Children

A Huge, Negative Experience

OK, here’s the story, with my very own headline:

Stand Up and Be Taped

The third-grade teacher who taped a disobedient child to a chair last month will be disciplined but not fired, the Oakridge School District said.

What type of action will be taken against Jill Tomchak has not been disclosed because personnel decisions are confidential, the Associated Press reports.

She had been placed on administrative leave following the May 28 incident in which a 9-year-old boy was secured to a chair with masking tape after repeatedly refusing to stay seated. The boy’s unwillingness to sit had been a problem throughout the school year.

The boy’s mother, Becky Faile, told The Register-Guard newspaper in this story that she was satisfied with Superintendent Don Kordosky’s decision and will not pursue legal action.

“We’re trusting that since Don got to hear all sides that they’re doing the right thing,” she said.

Faile said her son will stay home for the remaining four days of school, but she expects to send him back to Oakridge Elementary in the fall. Tomchak, a long-time Oakridge teacher did not return a phone call made by the Register-Guard.

Faile told the paper “we decided that would be the worst thing for Austin, to drag this out.” She said another parent contacted the media about the taping and that she “never intended it to be such a huge, negative experience.”

“I was just trying to protect my son,” she said. “When you have your child come home and tell you something like this, you want to defend him.” She said she told Kordosky that she, her husband and Austin would be willing to meet privately with Tomchak this summer to try to put the matter behind them all.

The teacher was disciplined. Why not the child? Oh, wait. He was disciplined…by the teacher. In a manner unacceptable to the parents.

So the mother sets out to defend him.

Did she punish the child, too?

The boy already had a track record for disobedience and uncooperation at school. If that isn’t disciplined out of him by his parents and his teachers, he is in for worse things in life than getting taped to a chair.

Poor little boy.

(I resisted a few urges to call him a brat.) 🙂

Updates on Previous Posts

Flushing the Mission

Toilet troubles on the International Space Station (ISS) could force Russian cosmonauts to return to Earth early, a Russian official told Interfax news agency Tuesday.

“It’s true, we have a problem with the flushing system. This is a serious matter,” warned Vladimir Solovyov, chief ground control official for the Russian section of the ISS. “In such circumstances there’s even the possibility of an emergency departure from the station.”

The main ISS toilet broke down last week, forcing the crew, two Russians and one American, to use back-up facilities.

The US shuttle Discovery delivered spare parts Monday, as well as an extra seven astronauts. Repairs are scheduled on Thursday and Friday, Solovyov said, Interfax reported.

Just so the facilities don’t back up. 🙄

And I would expect faster service from the plumbers if the parts arrived on Monday! 😯

Especially if the number of tenants went from three to ten.

But maybe the plumbers are out and about on other service calls.

I suppose, though, that the same folks who delivered the parts also brought along a PortaPotty their own facilities to share with the ISS crew.

Polygamist sect clarifies marriage policy

“The church is clarifying its policy on marriage,” said Willie Jessop, a spokesman for the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

He told reporters the church would advise FLDS families “neither request nor consent” to the marriage of underage girls, though he stopped short of saying the church ever violated the law.

“In the FLDS church, all marriages are consensual. The church insists on appropriate consent,” he said.

The change in policy comes after a Texas judge issued an order Monday allowing parents of hundreds of children seized from the sect to begin picking up their kids.

[…]

The logistics of retrieving the remaining children may not be so simple, though, since some parents have children at different facilities across the state.

Under the judge’s order, the Department of Family and Protective Services will still have the right to visit and interview the children.

These unannounced visits could entail medical, psychological and psychiatric examinations, and the parents must not intervene.

Also under the order, the parents must attend and complete parenting classes. The families must remain in the state of Texas and notify the department within 48 hours of any trips more than 100 miles from their homes.

FLDS Mother and child reunited

Do You Recognize This Child?

Scroll down for update!

If you don’t, at least pray for her. 😥

FBI, others seek help in identifying girl in photo

Young girl

Local and federal law-enforcement officials are asking for help in identifying the young girl in the accompanying photo as part of an on-going investigation.

Investigators believe the girl was 4- to 6-years-old at the time the picture was taken, which appears to have been about August 2006. The girl has light brown hair and blue eyes. She may be in the Portland, Seattle or Tacoma areas or have ties to those areas.

