Parents giving up legal rights to their children to get more financial aid exposes deep flaws in U.S. college system

Just months after the college admissions scandal, more evidence has surfaced of the lengths well-off parents will go to get ahead in the college process.

Dozens of parents in the suburbs of Chicago transferred guardianship of their high-school-age children to relatives or friends and then used the new legal status to declare their children as independent for purposes of qualifying for federal, state and institutional financial aid, according to reports ProPublica and The Wall Street Journal published this week.

More >> Parents giving up legal rights to their children to get more financial aid exposes deep flaws in U.S. college system

• Officials look at ways to put end to 'student aid fraud scheme'

NJ SCHOOLS REQUIRED TO SHOW CHILD ABUSE HOTLINE FOR KIDS TO CALL

New Jersey has a new law that requires all schools to post information about the state child abuse hotline in their buildings starting this fall.

“It’s an additional tool for children if they’re suffering abuse and neglect at home or elsewhere. They will then have the information themselves and can make the phone call,” said Christine Norbut Beyer, commissioner of the state Department of Children and Families.

More >> NJ SCHOOLS REQUIRED TO SHOW CHILD ABUSE HOTLINE FOR KIDS TO CALL

School official loses job after letter threatening child custody over lunch debts

The fallout continues from a letter sent by a Pennsylvania school district to parents who owed lunch money debts.

More >> School official loses job after letter threatening child custody over lunch debts

Pennsylvania district sorry it warned that lunch debt could lead to foster care, accepts $22K donation

A Pennsylvania school district is apologizing for threatening students’ parents with possible foster care over unpaid lunch debts and has accepted a donation that will cover the unpaid fees.

More >> Pennsylvania district sorry it warned that lunch debt could lead to foster care, accepts $22K donation

• Pa. School District Reverses Course And Will Now Accept Donations To Cover Lunch Debt
• School district that warned parents of foster care wouldn't let me erase lunch debts, CEO says

Pennsylvania County Says It Will Never Put Children in Foster Care for School Lunch Debt

People in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, were shocked last week when a local school district sent hundreds of letters telling parents who owed lunch money for their children to pay up or else the kids could go into foster care.

“Nobody’s coming to take your kids in the middle of the night,” County Manager David Pedri assured residents on Monday, July 22 on “CNN Newsroom.”

More >> Pennsylvania County Says It Will Never Put Children in Foster Care for School Lunch Debt

After Saying It Would Go Above and Beyond to Educate Its Foster Care Students, Indiana Unveils a Plan That Is Little More Than Bullet Points

hen Indiana released a bleak report this spring on the educational outcomes of students in foster care, it broke new ground in making public the state’s troubling statistics. Only 64 percent of its foster care students graduated from high school; only 9 percent passed the 10th-grade math test. For black students in the system, it was even worse: only 3 percent passed the 10th-grade math test.

Others were shocked, but not foster parents like Kristi Cundiff.

More >> After Saying It Would Go Above and Beyond to Educate Its Foster Care Students, Indiana Unveils a Plan That Is Little More Than Bullet Points

Pay Your Lunch Money or Face Foster Care?

Parents in an area school district call a collection letter a bit heavy-handed. About 1,000 students in the Wyoming Valley West School district owe money on their student lunch accounts.

District administrators say efforts to collect the money have been frustrating. The school system fired off warning letters to parents that the district could take them to court, with one possible outcome of the children being placed in foster care.

More >> Pay Your Lunch Money or Face Foster Care?

Parents furious as schools ban teachers from putting sun cream on pupils over ‘child abuse’ accusation fears

FURIOUS parents are claiming that schools are banning teachers from dabbing life-saving sun cream on pupils as they might be accused of child abuse.

Concerned mums and dads are flocking to sign a petition launched by parent Leigh O'Connor to change the rules and make it a legal duty of care to prevent children being put at risk of an early death from skin cancer.

More >> Parents furious as schools ban teachers from putting sun cream on pupils over ‘child abuse’ accusation fears

Can You Keep a Secret? So Can Your Daughter's School.

Imagine sending your daughter off to school only to find out that she was headed for an abortion appointment instead. Then imagine this: her teachers knew and never told you. In California, parents don’t have to imagine it. Thanks to a new undercover video, they know — it’s already happening.

It’s unreal footage, even by the ACLU’s standards. When the meeting between state teachers and the far-Left group was leaked, most people had a hard time believing it. And that, the team at Our Watch said, was the point. “[We] know what it’s like to say, ‘Okay, well, I heard somebody said this is happening, but I want to see it for myself.’” So the organization sent someone into a training session and pushed “record.” What they caught was a coordinated effort to keep parents in the dark about one of the most dangerous decisions a teenager could ever make.

More >> Can You Keep a Secret? So Can Your Daughter's School.

Mum moved to Wales after adopted children were 'bullied at Swindon school'

A MUM says she was forced to move her two adopted children to Wales after they were bullied at a Swindon school.

