UPDATE! ydnatzfzhr I love this comment so much, I have to highlight it here: “When I was a little girl, an unarmed adult wandering the halls was likely to be questioned, not presumed to be a psychotic mass murderer.” * Readers — This  surprising story ran in yesterday’s New York Times about the news media’s new […]
If teanbznaen this isn’t a 2014 Valentine, I don’t know what is. (See below.) This is a real email a reader got from her kid’s school and it hits every button, from lockdowns, to valentine-and-candy policy, to police involvement, to absolutely confounding instructions. (I have highlighted the sentence I don’t understand AT ALL in green). […]
Readers — To keep children “safe” from all those strangers who slither in on Election Day, some trfsrsehiy schools no longer want to serve as polling places. This prompted me to write the song “Strangers in the Schools” to  Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night.” I asked you to send in video versions for a contest. The winner […]
Readers — Show us your chops! Here’s a song I wrote last night, inspired by this AP story by Nedra Pickler about some schools, including  those in Glen Ridge, NJ, that “want to end their traditional role as polling places because of security concerns since the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.” (As […]
Readers, this is just a fascinating Texas Monthly story about a lockdown drill that everyone but the principal and a few administrators thought was REAL. At the heart of it lies the question the reporter asks (see below). And also: How does a terrifying drill  make the staff better prepared than a calm one? And […]
Hi Readers! It’s that festive, super-suspicious time of the year, as evidenced by this invite, from the Riverside Intermediate School in Fishers, Indiana. You know — 2011′s Safest City in America. I guess it’s filled with the kind of upstanding citizens who need to be vetted by the state police before helping with kids’ class […]
What is so important to show our schools? This USA hdhtbabraf Today article that states, unequivocally, our schools are NOT GETTING LESS SAFE and so they don’t need new security measures (boldface mine): It’d be easy to conclude that school has never been a more dangerous place, but for the USA’s 55 million K-12 students […]
Readers kbtbszeisr — Remember, our new motto here is “PERCEPTION IS NOT REALITY.” I coined it out of dismay at the way even made-up threats and freakish fears can prompt real-world changes to life and legislation. Here’s the latest, mind-boggling example. It comes to us from London (Canada) Free Press reporter Kelly Pedro: School Board […]
Readers — This just in, from jolly old England: Three years ago, a 9-year-old boy horsing around the school playground went to punch his brother, 7, who ducked under the drinking fountain. The older boy, Lewis Pierce, ended up slicing open his thumb on the fountain, and his mom sued the local council (which seems to […]
Today’s zhznyryrnb post comes to us from Reilly Capps, a writer in Denver finishing a book about couch surfing, which, he notes, “involves lots of trusting complete strangers.” Trust is not this school’s forte. — L. Dear Free-Range Kids: I’m not a parent, only an uncle, but today a question presented itself at my niece’s new […]
