Friday, May 6, 2011

School free speech fight [Stockton Record, 5/5/11]: A Bear Creek High teacher is fighting for her students' freedom of speech after the school's principal requested to preview the monthly Bruin Voice newspaper prior to publication.

California weighs shorter school year as budgets wane [Sacramento Bee, 5/4/11]: Children in frigid areas have "snow day" school closures. Could students across sunny California face "budget days" in bad fiscal times?

Fensterwald: Most of 13 parcel taxes passed [Thoughts on Public Education, 5/4/11]: If the threshold for passing a parcel tax were 55 percent, as Sen. Joe Simitian and fellow Democrats in the Legislature favor, a baker’s dozen parcel taxes would have passed on Tuesday. Instead, four fell short of the two-thirds majority needed for passage, including two that came within 1 percent of winning.

Court of Appeal overturns Commission on Professional Competence: Soliciting Sex on CraigsList evidences unfitness to teach [School Law Blog, 5/5/11].
San Diego Unif. School Dist. v. Com. on Prof. Competence (4th District, 5/3/11): Frank Lampedusa was terminated by San Diego Unified School District which alleged that he showed evident unfitness for service and immoral conduct. Specifically, the charges were based upon Lampedusa's posting on Craigslist of an ad soliciting sex that contained graphic photos of his genitalia and anus, as well as obscene written text, that was discovered by a parent and reported to the District. The Commission on Professional Competence reinstated Lamedusa, determining that cause for the dismissal did not exist and reinstating Lampedusa's employment. The Court of Appeal overturned the Commission finding there is no substantial evidence to support the Commission's decision as the evidence shows both evident unfitness to serve as a teacher and that Lampedusa engaged in immoral conduct, either of which constituted grounds for termination.

Educating students in remote areas can be costly [California Watch, 5/3/11]: In some very small schools in remote parts of California, the state is paying about $200,000 per student to educate them.

School Districts Call in Cavalry of Consultants to Push Parcel Taxes [Bay Citizen, 4/29/11]: Bay Area school districts, facing increasingly severe budget problems, are turning en masse to one of the few revenue-raising tools at their disposal: the parcel tax.

Walnut Creek man says school ignored son's bullying [Contra Costa Times, 4/26/11]: A Walnut Creek man says bullies on a school football field injured his son -- and that the school has done little about it. Walter Yuhre's formal complaint against the Acalanes Union High School District says administrators did nothing to prevent or stop the bullying and became indifferent after it occurred.

Teach For America seeks critical mass [Thoughts On Public Education, 4/26/11]: There was a point last week during Wendy Kopp’s appearance at the Commonwealth Club of California in Silicon Valley that smacked of the sort of smugness that, I suspect, makes some veteran teachers cringe when Teach For America (TFA) is mentioned.

Districts Consider Even Shorter School Year [California Watch, 4/26/11]: The likelihood is growing that many school districts will have to cut the number of days students spend in class in response to the state's deepening budget crisis, according to state education leaders and experts.

Court Backs Discipline of Student Over Internet Speech [School Law Blog, 4/25/11]: In a case raising novel issues about student speech rights in the Internet era, a federal appeals court has upheld the discipline of a Connecticut student who had harshly criticized school officials in her Web journal.
Ken Paulson of the First Amendment Center comments. The case is Doninger v. Niehoff.

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