The woman, who wished to remain anonymous, spoke out after Adoption UK called on the government for support.

More >> Mum moved to Wales after adopted children were 'bullied at Swindon school'

Adopted children let down by cash-starved schools, research finds

Schools are failing to meet the needs of adopted children because of growing funding constraints and inadequate teacher training, research has found.

The survey by the charity Adoption UK reveals that adopted children often struggle to cope in schools, with significantly higher rates of exclusion – including internal, fixed-term and permanent – than their peers.

More >> Adopted children let down by cash-starved schools, research finds

Kentucky Schools Ask Feds To Pay For Treating Youth With Medicaid

Kentucky schools could soon get assistance from the federal government to help pay for school counselors and other health providers.

Cabinet for Health and Family Services Deputy Secretary Kristi Putnam told legislators Monday that the state is asking the federal government for permission to allow Kentucky schools to bill Medicaid when a school counselor or other health provider treats a Medicaid-enrolled student.

More >> Kentucky Schools Ask Feds To Pay For Treating Youth With Medicaid

Justices Decline to Review Case Involving Strip Search of 4-Year-Old at School

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a case involving the warrantless strip-search at school of a 4-year-old student by a county caseworker looking for evidence of abuse.

The case of I.B. v. Woodard (No. 18-1173) raised several important legal questions for educators, including whether a child welfare caseworker requires a warrant to strip-search a child and whether it was clearly established that such conduct was barred in Colorado under relevant federal court rulings.

More >> Justices Decline to Review Case Involving Strip Search of 4-Year-Old at School

One child, 13 schools: how the foster system disrupts schooling

Growing up, Dylan Puckett estimates he went to more than 13 different schools. As a foster child, he regularly moved to new placements, and with new homes came new schools.

The upheaval made it hard for Puckett to adjust, he recalled at a panel on foster care and education hosted Wednesday by UNCF and the Mind Trust, a nonprofit education group, to raise awareness of the educational challenges facing Indiana foster youth.


More >> One child, 13 schools: how the foster system disrupts schooling

Indiana foster children are less likely to graduate, more likely to be suspended, a new report shows

Indiana now has its first look at how well the state is educating the 9,000 school-age children in foster care, and the findings are discouraging. Foster children are more likely than their peers to attend underperforming schools, and only 64 percent graduate from high school.

More >> Indiana foster children are less likely to graduate, more likely to be suspended, a new report shows

NW Parents Challenge Schools' Handling Of Students With Disabilities

Thousands of times a year, Oregon and Washington students have been physically restrained or isolated from peers. Parents say what's meant as a last resort happens too often, without their knowledge.

More >> NW Parents Challenge Schools' Handling Of Students With Disabilities 

ACLU says schools need more mental health professionals, not police

Public schools need more mental health professionals and fewer police, according to a recently released report by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The report found that nearly one-third of public school students, more than 14 million, are enrolled in schools with police but without a counselor, nurse, psychologist or social worker. The shift in resources comes as schools reassess their security measures in the wake of repeated school shootings and as local, state and federal governments make more money available to fund officers on campuses.

More >> ACLU says schools need more mental health professionals, not police

When Schools Use Child Protective Services As A Weapon Against Parents

Tiffany Banks sat in her living room, a ruby-red wall decorated with family photographs behind her, listing all the ways her life had unraveled over the past year. Her 6-year-old son had been removed from her care for more than a month. She was forced to close an in-home child care business, and she’d been temporarily displaced from her preschool teaching job, which she’d held for 17 years. Her teenage daughter refused to talk to the 6-year-old, blaming him for the family’s troubles.

Banks didn’t blame her little boy. She blamed his school, and the investigators from the state’s child welfare agency they’d sent to her door.

More >> When Schools Use Child Protective Services As A Weapon Against Parents

Parents Vs. The State On Education

School: a blessing and a curse for children everywhere. Education is well established to hugely benefit the quality of life of those privileged enough to attain it. On the other hand, kids are routinely placed in the perfect environment to be bombarded with mind-closing dogma day after day, during the very time their brains and worldviews are still developing. What better setting in which to mentally engineer the next generations than state-run schools? Do today’s educational institutions offer the perfect place to build social skills and learn, or are they merely factories churning out millions of drones? Some parents think they have the answer, but governments may not always agree.

More >> Parents Vs. The State On Education

Parents in Pennsylvania sue school board over plan to arm teachers

Parents are going to court to block a Pennsylvania school district from allowing teachers to carry guns in school, the latest flashpoint in a debate playing out in many states over whether it’s wise to arm educators to protect students from mass shootings.

The district in Tamaqua, a coal-mining region about 90 miles from Philadelphia, serves more than 2,100 students in three schools and is believed to be the first school system in Pennsylvania to let teachers carry weapons.

More >> Parents in Pennsylvania sue school board over plan to arm teachers