depend crucially on the implementation of strategies at the school level—from human resources to curriculum to parent involvement. And the successful implementation of these strategies in turn depends largely on principal leadership.
Few studies link principal attributes directly to student achievement, and of those that do, some are methodologically limited by data constraints. Tracing the impacts of principals on student achievement is also difficult because their actions may affect students through both direct and indirect avenues. For example, principals may directly affect students through curricular choices and indirectly affect them through hiring decisions that determine the quality of teachers in their schools. Despite these constraints, it is clear that principals have a profound influence: They play a crucial role in shaping their schools’ environments, which in turn influences the quality of
teachers in them.
Given the importance of principals, and the role of compensation in determining the quality of people who opt to pursue this career path, it is striking how little is known about the structure of principal compensation. We know how much principals are paid nationally on average and relative to teacher salaries, and how this has changed over time. Yet we have only a scattershot picture of issues such as the extent to which principal compensation is linked to specific principal credentials or characteristics, or covered by collective bargaining agreements; whether principals are financially rewarded for taking tough leadership assignments; and whether there is a link between their compensation and measures of their performance...
The measure will provide $13.9 billion to the Title I program for disadvantaged students, an 8.6 percent increase over the $12.8 billion appropriated for the program in fiscal 2007. But the amount is about 2 percent less than what was proposed for the program in a bill vetoed by President Bush in November.
By contrast, the Reading First program was cut significantly under the legislation, dropping from $1 billion last year to $393 million in fiscal 2008. That is slightly more severe than the $400 million proposed for the program in the vetoed spending bill.
Reading First, one of President Bush’s highest priorities under the No Child Left Behind Act, came under fire in a series of highly critical reports over the past 15 months by the Education Department’s inspector general that found favoritism for certain textbook publishers and other management problems in the program’s early years...
BARBOURVILLE, Ky. — In the 18 years he has been visiting nursing homes, seeing patients in his private practice and, more recently, driving his mobile dental clinic through Appalachian hills and hollows, Dr. Edwin E. Smith has seen the extremes of neglect...
...Dr. Smith has a rare window on a state with the highest proportion of adults under 65 without teeth, where about half the population does not have dental insurance. He struggles to counter the effects of the drastic shortage of dentists in rural areas and oral hygiene habits that have been slow to change.
“The level of need is hard to believe until you see it up close,” said Dr. Smith, who runs a free dental clinic at a high school in one of Kentucky’s poorest counties. He also provides free care to about half of the patients who visit his private practice in Barbourville.
Kentucky is among the worst states nationally in the proportion of low-income residents served by free or subsidized dental clinics, and less than a fourth of the state’s dentists regularly take Medicaid, according to 2005 federal data...
Parents Defend School’s Use of Shock Therapy
Nearly a year ago, New York made plans to ban the use of electric shocks as a punishment for bad behavior, a therapy used at a Massachusetts school where New York State had long sent some of its most challenging special education students.
But state officials trying to limit New York’s association with the school, the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton, southwest of Boston, and its “aversive therapy” practices have found a large obstacle in their paths: parents of students who are given shocks.
“I understand people who don’t know about it think it is cruel,” said Susan Handon of Jamaica, Queens, whose 20-year-old daughter, Crystal, has been at Rotenberg for four years. “But she is not permanently scarred and she has really learned that certain behaviors, like running up and hitting people in the face, are not acceptable.”
Indeed, Rotenberg is full of children who will run up and hit strangers in the face, or worse. Many have severe types of dysfunction, including self-mutilation, head banging, eye gouging and biting, that can result from autism or mental retardation. Parents tend to be referred there by desperate education officials, after other institutions have decided they cannot keep the child.
While at Rotenberg, students must wear backpacks containing a device that allows a staff member to deliver a moderate shock to electrodes attached to the limbs, or in some cases palms, feet or torso, when the students engage in a prohibited behavior.
Both the children’s parents and a court must consent to the shocks.
Michael P. Flammia, the lawyer for Rotenberg, defended the practice in an interview.
