The Archives - September 2009
-
Blog Posts (0)
Bullying laws lack teeth and monitoring
Even though 44 states ban school bullying, enforcement and data collection is deficient. Most states require school districts to have policies that prohibit harassment and bullying. But only a few require data gathering or regular ...
-
Talk Back (1)
Raps & blogs: True threats or protected speech?
The First Amendment grants all Americans freedom of speech, whether oral, written, posted online or through other means of electronic communication. You may be argumentative, rude, insulting or even vile. But our right of free speech ...
-
Blog Posts (1)
Juvenile inmates earn traditional high school diplomas
In what may be the country's first high school graduation behind bars, six teenagers in Arizona received their diplomas in September, 2009. Wearing graduation gowns over their prison-issue striped uniforms, the teens enjoyed "Pomp and Circumstance" ...
-
Blog Posts (0)
ACLU sues Mississippi for abstinence-only event
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit against a Mississippi department in federal court asking the court to end the government funding of Mississippi's abstinence-only-until-marriage program....
-
Talk Back (0)
Sit or stand during “God Bless America?”
Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, baseball parks across the country have played "God Bless America" during the seventh inning-stretch. Many spectators stand, some with their hands over their hearts. The question is, ...
-
Blog Posts (0)
Iowa school ignores Supreme Court ruling on strip-searches
In June, 2009, the Supreme Court said that a search of a student at school requires a "reasonable suspicion of danger" before a search can make "the quantum leap from outer clothes and backpacks to exposure ...
-
Talk Back (1)
Presumed innocent but required to give a DNA sample
That's right - in at least a dozen states persons arrested but not convicted are being swabbed and their DNA sample entered into the FBI's national database. This includes a few states that do the ...
-
Blog Posts (0)
Teen unemployment at a record high
The percentage of teens ages 16 to 19 who wanted to work this summer but couldn't find a job soared to 25% in August, 2009. Reportedly, this is the highest unemployment rate for this age ...
-
Talk Back (0)
Cell phone search leads to expulsion
Honor student Richard Wade is a 12-year-old student at Southaven Middle School in Mississippi. During a football session he received a text message from his father. Thinking it might be an emergency, he read it. ...
-
Blog Posts (0)
Vermont decriminalizes sexting by minors
The Vermont legislature has no interest in sending teens to jail as sex offenders or requiring them to register as such for the rest of their lives. In 2009, they passed a law authorizing first-time ...
-
Talk Back (0)
High school “Hail Mary” takes on new meaning
Kathryn Nurre's "Hail Mary" has nothing to do with football. She went to Henry M. Jackson High School in the state of Washington. Graduation ceremonies featured speakers, musical selections and presentation of diplomas. [caption id="attachment_3170" align="alignleft" ...
-
Blog Posts (1)
Five-year-old voted out of kindergarten!
In a "Survivor-like" vote about his disruptive behavior at school, it was a 14 to 2 vote against Alex Barton. Allegedly, Alex was made to stand in front of his kindergarten class and listen to ...
-
Talk Back (1)
Student suspended for confronting Muslim and saying “Take that thing off your head”
Heather Lawrence is a junior at Springstead High School in Spring Hill, Florida. She is also a member of the Junior ROTC. [caption id="attachment_3055" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="Heather Lawrence and her father Mark Lawrence"]...
-
Blog Posts (0)
Do students have any privacy rights on social networking sites?
Most teenagers today have a Facebook, MySpace or Twitter page to stay in touch with new and old friends. They have the option of keeping their messages limited to their “private” list of friends or ...
-
Blog Posts (0)
Lessons from September 11, 2001
Today, September 11, 2009, marks the 8th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Virginia, and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Approximately 3,000 people lost ...

