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Tag: middle school

  • Super-Potent Meth In Texas Can Be Absorbed Through Skin

    A highly-potent strain of meth has been discovered in a Texas middle school, and authorities say it’s so strong it can be absorbed into the skin if one comes into contact with it.

    The liquid drug was found at Blocker Middle School in Texas City, where six girls ingested it by dabbing it onto pieces of paper which they dissolved on their tongues, similar to the way some acid can be taken. School officials say the girls started “freaking out” and acting delirious, and were soon taken to a hospital for evaluation. The town’s residents say they’re shocked that the drug would be found on kids of that age, and are frightened for what this new potent form of meth could mean for the future.

    “If it was my child I’d be extremely upset,” Sheriff Henry Trochesset said.

    All six girls have been suspended and may be sent to an alternative school. For now, local authorities are focusing on finding out where the girls got the drug and say it more than likely came from outside the county.

    “They’re not all bad girls,” said Danielle Allgood, a local parent. “I mean one of them I’ve known for quite some time. I mean I would have never expected it. She didn’t seem like a bad girl. She’s always been very sweet, very respectable, very involved in sports.”

    Image: Thinkstock

  • School Bus Overturns Near Kansas City

    School Bus Overturns Near Kansas City

    This afternoon around 1:00 pm, a school bus overturned near Kansas City, Missouri. On board was a group of sixth grade girls from Pembroke Hill School, a private school in Kansas City.

    When the bus made a sharp turn too fast around a highway ramp, the bus overturned and left many of the middle school girls with non-life threatening injuries. The bus driver was also injured. It is not yet clear as to what caused the bus driver to loose control.

    Many of those who were injured had minor cuts and scrapes, bruising or broken bones. However, a couple of the students did have concussions and one had a spinal injury. They were all sent to Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo.

    On duty in the emergency room at the children’s hospital this afternoon was doctor Denise Dowd, who earlier today said, “Good news so far. We received four patients, all with minor bumps and bruises, and it looks like they’re doing OK at this point. Nothing major.”

    The girls were on their way to a campout in Northeast Kansas. The trip was set up through the school and was for the incoming sixth graders to enjoy a bonding experience before the school year began. Following behind was another bus, containing the boys attending the campout. This bus was not involved in the crash.

    Those students who were not injured were transported to Bonner Springs High School where they anxiously awaited to be picked up by their parents.

    Two hours after the crash, two large trucks were able to push the bus back up onto its correct side.

  • Middle-School Principal Charged in Locker Room Recording

    A principal charged with encouraging her daughter to secretly videotape conversations inside a high school locker room could face up to 20 years in prison and a $20,000 if convicted of the crime. Wendee Long, principal of Wayside Middle School in Fort Worth, Texas, turned herself over to authorities on Monday. She was soon released after posting a $25,000 bond, according to MSNBC.

    The charges stem from Long’s suggestion that her daughter hide a cell phone in a locker room during an away game to record the actions of her basketball coach, who is rumored to be excessively hard on the team. Although Long’s daughter was in the room at the time of the alleged recording, the incident is still considered to be the same as wiretapping. In addition to the investigation by Forth Worth authorities, school officials intend to look into the incident, as well.

    Although such recordings are considered illegal, the principal’s attorney seemed to be genuinely shocked by the charged levied against Long. “Wendee and I are both surprised and disappointed at the actions of the Denton County Grand Jury last week,” Long’s lawyer said in a statement on Tuesday. “Wendee maintains, and I agree, that she has not violated any law. We do not believe anything has taken place that should involve the justice system. However, now that we find ourselves in the system we are confident that Wendee will be cleared of any wrong doing.”

    Given that Long has been the principal at Wayside Middle School for over five years, you’d think she would realize this sort of behavior would reflect negatively on her as both a mother and a school official. The fact that she seems to stand behind her actions is a little peculiar, particularly when she’s had plenty of experience working behind-the-scenes within the public school system. I’m definitely curious to see how this story unfolds.

  • Addressing The Problem Of Bullying On Facebook

    Yesterday, Tony Orsini, my son’s middle school principal sent a blunt letter to all parents telling us that we should ban social networks for our middle school children. I was unsure whether it was acceptable for me to print the latter when I got it, but our New York CBS TV station had a headline today, "NJ Principal Asks Parents To Ban Social Networking" in which it prints the whole letter. You should read it for yourself. I respect Tony, but he’s wrong on this one.