“People want to believe positive interventions work even in the most extreme cases,” he said. “If they did, that is all we would use. Many of these kids come in on massive dosages of antipsychotic drugs, so doped up that they are almost comatose. We get them off drugs and give their parents something very important: hope.”
But for state officials, many behavior experts and even some former Rotenberg parents, the shock therapy at the school represents a dangerous, outdated approach to severe behavioral problems, reminiscent of the electric shock helmets used on some autistic patients into the 1980s and now discredited...
Once again this year the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) will track Santa Claus' journey from the North Pole beginning at 4 a.m.There you have it. NCLB's twisted logic and the resulting rejection of an otherwise worthy ideal, exposed in a nutshell.Olney: "What's the point of setting targets that are so difficult to meet that it might be impossible?"
Claussen: "Well, I think, myself, that that's really silly. We ought to set targets, and I believe that they ought to be mandatory. But they have to be something that is possible to achieve. Otherwise, the currency is worth nothing. I mean, you say you're going to do things, and you never do them."
"Education Trust has finally admitted that "every child proficient in reading and math by 2014" is much better as a slogan and aspiration than as the operating principle for a serious accountability regime.
It's the classic overreach, the epitome of excess. This pronouncement-cum-policy has encouraged states to play games: mucking around with "n-sizes" and "confidence intervals" to avoid the "every child" component, racing to the bottom with their definitions of "proficiency," and back-loading their timelines in the expectation of a miracle in the last year or two before the 2014 deadline.
Ed Trust appears to have gotten the picture. Regarding "every child," its proposal would allow states with high standards (those that indicate readiness for college and work) to aim for 80 percent of students in every subgroup achieving proficiency rather than 100 percent. (Ninety-five percent of students would have to achieve a "new basic" level, "indicating preparation for active citizenship, military service, and entry into postsecondary education or formal employment training.") Furthermore, it would differentiate between those schools that miss their performance targets by a mile and those that fall short by a few inches."
"Teachers cheered Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton when she stepped before them last month at an elementary school in Waterloo, Iowa, and said she would “end” the No Child Left Behind Act because it was “just not working.”
Mrs. Clinton is not the only presidential candidate who has found attacking the act, President Bush’s signature education law, to be a crowd pleaser — all the Democrats have taken pokes.
Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico has said he wants to “scrap” the law. Senator Barack Obama has called for a “fundamental” overhaul. And John Edwards criticizes the law as emphasizing testing over teaching. “You don’t make a hog fatter by weighing it,” he said recently while campaigning in Iowa.
This was to be the year that Congress renewed the law that has reshaped the nation’s educational landscape by requiring public schools to bring every child to reading and math proficiency by 2014. But defections from both the right and the left killed the effort.
Now, as lawmakers say they will try again, the unceasing criticism of the law by Democratic presidential contenders and the teachers’ unions that are important to them promises to make the effort even more treacherous next year.
“No Child Left Behind may be the most negative brand in America,” said Representative George Miller of California, the Democratic chairman of the House
education committee......Republican lawmakers...say the law intrudes on states’ rights, and...Democrats, ...say it labels schools as failing but does too little to help them improve...
...Even though the candidates hedge their criticism of the law with statements supporting accountability, it is hard to imagine their accepting revisions that fall short of a thorough overhaul — and that could be difficult for Mr. Bush to stomach, said Michael J. Petrilli, a vice president at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. Even Mr. Bush’s catchy name for the law is likely to disappear in any rewrite, he said.
“I can’t imagine that Democrats could write a bill that would satisfy their caucus but not be vetoed by President Bush, at least in the current environment,” Mr. Petrilli said.
Key lawmaker takes over bill tocriminalize teacher-student sexFRANKFORT, Ky. --A key lawmaker will champion proposed legislation that would criminalize sex between teachers and older teens who are not protected by Kentucky's age-of-consent law.
