Parents Get a Bill for Kids’ Detention

If your kids are troublemakers, it could one day hit you in the pocketbook. And we’re not talking bail. A New Jersey school has announced plans to charge parents a fee for keeping their kids after school in detention.

The fee would cover the cost of paying a teacher for the after school time, but parents are angry that the district is adding to their financial woes. Continue reading »

School Paper Shut Down for Being Too Honest

Kids were writing stories about teen pregnancy, shoplifting and honor students who drink and do drugs. So did the school call an intervention? No, they shut down the student newspaper.

The Stevenson High School paper has long been regarded as one of the most hard hitting in terms of high school journalism. Earlier this year, an issue on “hooking up” disappeared. Continue reading »

Kid Sues School for Dodgeball Injuries

Apparently using soccer balls for a game of dodgeball in the school gym was a bad idea. A twelve-year-old lost his teeth, and now his parents are suing the school.

Hasn’t he ever heard “if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball?”

When I read the story of the lawsuit over at the NY Daily News, my first reaction wasn’t poor kid (I’m not heartless - that came next). All I could think was “wait, they still play dodgeball in schools?” Continue reading »

Should Boys be Allowed to Wear Skirts?

Back in the age of the dinosaurs, aka 1995, I went to prom with a charming young man. I wore a long, lacy purple dress. He wore a black miniskirt and a baby-doll t-shirt with the words “Prom Queen” stencilled across the chest in frilly lavender script. Guess which one of us got to dance with the captain of the football team? Hint: it wasn’t me.

I guess we were trendsetters, because the New York Times now reports that schools are cracking down on kids’ cross-dressing to proms - or just to class. Are these teens finding a clever new way to stick it to the dress code, or just exploring their honest gender expression? Does it matter?

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School Suspends Indian Girl for Nose Piercing

A cultural ritual for an Indian tween girl in Utah turned into an ordeal for her family when her American school suspended her for it.

The AP reports Suzannah Pabla, whose father is a Sikh born in India (and hence wears a turban although he lives and works in the US), pierced her nose to connect with her Indian roots. Her school called it a violation of a body piercing ban and kicked the girl out of school. Continue reading »

Teens Suspended for Myspace Pages Sue School

Two teen girls took sexually suggestive photos and posted them on Myspace. No surprise there. So why did the school suspend them from sports and force them to make an official apology to the school’s athletic board? Continue reading »

Help in the Hunt for the Perfect College

Your university-bound genius has tackled the SATs and has a GPA that’s nothing to sneeze at.  Now comes the hard part:  finding the perfect college.  You’ve pored over all the well-known guides and narrowed your choice down to an unmanageable 50 or 60 schools.  Sure, name brand universities and an accessible location are a nice start, but how will you know which school will be the right fit for your kid?  Will she be happier at College A or College B?  Help is available at InsideCollege.com. Continue reading »

Schools Take the Scary Out of Halloween Costumes

Last night we took our kids to a trick-or-treat event at a nearby historical village.  Riding with other similarly dressed little girls (read: princesses) on an ancient amusement ride under a red light while watching witches, monsters, and football players running by us in the dark, I was struck by what a magical holiday Halloween is for kids.

Magical, yes, but often scary, too.  There were a lot of princesses and superheros there last night, but there were also costumes that made my kids cringe and hide behind my legs, too.

In the last few years, schools have been making a real effort to include Halloween fun in the curriculum, while at the same time asking parents to limit the blood and gore.
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Parents Late for School Pick Up Pay a Fee

Schools are starting to look more like Blockbuster these days - they’re instituting late fees.

Only where a late drop-off is a problem at the video store, a late pick-up is raising the rates for parents at their local elementary schools. Continue reading »

They Say: Latino Kids Get Head Start on Falling Behind

It sounds like something you’d expect to read in a newspaper from the 50’s: Latino children are not as advanced, academically, as their White counterparts.  Of course, the research done at UCLA, UC Berkeley, and the University of Pittsburgh does not simply say that White kids are inherently smarter than Latino kids; ideas like that were disproved long ago.  Instead, the findings highlight the importance of parents in helping children succeed in school.
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