    Before I comment on the letter, I want to tell you a little bit about its author, Tony Orsini. I can’t say that I know him very well, but all four of my kids attended his Ridgewood New Jersey middle school and he is a good principal. He is passionate about what’s right for his students, and I guarantee you that every word in his letter is built on what he believes is right.

    I just think he is misguided on this one. And it is very understandable how that happens, because it happens to all of us when faced with new technology. Because the technology is the thing being injected into our otherwise settled equation, it feels right that the technology is the problem, when we are our own worst enemies. It’s not the technology. It’s us.

    Think about it. Tony points out that Facebook and other social networks have become the newest venues for bullying, which is an incredibly serious problem. But the issue isn’t where the bullying is happening. The issue is the bullying. Let me make this point with a personal story.

    Even though I am older in dirt, I was in sixth grade once myself. My family had moved from another state and I was "the new kid." I was short and scrawny–a patsy. I was the easiest victim they’d ever seen, so the other boys in my grade bullied me for well over a year at every recess every school day.

    One day, in seventh grade, I decided that I wasn’t going to subject myself to it anymore, so when everyone else went to play at recess, I just plopped myself down away from the other kids and did not move from there. A teacher who had apparently never noticed the bullying going one for months noticed me today and asked me what was wrong, so I told her. At that point, the school cracked down on the kids and my life got better.

    Schools have changed a lot since I was 12. They now take bullying extremely seriously and no kid would go through what I did, because the kids are told that the adults care about this problem and that they can be approached. I never knew that anyone would care if I told them and the bullies had made it clear that that wasn’t my best strategy. So, I wasn’t intending to tell someone about my problem when I removed myself physically from the bullying. I had taken Tony’s solution. Instead of addressing the problem, I canceled my own recess.

    So, I understand where Tony is coming from. If they are bullying you at recess, cancel recess. If they are bullying you in Facebook, cancel Facebook. But that was my solution as a 12-year-old. Fortunately, the adults, the teachers and other educators, have spent the last 40 years figuring out how to stop bullying without canceling recess. And as far as I can tell, it has been highly effective. The teachers try to monitor bullying behavior more than they once did, yes, but the main thing they do is to empower the victims of bullying by telling them what to do when it happens. And they also drill into kids from an early age that bullying is unacceptable. And it works. Without canceling recess.

    The truth is that although Facebook seems like this brave new world to us oldsters (and in some ways it is), it doesn’t repeal the laws of human behavior. The problem is not bullying on Facebook. The problem is bullying. 40 years ago, many teachers said things like "boys will be boys" over this problem because they felt helpless about what they could do to stop it. It is understandable that we might feel a bit helpless about cyber-bullying now, but canceling Facebook is not the solution.

    Instead, we must accept that bullying is unacceptable no matter where it happens. And we must accept that in the real world or the cyberworld, adults can’t always monitor what kids do. And we must accept that this technology will be used no matter what we want. At what age is Facebook OK? How do children learn how to act appropriately online? We must step up to teach them and we must emphasize that they are accountable for what they do online as well as everywhere else. And we must emphasize that we care what happens to them online, just as we do everywhere else. Canceling Facebook is just drawing a line that cannot hold.

    Having said that, i have no issue with parents who want to follow Tony’s advice. That might be the right approach for your kid. But it can’t be right for every kid. There are plenty of mature eighth graders that can handle Facebook, just as there are probably some ninth graders that can’t. Each parent can make that decision based on their own kid. If Tony’s letter helps parents reclaim their confidence to make that decision, good. But if his letter just scares everyone into thinking that putting our heads in the sand will keep the cyber-bullies away, that would be a shame.

    It’s easy to demonize Facebook for cyber-bullying. It’s harder to address the problem of student behavior, whether it happens online or off. But just as 40 years ago we ignored the problem offline, we have learned enough to know that we must confront bullying wherever it happens. On Facebook, too.

    Thanks for raising the issue, Tony. I know it comes from a good heart. I just think we need to take a different approach.

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