State Rep. Kathy Stein, chairwoman of the House Judiciary Committee, took responsibility for the legislation after its originator resigned to take a job in the Gov. Steve Beshear's fledgling administration.
"Boys and girls, when they have a teacher or an aide in a position of authority, are extremely vulnerable, and they deserve protection from that," she said.
Sexual misconduct allegations led states across the country to take action against the teaching licenses of 2,570 educators from 2001 through 2005, according to a seven-month Associated Press investigation, the results of which were published in October. Young people were the victims in at least 1,801 of the cases, and more than 80 percent of those were students.
In Kentucky, officials handled nearly 100 instances of teacher sexual misconduct over the five-year-period the AP reviewed, ranging from minor violations like using sexual language to more serious, criminal acts such as inappropriate touching and even sodomy and rape...
...The Kentucky legislation would be aimed at adults who abuse their positions of authority to draw teens into sexual relationships. The bill, however, exempts married couples, even when an underage spouse is married to an adult...
OFF LIMITSState should criminalize teacher/student sex
The Kentucky Education Professional Standards Boardreceives at least one complaint every monthabout a teacher having sex with a consenting student
In Kentucky, a public school teacher can have consensual sex with his — or her — 16-year-old student. And for parents who discover their sons or daughters have been in sexual relationships with teachers or coaches, there is no legal remedy.
That must change.
Fortunately, state Rep. J.R. Gray is doing something about it. The Benton Democrat has prepared legislation for the next term of the legislature to make it illegal for teachers, as well as anyone else in a position of trust, to have sex with anyone under age 18. Although Gray won’t be able to introduce the legislation himself, as he has taken a cabinet position in Gov. Steve Beshear’s administration, he has ensured it will be introduced.
Kentucky is behind many surrounding states with this protection. But in those states that have criminalized teacher/student sex, resistance has come from some unlikely quarters.
In Louisiana, the president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers objected to that state’s law. Steve Monaghan asked, “Why are you centering on one group of individuals that has contact with this age group and ignoring legislators who have pages, the clergy and others?”
The short answer is that legislative pages and minor parishioners should also be protected. But public school teachers have a particular responsibility since education is mandatory in the United States. Kids don’t have any choice but to attend, unless their parents can afford private education or can teach them at home themselves.
Under American law, schools serve in loco parentis — in the place of parents. A teacher, especially the president of the state teachers’ union, ought to know this. He ought to, in fact, be the first to insist on the strictest of standards.
Monaghan’s question is based on what he sees as an underlying assumption that teachers are particularly prone to such violations. He said, “It is creating a perceptual problem that we have a monopoly, that educators are somehow the only profession that has this problem.”
Well-publicized cases of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, Protestant clergy and private day care workers provide ample proof that the problem extends throughout society. But the fact is, stories about school teachers, coaches and band leaders having sex with students have become far too common. The Kentucky Education Professional Standards Board receives at least one complaint every month about a teacher having sex with a consenting student.
Most sexual abuse in schools is never reported, according to Whistleblower magazine, which cited statistics to back up that premise. The most exhaustive study to date, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education and published in 2004, revealed that 10 percent of public school students have been targeted with unwanted sexual attention by school employees — with the behaviors ranging from sexual comments to rape. And a study by the American Association of University Women Education Foundation determined that 290,000 public schools students experienced some form of physical sexual abuse by school employees during the decade of the 1990s.
In one study, only two of 225 New York City public school teachers who admitted sexually abusing students lost their teaching licenses, and not one of the cases was reported to police. And in another study, two-thirds of the 159 coaches in Washington who were reprimanded or warned about prior sexual misconduct with players continued teaching or coaching.
With unnerving frequency, the teachers and coaches caught in sexual misconduct with students are popular among students and in their communities, and their targeted victims are often shy and unaccustomed to attention from such high profile people. The teachers frequently break down the barriers slowly, winning trust, and making the students believe they are responsible — and therefore less likely to speak up. And like sexual abusers in other situations, teachers who get away with it repeat the behavior, sometimes for years.
