Police Boss Says No To DARE In Suffolk County

Suffolk County's police department is dropping DARE, the widespread school anti-drug program that has faced questions about its effectiveness, the police commissioner said. Commissioner Richard Dormer said Thursday he aimed to replace DARE with another drug-prevention program, but some local lawmakers objected to the idea. After nearly 20 years in Suffolk County, DARE isn't working, Dormer told local lawmakers Thursday. The program's 26 police officers teach fifth- and seventh-graders about the dangers of drugs, spending an hour a week in a given classroom for 10 weeks.
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Revolution, punishment and the afterlife (forum posts)

Afterlife Knowledge
what punishments do you think would work in school
A Revolution Update
We're not a Minority
Lonely?

Convincing your parents to consider alternative schooling

Something new from the wiki: Convincing your parents or legal guardian to consider alternative schooling (or no schooling at all for that matter) is tricky, but if done efficiently it may be one of the prime factors that decides your fate and whether or not your parents will back you on any decisions you make yourself.
http://wiki.school-survival.net/Convincing_Parents

Online Pedo Threat Grossly Overestimated

The Internet may not be such a dangerous place for children after all. A task force created by 49 state attorneys general to look into the problem of sexual solicitation of children online has concluded that there really is not a significant problem. The findings ran counter to popular perceptions of online dangers as reinforced by depictions in the news media like NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” series.
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Man forces kids to walk 10 miles in below freezing weather

A man in Idaho is charged with second degree murder after forcing his two children ,11 and 12. to walk 10 miles in -4 degrees centigrade (25 degrees Fahrenheit) weather. The single father of two was driving his children to see their mother when they hit a snow drift. Instead of waiting it out in the car he told his children to walk the remaining 10 miles to their mother's house.
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Compassion, factory work and good teachers (forum posts)

(Long time no forum update, sorry 'bout that)
Unconditional Love
The Elements of a Good Teacher
They are even forcing us to work in factories?
Feeling compassion toward your enemies...

Parents upset after teacher asks students to shave his face

Young girls say teacher had them shave his beard, then told them not to tell anyone about it. Mr. McLane had the class participate in a face-shaving activity with an electric razor as a story starter for a writing assignment. He later instructed the students that if they told they would not have a Christmas Party. Dr. Julia Johnson, a licensed educational psychologist in Southern California, said the event could lead to deep anxiety and confusion among the children in the classroom.
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‘Obsessed’ teacher charged with rape of teen

A married South Shore teacher was so "obsessed" with a teen boy she had sex with him on his kitchen floor, in the shower and in the living room and it all began when he was 13 years old, prosecutors said today. The alleged victim, now 16, said they had sex a total of 300 times - "possibly every other day," according to a police report obtained by the Herald.
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6-year-old drives himself to school... almost

The parents of a six-year-old boy in the US have been charged with neglect after the boy drove their car for 10km in an attempt to get to school on time. Police in Virginia said the boy, who was not named, took the keys to the car after he missed the school bus. He drove for six miles (10km) on major roads, weaving through traffic and overtaking slower cars, before losing control and going off the road.
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Traditional fairytales 'not politically correct'

Favourites such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella and Rapunzel are being dropped by some families who fear children are being emotionally damaged. A third of parents refused to read Little Red Riding Hood because she walks through woods alone and finds her grandmother eaten by a wolf. One in 10 said Snow White should be re-named because "the dwarf reference is not PC".
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Four-year-old shoots babysitter who 'stood on his foot'

Police said Nathan Beavers, 18, and several other teenagers were looking after a number of young children at a mobile home in Jackson, Ohio, when the shooting occurred. The child, identified by local media as Ethan Crisp, was apparently angry after Mr Beavers trod on his foot, witnesses said, and stormed off to his bedroom saying he was going to get a gun. Those present assumed he was going to fetch a toy. But the toddler reappeared clasping a shotgun taken from a bedroom cupboard and fired at Mr Beavers.
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The new £4.7m school that won't call itself a 'school'... because it has 'negative connotations'

It has 500 pupils, scores of classrooms, a headmistress, staffroom and playground. But woe betide anyone who refers to Watercliffe Meadow as a school. The word has been banished since it opened in September - because of its 'negative connotations'. Instead it is to be known as 'a place for learning'. Its head hopes the change will help 'de-institutionalise' the school.
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How to make a resume

Ayliana wrote a guide on how to write a good resume or CV, especially if you have no college experience. Also created a new section for it, about Alternative Jobs & Income Sources... so that means there will be more stuff added in there eventually.

Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Finds

Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today. The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a "virginity pledge," but that the percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers.
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CCTV used to 'spy' on pupils in schools

The surveillance equipment is in use in around 85 primary and secondary schools and colleges across the country. Classwatch, the company behind the system, says it is being used as a way to monitor children who are disrupting lessons. The firm said the equipment, which is sold with evidence bags approved by the Crown Prosecution Service to store material for court cases, can be used to compile "proof" of wrongdoing.
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No Divorce Until You Reach Puberty

An eight-year old Saudi Arabian girl who was married off by her father to a 58-year-old man has been told she cannot divorce her husband until she reaches puberty. Lawyer Abdu Jtili said the divorce petition was filed by the unnamed girl's divorced mother in August after the marriage contract was signed by her father and the groom. "The judge has dismissed the plea because she [the mother] does not have the right to file, and ordered that the plea should be filed by the girl herself when she reaches puberty," lawyer Abdullah Jtili told the AFP news agency.
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Police Are Allegedly Assaulted By A 12-Year-Old Girl

It was a little before 8 at night when the breaker went out at Emily Milburn's home in Galveston. She was busy preparing her children for school the next day, so she asked her 12-year-old daughter, Dymond, to pop outside and turn the switch back on. As Dymond headed toward the breaker, a blue van drove up and three men jumped out rushing toward her. One of them grabbed her saying, "You're a prostitute. You're coming with me." Dymond grabbed onto a tree and started screaming, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy." One of the men covered her mouth. Two of the men beat her about the face and throat. As it turned out, the three men were plain-clothed Galveston police officers who had been called to the area regarding three white prostitutes soliciting a white man and a black drug dealer.
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Children forced into cell-like school seclusion rooms

A few weeks before 13-year-old Jonathan King killed himself, he told his parents that his teachers had put him in "time-out." "We thought that meant go sit in the corner and be quiet for a few minutes," Tina King said, tears washing her face as she remembered the child she called "our baby ... a good kid." But time-out in the boy's north Georgia special education school was spent in something akin to a prison cell -- a concrete room latched from the outside, its tiny window obscured by a piece of paper.
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Man throws shoes at Bush in Iraq

A man threw his shoes at President George W. Bush and was dragged away by security officials during the president's farewell trip to Iraq. The incident occurred as Bush was appearing Sunday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Bush ducked and wasn't hit by either shoe. Bush joked, saying that all he can report was that it was a size 10 shoe. then calmly took questions.
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32 graves at centre of investigation into Florida reform school

AN investigation has been opened into 32 anonymous graves at a Florida reform school after claims that young orphans and tearaways were flogged and tortured to death by guards. Former residents of the Florida School for Boys in Marianna believe that the shallow graves, which date to the 1950s and 1960s, contain the crushed skulls and broken bones of fellow inmates, and that staff meted out brutal punishments to boys as young as 8 for “crimes” such as singing or eating an extra pancake at breakfast.
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Teacher Throws Fit Over Student's Linux CD

In an age where Windows and OS X reign supreme, it's no wonder that a middle school teacher became enraged after discovering one of her students distributing what she believed to be bootlegged copies of an operating system in class. While teacher "Karen" was clearly operating under the assumption that she'd scored a minor victory for the Microsofts and other downtrodden software giants of the world, the particular operating system that she ended up disciplining her student for was a freely distributable version of Linux.
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School autopsy tours canceled

For the first time in nearly a decade, the Oakland County Medical Examiner's Office isn't offering public school tours this year after a bizarre coincidence this past spring in which a high school group from Waterford watched the autopsy of a 14-year-old girl from the same district.
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Pelahatchie Students Claim Girl Possessed By Devil

Students at a Pelahatchie high school said, for three days this week, a girl there spoke in tongues and made grave predictions for her classmates. Some of those predictions included when students would die. Pelahatchie High School students called the 16 WAPT newsroom convinced that an evil spirit had taken over Lashundra Clanton. "It was disturbing to a lot of students," Pelahatchie sophomore Rob Sparks said.
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Thinking, college degrees and unschooling curriculums (forum posts)

Thinking
Alternatives to college degrees?
Unschooling "Curriculums"

School-Free: Alternative education around the world

There doesn't seem to be much easy-to-find info on school alternatives in countries that aren't the US... So we now have a wiki dedicated to this purpose. It will probably grow slowly, and mostly based on what people can tell us from personal experience. So if you know anything about education alternatives in your country (or any country), please edit the wiki and add everything you know, as well as links to further info, etc. (Ignore the fact that it still has the default theme - I'll make it pretty later. For now info is more important.)