It’s a pleasure to be back in lovely Portland Oregon for the second time. I spent one night here last year on a drive from Reno to Seattle, but am here a little longer to attend the 2015 Annual Conference of the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification. NASDTEC has been…
The relatively small town of Bentonville, Arkansas (pop. 40,000+), located in the far northwest corner of the state, has a national profile that belies its size. Most notably, Bentonville is the site of the national headquarters for Walmart, the world’s largest retail company, with annual sales in excess of $250 billion. (If Walmart were an…
School officials in Alameda, California are investigating whether a teacher at Encinal High School actually offered students in his class extra credit if they took a selfie with whatever sex toys and birth control they could find in their parents’ private space. Two mothers of students in the class, Kimberly Cobene and Evangeline Garcia, reported…
On Friday, May 27, the Greenville County School District had the unpleasant task of sending a letter to the parents of 149 students at Mauldin High School and Mauldin Middle School to inform them that a district teacher had traded photographs of their children for child pornography. Meetings were scheduled at Mauldin High School so…
An Oklahoma father’s lawsuit alleges that the Hollis Independent School District in Holland, Oklahoma violated his son’s rights by not preventing sexual activity between him and his teacher, Jennifer Caswell. Some of you may have seen Caswell’s self-serving interview with Dr. Phil McGraw on May 19. The Complaint contains a number of powerful allegations regarding…
An unwelcome explicit photo sent by a 17-year-old to another high school student in Marion, NC has resulted in a multi-town, multi-state investigation into teen sexting. WLOS, an ABC affiliate in western North Carolina, reported on May 29 that the Marion Police Department had charged (or was about to charge) several teens (some as young…
On May 27, a federal lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, NY by the parents of an unnamed female high school student who formerly attended Lev Bais Yaakov High School. The lawsuit (see below) alleges that the student was accused by an unnamed parent of sending a naked photograph of herself…
On May 6, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed into law a bill entitled “The End to Cyberbullying Act,” which among other things broadened the definition of bullying in Georgia to specifically include “cyberbullying.” At its meeting on May 28, for instance, the Cobb County Board of Education adopted a couple of amendments to their existing…
June is typically the month for momentous decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court, and this year’s round of society-shifting decisions is off to a rapid start. In Elonis v. United States, announced on the morning of June 1, the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a man who allegedly threatened his ex-wife (and others) in…
Some visual aids aren’t meant for the classroom. Last week, the investigative Web site The Smoking Gun obtained a copy of a May 18 search warrant application filed by the Newport News Police Department, seeking approval to search a white iPhone owned by Woodside High School teacher Melissa Kidd. According to the warrant application, Three…
