Friday, February 08, 2008

Member of the Jena 6 back in trouble

A defendant in the Louisiana "Jena Six" case was arrested on suspicion of slamming a student's head into a bench at his new school in Texas, police said.

Bryant R. Purvis, 19, was arrested on a charge of assault causing bodily injury Wednesday after an altercation at Hebron High School. It began because Purvis believed a student had flattened his tires, Sgt. John Singleton said.


Seems like this kid has anger management issues he needs help with.

Useful info for those of us with college students

Balancing Student Privacy and School Safety: A Guide to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act for Colleges and Universities you can get the guide here.

Another Push Out

A newly arrived Kilgore mother is picketing Kilgore Independent School District after being told her son must remove his two earring studs before attending the school.
Sherrie McGinty said she was informed by Kilgore Intermediate School personnel Thursday that her 10-year-old son, Alexander "Little Berry" McGinty, would need to remove his earrings to attend classes. She and her son moved to Kilgore from Washington a few weeks ago and are living in a hotel while trying to find a place to live, she said.


"We are not living in 1940 anymore," McGinty said, adding that her son's school in Washington did not have a problem with his earrings.

She said she went to the school district's administration building to ask why her son could not have his earrings. She said the superintendent accused her of being argumentative and asked her to leave. She signed some paperwork to homeschool her son and left, returning shortly after with a picket sign.

She probably has a case for discrimination too; as girls are allowed to wear earrings. You can read the rest here.

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

World War I

Great new blog for History buffs WW1: Experiences of an English Soldier .

Carnival of Homeschooling - Acrostic Edition

Beverly's Homeschooling Blog is hosting this weeks Carnival of Homeschooling - Acrostic Edition.

Another reason for the Bitter Homeschooler to be Bitter

Well the Bitter Homeschooler has something else to be bitter about. Not only does she have to contend with idiots implying that homeschooling is somehow wrong/bad parenting/against the law ect., other bloggers have stolen her wish list. Read her post I'd Rather be Hated Than Used at Diary of a Mad Editor.

Deborah Markus, from Secular Homeschooling Magazine wrote The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List. The list probably struck a chord with every homeschooler on the planet. It's been circulated in blogland over and over again, it even got mentioned in Fark, which should have been good news for Deborah Markus and Secular Homeschooling Magazine. But it wasn't, Why? because another blogger had posted the wish list and was getting credit for it. When she asked him politely to not post the whole article and provide a link to her site this was his response.

They hadn't agreed, and weren't going to agree, to my request to trim and link because -- well, had I noticed how many comments had been posted to the bitter wish list's posting? Hundreds. Those were hundreds of people who were staying on their site to talk about what they'd read. (Hundreds of people who should have been at Secular Homeschooling Magazine reading the list)


If they trimmed and linked to mine, that would be all those people leaving their site and going to mine. And they really didn't want that.


What nerve.

Secular homeschooling can feel very lonely sometimes. Deborah Markus was kind enough to start a magazine for secular homeschoolers. She took a lot of flake from religious homeschoolers, many of whom copied the wish list without giving her credit. She has this to say about that.
I sort of expect, or at least can't really be shocked by, the religious bloggers who don't mention my magazine, or mention it but say things like "I don't endorse or support SECULAR Homeschooling Magazine." As I mentioned in my previous posting, I've started to notice that for some people, secular doesn't mean non-religious, it means anti-. It's the "s" word, and they don't like it.


But the offender in this instance was another secular homeschooling family.

Monday, February 04, 2008

Why Homeschool: A public school double standard

Why Homeschool: A public school double standard

Public School Student Kills Family

A 15-year-old boy fatally shot his parents and two younger brothers as they slept, then spent more than 12 hours with friends before returning home and calling 911 to report that his father was dead, police said Sunday

The tall, gangly sophomore at Dulaney High School in neighboring Timonium was denied bail; a bail review hearing was scheduled Monday. He was being held at the Baltimore County Detention Center in a special section for juveniles.