This is not to say that every teacher accused of sexual misconduct is guilty. Students have made false accusations for reasons ranging from not enough playing time on the court to revenge for discipline and even as a twisted prank.Teachers have the right to a presumption of innocence until proven guilty — not only in court, but in public opinion.
Society should honor those who dedicate their lives to teaching, men and women who sacrifice the higher salaries and less demanding work they might otherwise enjoy for the noble calling of molding the next generation. But society must also demand high standards for behavior from those who teach. Teaching is a sacred trust, and it must not be abused.
Sexual contact between teachers and students is an abuse of that trust. Students are in too vulnerable a position to give reasoned consent. The legislature must strengthen the law to protect the young people of the Commonwealth.
"We've had to spend way too much time the past few days deleting comments that don't comply with our comment policy. It's getting old. Therefore, those who comment must now submit a valid e-mail address before their comment will be published."
"I busted five posts this morning. I'm going to do my best to kill the comments [w]here public officials and potential candidates are called "morons" and are the focus of gossip and rumors. Not going to happen. I'll allow criticism all day, but every comment I busted made some decent points except for the name-calling and rumor-mongering. It's a few days before Christmas folks. Make your points, but don't be so darn nasty."
"I'm instituting a new policy on comments, which is that I'll let your comment run as long as you don't needlessly insult someone or call into question someone's honesty or integrity without some kind of justification. There are people who want to post on this blog without giving their names and want to hide behind their anonymity while calling other people's integrity into question.
What's particularly ironic is when, while using anonymity to avoid responsibility for their own behavior, they accuse me or someone else of hypocrisy. I'll just call it hypocrisy squared."
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - Prosecutors have dropped the case against a former Catholic high school principal who was charged with loitering for the purpose of prostitution.
Jefferson County Attorney's Office spokesman Bill Patteson told The Courier-Journal that prosecutors felt the evidence against 50-year-old Paul Schum of Louisville wasn't strong enoughto take to trial.
Louisville police issued a citation against Schum on the night before Halloween after allegedly observing him dressed as a woman hanging around an alley in his car. The neighborhood where he was observed is known for drug trafficking and prostitution.
Police records indicate Schum was wearing an all black leather outfit with fishnet stockings and a pair of fake women's breasts.
According to witnesses, the argument started by a father who approached another student about pushing his daughter while on stage. The one parent (not of the student who pushed) told the father to not talk to a child about that but to take it up with the principal. At that point, two other parents (twin sisters) began yelling and shouting. I had to stop the program and remind everyone to be respectful to the children on stage. However, the yelling escalated further and thus the fight began. The police were called to help by multiple members of the audience as well as a staff member who was directed to call by me. Once the police arrived, only a few people who were actually involved were questioned. However the twin sisters had left the
school property by then.
This from ABC News: Steven Senne/AP Photo.An apparent prank phone call to a Massachusetts special-needs school led to at least two students unnecessarily receiving electric shock therapy treatment, according to a spokesman for the school.
"This [incident] happened, we reported it and we've taken steps necessary so that this doesn't happen again," said Ernest Corrigan, spokesman for the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, where the shock therapy was mistakenly administered. "This was not a normal day at Judge Rotenberg."The prankster, believed to be a former student of the Canton, Mass., school, reportedly posed as a member of the administration and phoned in instructions for shock therapy on Aug. 26, according to a report by the Department of Early Education and Care, the organization that licenses the residential program at the school and is conducting the investigation.
Unaware that the phone call was a prank, school officials delivered 77 shocks to one student and 29 to another, according to the report.
Both victims, males under the age of 22, were seen by medical professionals after the incident and later cleared, according to the school. Only one of the students has remained at the insitution since. The names of the victims have not been released.
"I think it's fair to say that [giving someone] 77 shocks is unusual," said Corrigan. "It is excessive to what is normal protocol. Giving 22 shocks is also excessive." ...
Related Story: School of Shock
Nevertheless, not all the news from this report is good news. For the first time in five years, the number of disciplinary actions for both Part I and Part II Law violations increased slightly.