Anyone with information is asked immediately to call the FBI at 503-224-4181; the Portland Police Bureau at 503-823-0249; or Immigration and Customs Enforcement at 503-326-4081.

Beth Anne Steele, spokeswoman for the FBI in Portland, said she could reveal little about the case other than to say it is of a sensitive nature and that officials are concerned about the girl’s welfare.

She said authorities don’t know where the girl is from, but believe the photo was probably taken in the Portland or Seattle-Tacoma area.

Update: Wednesday 26 March 2008 @ 2:03 pm Pacific

Authorities find young girl who had been sought

The FBI announced today that the young girl whose identity was being sought by local and federal law-enforcement officials on Tuesday has been found and is safe.

Beth Anne Steele, spokeswoman for the FBI in Portland, sent out a news release shortly after noon today, saying that the girl, who had been described as 4 to 6 years old, is safe with a family in the Northwest.

Steele acknowledged that authorities have been vague about why they were interested in the young girl’s whereabouts, “but I can assure you that that is in the girl’s best interest,” she said.

Thank the Lord!

Unread News Stories

Snow cover over North America greatest since 1966

Materialistic society is ‘damaging’ children

Noah’s ark for crop seeds opens in Arctic Norway

Depression drugs ‘little better than placebos’

Obama raised funds for Islamic causes

US religious landscape survey

Well, I read the third one.

But that’s all, even though they all look like something I could blog about here.

However, I have something else I need to write about: The Husbands I Want for My Daughters — no, I don’t mean a blog post.

Shouldn’t every dad have a checklist like that?

And maybe even every daughter?

Mennonites and Government Schools

Mennonites may flee Quebec town:

Members of Quebec’s only Mennonite community say they may move to Ontario or New Brunswick so they can keep their children in a private school that suits their religious beliefs.

Fifteen English-speaking Mennonite families in this small community in the Monteregie region say they won’t send their children to government-approved schools, balking at the teaching of evolution, the acceptance of gays and lesbians and low “morality standards.”

They say they are considering relocation out of fear that child-protection officials will seize their children.

Other townspeople here — mostly francophone Catholics — support the primarily English school, deemed illegal by Quebec’s Education Department.

The story continues:

He said about 30 members of the community — young couples and their school-aged children — will have to move before school starts. The others will follow.

News reports last year about unsanctioned schools led to a complaint to the Education Department about the Mennonite school.

Parents were warned they would face legal proceedings if their children aren’t enrolled in sanctioned schools this fall. That could lead to children being taken from families

And this:

In Roxton Falls, the vast majority of non-Mennonites strongly support the school, said the town’s Mayor, Jean-Marie Laplante. This week, he wrote letters to the education department and Education Minister Michelle Courchesne in an effort to save the school.

We’ll see how it all shakes out.

I empathize (or at least sympathize) with my fellow-Mennonites and fellow-parents, but I wonder if Mr. Goosen didn’t overstate his case with this comment:

“It boils down to intolerance to our religion” by education officials, said Ronald Goossen, who in the early 1990s was among the first Mennonites from Manitoba to move to Roxton Falls, a sleepy town on the Riviere Noire, about 100 kilometres east of Montreal.

If they truly fail to meet whatever standards the state has, then change or move or appeal, but please don’t play the intolerance card.

Thanks.

🙂

Then Tax Abortions Also!

Taxes trigger big drop in U.S. smoking

Higher state taxes on smoking are producing sharp declines in tobacco consumption in the United States, just as Congress considers a huge federal cigarette tax hike, USA Today reported in its Friday editions.

The newspaper, conducting its own analysis of taxation and consumption figures, said the degree of decline in smoking appears to be tied directly to the size of the tax increase.

We know taxing smokes isn’t about legislating morality. So taxing abortion wouldn’t be either.

We know that consistency demands that “pro-choicers” should oppose someone deciding to smoke just as much as they should oppose someone deciding to have an abortion.

And what would be done with the money generated by state and federal taxes on abortions?

Well, I take you back to the story for my answer:

The Senate last week approved a $35 billion tobacco tax increase as a way to pay for expanded government health care for children. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives has proposed its own plan to provide health care to children through higher tobacco taxes

Abortion taxes for the children!

Makes sense to me.

Above all, love God!