Eighteen months ago, on September 3, 2014, a young woman in Saugus, MA saw four disturbing videos in her Snapchat app. The videos were sent to her by a high school friend, Timothy Cyckowski, and they depicted two people sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl in a wooded area. The young woman could hear Cyckowski laughing…
Invisible Target: Breaking the Cycle of Educator Sexual Abuse. Andrea Clemens. 2015. Hickory Nut Publishing. 302 pages. [Source: Review copy from author] In the fall of 1981, Andrea Clemens entered the ninth grade and was upset to find out that one of her instructors was Robert Baker, a science teacher at Norwood Junior High School.…
Three weeks ago, Revere High School senior Caley Godino, the captain of the school’s cheerleading squad, received a tweet from her Civics teacher. The day before, the teacher’s tweet said, the turnout for the Revere city election was a shockingly low ten percent; what did the students think about that? Godino responded before school on…
2015-10-30 Minimizing the Risk of Cybertraps for Educators from Frederick Lane A presentation delivered to the Massachusetts Association of School Personnel Administrators on October 30, 2015 in Shrewsbury, Mass. Earlier in the MASPA meeting, four attorneys from the Office of Professional Practices Investigations in the Legal Office of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary…
I had the pleasure of speaking this morning to students at the Simmons College School of Library and Information Services at the invitation of Assistant Professor Laura Saunders, who is teaching a summer course entitled “Intellectual Freedom and Censorship.” In her syllabus, Dr. Saunders describes the class as follows: This course provides students with in-depth…
The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority has had a tough year. The commuter service was faced with enormous challenges last winter when the region was pummelled by eleven plus feet of snow and by most accounts, the MBTA blew it. By mid-February, the agency’s schedule was in shambles and general manager Beverly Scott was forced to…
A 28-year-old former 5th grade teacher at the Graham & Parks School in Cambridge, Mass. was convicted last Wednesday of possessing child pornography, but was acquitted of a more serious production charge. Josh Wairi, who previously taught in the Somerville School District at the high school and the John F. Kennedy Elementary School, was arrested…
The Boston Globe published a glowing article about Beacon Press, which is celebrating its 161st anniversary this year. The press, under the leadership of director Helene Atwan, recently moved from its historic offices behind the Massachusetts State House on Beacon Hill to a former factory at 24 Farnsworth Street near the city’s Fan Pier. I…
My 30th College Renuion was held at Amherst College at the end of May, and I had the honor of being asked to participate in a panel discussion about the risks facing teens today. Here’s the description from the College Web site: Protecting Vulnerable Adolescents: Cyber-Bullying, Sports-Related Concussions and Other Tough Stuff Saturday, May 30,…