Fireworks in pocket explode, injuring student
SHE AND FIVE OTHERS AT PHELPS HIGH GO TO HOSPITALPHELPS --A Pike County high school student was injured in an explosion Wednesday that also sent five other students to a hospital as a precaution.
Trooper Scott Hopkins, a Kentucky State Police spokesman, said the 16-year-old girl brought some recreational fireworks to Phelps High School.
About 10 a.m., the fireworks exploded in her pocket as she sat down in a classroom.
The girl's clothes were torn, and she had burns on her legs.
Hopkins said she was taken to Pikeville Medical Center. He did not know the extent of her injuries but said they were not life-threatening...
He started showing up at her lunch table. And then Clayton James allegedly pulled the then-16-year-old student out of her classes at East Carter High School so he could talk to her. Soon Lindsey Savage was receiving e-mails from James, some of which were sexually explicit.
The former school resource officer was arrested by Kentucky State Police in January on charges of official misconduct, and he later pleaded guilty to the charge.
But in a lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in Ashland, Savage and her family says officials with the Northern Kentucky school system should have done more to stop James from harassing Savage from June to October 2006.Moreover, James had allegedly harassed another teenage girl at East Carter High School before he started harassing Savage, the lawsuit says...
...It wasn't until Savage's father called the Kentucky State Police, which initiated the investigation, that school officials told [Grayson Police Chief Keith Hill] ...about the problem. James was then removed from the school.
James pleaded guilty to the charge of official misconduct, a misdemeanor.He was sentenced to 60 days of home incarceration and paid $178 in court costs and fines, court records show...
The Kentucky State Police statement:
Misdemeanor Arrest in Carter County
Kentucky State Police in Ashland have arrested an Olive Hill resident this date following an extensive investigation into inappropriate behavior by a School Resource Officer (SRO) at East Carter High School. Officer Clayton James from the Grayson Police Department had been assigned as the SRO for East Carter High School whereas a complaint was filed by the parents of a 16 year old female student alleging a series of inappropriate emails sent to the female by James from October 16-27, 2006. James sent the emails from the school computer to the female's home computer. The emails contained information that led investigators to believe James had enticed the female to meet him after school.
James was dismissed from Grayson Police Department shortly after the complaint was filed.
James was arrested at his residence without incident and lodged in the Carter County Detention Center.
** The investigation is continuing by Detective Mark Padgett**
Jefferson teachers toughen passwords
Computer passwords will get tougher for thousands of Jefferson County teachers, after two duPont Manual seniors were involved in a scheme to hack into school computers to boost grades, erase absences and post coming tests.
Jefferson County Public Schools is upgrading its password policy and changing teacher log-ins after the breach, said district technology director Cary Petersen.
The district also is looking at using fingerprint scanners on computers and is asking some Manual teachers to verify grades, he said.
The breach occurred when at least one of the seniors, who were not identified by the school district, apparently installed software on his teacher's computer that recorded each keystroke to help determine passwords, according to officials, who are still investigating.
The passwords provided access to the district's student-data system, where one senior improved his grades and erased several tardies and absences.
He also changed an unknown number of other students' grades and absences to divert attention, Petersen said.
The scheme unraveled when an attendance clerk noticed the changes, and when officials discovered that a Web site operated by one of the students was posting tests and quizzes before they had been given by seven teachers.
Those seven teachers had only one student in common...
After months of legal negotiations and a spate of national media attention, the families of five Redwood Middle School students and the Napa Valley Unified School District reached a settlement Friday over claims that the school's no-logos, no-denim dress code violated students’ constitutional rights.
The number of charter schools increased nationally by about 4 percent between 2005 and 2007, a rate of growth that has slowed considerably since the 10 percent increase between 1994 and 1999."Charter schools, like all schools, are difficult to run and need strong leaders. They require a lot from teachers and not all teachers are suited to them. They demand a lot from parents and students. They need as much money as the traditional public schools with which they compete—and they need to prove their merits on the same tests and outcome measures as other schools. Like traditional public schools, they also require strong oversight, both from governing boards and authorizers...They are a significant laboratory in which dedicated reformers can conduct small, powerful experiments to illuminate how to reshape governance, strengthen school culture, improve teaching and learning, and promote accountability and more options for families... charters now need to seize the opportunity that their laboratory status provides and demonstrate their ability to live up to their promise for distinctly different and more effective public schooling.
Junk Food Survey Gives High Marks to Standout States
Oregon and Washington can brag about being most improved when it comes to states with the healthiest school nutrition policies, based on results in a Washington-based consumer-advocacy group’s latest annual report card .For the second year, the Center for Science in the Public Interest graded states on whether they restrict the sale and consumption of sugary sodas and items such as candy and chips purchased from vending machines, school stores, or along with the regular school lunch.
Oregon moved from an F in the group’s 2006 report to an A-minus this year, joining only Kentucky with that grade, the highest achieved this year. Washington state moved from an F to a B-minus...
And with their glasses half-empty, this press release from the Center on Science in the Public Interest who produced the study:
Ensure that all students are proficient by 2014 and set annual state goals to ensure that the achievement gap is closing for all groups of students identified in the law;
Set expectations for annual achievement based upon meeting grade-level proficiency, not based on student background or characteristics;
Hold schools accountable for student achievement in reading/language arts and mathematics separately;
Ensure that all students in tested grades are included in the assessment and accountability system, hold schools and districts accountable for the performance of each student subgroup, and include all schools and districts;
Include assessments that produce comparable results from grade to grade and year to year in grades three through eight and high school, in both reading/language arts and mathematics;
that have been operational for more than one year and have received Full Approval or Full Approval with Recommendations before the state determines AYP based on 2007-2008 assessment results Track student progress as part of the state data system;
and Include student participation rates and student achievement on a separate academic indicator in the state accountability system.
(FRANKFORT, Ky.) – The School Breakfast Scorecard 2007, produced by the national Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), shows that Kentucky ranks in the top 10 among states in the percentage of schools that offer breakfast to students.The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) is the leading national nonprofit organization working to improve public policies and public-private partnerships to eradicate hunger and undernutrition in the United States. FRAC works with hundreds of national, state and local nonprofit organizations, public agencies and corporations to address hunger and its root cause, poverty.Every school should participate in the School Breakfast Program.
States should mandate the provision of breakfast at schools, particularly those with significant numbers of low-income students, and provide state funds to supplement federal funding for the breakfast program.
Schools should make breakfast a part of the school day by implementing universal breakfast programs (breakfast at no cost to all students), and flexible serving methods such as breakfast in the classroom.
USDA should make supplemental federal funding available to school districts for the implementation of strategies to increase participation in the School Breakfast Program.Local outreach and social marketing by schools, advocates, state agencies, school nutrition organizations and USDA are vital to ensuring that all eligible children who wish to are enrolled and participate in school breakfast.
Schools should improve the nutritional quality of school breakfast in order to attract student participation and provide the best nutrition to students.
This by Kevin Eigelbach in the Kentucky Post:Jack Moreland started his tenure as superintendent of the Covington Independent Schools in 2000 as an interim, with a state takeover of the district looming.
He leaves it a better district than he found it, if not a perfect one, said one of his bosses.
Moreland, who announced Tuesday he plans to retire at the end of this school year, gave the district the stability it needed, longtime school board member Jim Vogt said. "He came in a time of turmoil. There was a real sense of people being down, and people leaving.
"The focus he brought was a positive, we-can-do-it kind of attitude, and I think that was contagious."
Moreland was hired as the interim after then-Superintendent James Kemp resigned under pressure from the board. A year before, the state Department of Education had reported that in spite of the district's high spending, its students continued to score poorly on achievement tests.Moreland brought instant credibility because of his role as a founding member of the Council for Better Education, a coalition of districts that pushed equitable state funding for with a landmark lawsuit.
Funding is always a challenge for superintendents, Moreland said, because there's never enough to pay personnel what they're worth. The coalition's efforts resulted in the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990, which The New York Times called the most sweeping and ambitious education reform in the 50 states.
"I don't think I'll ever be involved in anything as significant as that was," Moreland said. "I only had a small part to play, but I'm awfully proud of the part I did play."
Moreland, who was superintendent of the Dayton Independent Schools at the time, was the first plaintiff in the lawsuit that prompted the Kentucky Supreme Court in 1989 to declare the state's school funding system unconstitutional.
When 100 Kentucky superintendents reactivated the Council in 2003, they unanimously voted for him to lead them.
The Kentucky Association of School Administrators named Moreland its superintendent of the year that year. This fall, he was inducted into the Kentucky Civil Rights Hall of Fame.
"It's not hurt us that he's very well respected on the state level," Vogt said.
"Just by dint of who he is ... he was able to find ways to build bridges that maybe weren't there before," Vogt said. "I think that's real important for school systems today, that they not exist in isolation."
Moreland led a reform of the district built around realigning curricula, emphasizing basic reading instruction and increasing opportunities for teachers to get more training. From 2000 to 2006, the overall academic index for the district's elementary schools rose from 47.1 to 66.4. For middle schools, it rose from 39.4 to 49.9 and for high schools from 51.5 to 60.
"We haven't made as much progress as we would like to have made," Moreland said. "However, clearly, we have made significant progress." All-day kindergarten and expanded early reading opportunities stand to help the district make further, long-term gains, Moreland said.
A graduate of Eastern Kentucky and Xavier universities, Moreland began his career in education almost four decades ago as a chemistry teacher in the Newport and Dayton systems. He served as superintendent of the Dayton Independent Schools for 19 years, then was interim president of Northern Kentucky University from 1996 to 1997.
He followed that with another interim job - as chancellor of the technical branch of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System for a year.
He has taught as an adjunct instructor in school administration at Xavier, and is teaching the subject this semester at NKU.
His four-year contract with the Covington board ends with this school year, and he decided not to accept another four-year contract. He would have been 65 when it ended.
"I've been a superintendent for 26 years, and I've got bruises all over my body to prove it," Moreland said. "It's been a great run, but it's a taxing job."
Some of those bruises came in verbal battles with former Kentucky Education
Commissioner Gene Wilhoit.
When Moreland asked the Department of Education for help in 2002, the department responded with a financial audit of the district.
He told Wilhoit of his frustrations at a board meeting in January 2003.
Wilhoit told him he was simply doing his duty to see that every school district in the state has a balanced budget.
The state assigned former school superintendent Dan Branham to the Covington schools for 18 months to help the district solve its budget problems.
"Dan, you say you can't cut your way out of a deficit. Well, I say you can't cut your way into excellence, either," Moreland told him at the board meeting.
Some of the district's financial problems stemmed from efforts to turn its academic problems around, such as spending $400,000 to overhaul its curricula and $300,000 for a security camera system to improve safety.
The district ended the 2003-2004 school year in the black, a year ahead of a state-imposed deadline.
Over the years, Moreland had some intense discussions with his board members, but he never left a meeting feeling he didn't have a chance to express his opinion, he said.
"Whenever you have a board of education, there will be five different opinions," he said. "The Covington board ... we would deliberate and have our say, but in the end, we came together in consensus."
The current emphasis on school accountability, with federal mandates such as No Child Left Behind, isn't all bad, Moreland said.
"In the late '60s and early '70s, when I began my career, I think we had allowed a lot of complacency to come into education," he said. "Just getting to the end of the school year was an end in itself."
But the pendulum has swung too far the other way, he said, so that test scores have become ends in themselves. Many good things that happen in schools never get measured on an accountability score, he said.
He has no plans for his retirement, except to indulge in his love of travel with his wife. "I don't have a real hobby I'm thrilled about," he said. "My hobby has always been school."
