Gender Identity Bill

http://townhall.com/columnists/debrajsaunders/2013/07/21/gender-identity-bill-carries-risk-of-personal-pain-n1645075?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl


Democratic California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has written a bill that would require public schools in his state to allow students to choose which bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams match their gender identity. Both the Assembly and state Senate have passed Assembly Bill 1266. It now sits on the desk of Gov. Jerry Brown. If the governor allows the bill to become law, then public school administrators won't be able to assign transgender third-graders to use a separate bathroom or play on the team of their biological gender -- even if their motive is to protect a vulnerable child.

"Separate but equal," Ammiano's senior legislative assistant, Wendy Hill, told me, already is against the law. Indeed, the new bill wouldn't really change anything; it would "just (clarify) what current law already states."

Ammiano never has been known for his tolerance toward dissenting opinions. When the late KGO talk show host Pete Wilson voiced his discomfort about a child born to be raised by a gay San Francisco supervisor and a lesbian partner in 2006, Ammiano, then a San Francisco supervisor, demanded that Wilson resign. (Wilson had said, "A child is not an experiment." Ammiano accused Wilson of homophobia and "trying to dehumanize a week-old baby.")

So it's no surprise that he'd be pushing for a bill that would sanctify the sensitivity of transgender children while steamrolling the feelings of girls who might not want biological boys in their locker rooms or on their soccer teams. (No worries, Hill told me. Those girls could ask for special accommodations if they didn't want to share facilities with a biologically male girl.)

AB 1266 also would ride roughshod over parental sensibilities and educator discretion, as some parents don't think that enrolling their kids in kindergarten must entail a talk about transgender equality.  AB 1266 would direct schools to ignore biology and let children decide how they want to self-identify. No student, including elementary-school pupils, would need his or her parents' permission to change gender identity.

Some critics have suggested that boys might use the law as a means to wend their way into the girls' locker room or to a starring position in sports. I don't think so.  But I do wonder whether it is in children's interest to let kindergartners and first-graders decide that they really aren't male or female and that they're going to switch gender identity. Is it truly responsible to encourage kids to cross the gender Rubicon before they've learned how to read?  Hill informed me that children are declaring themselves as transgender early on these days -- often before they enter kindergarten.

What if they change their minds? Have there been studies that explore whether children who change gender identity are glad as adults that they did so? "I don't know that there's been a study of people changing their minds," she answered.  And: "Transgender is not a decision that allows you to change your mind or not change your mind."  That sounds like politics, not science. Maybe she's right. Maybe all the boys and girls who think they're girls and boys are right; maybe by declaring themselves early, they will avoid unnecessary heartache.

Maybe this is the golden age of transsexualism.  Or maybe Sacramento is rushing to pass legislation that pushes confused children to make life-changing decisions that they're not mature enough to make -- and cannot erase.  Maybe it is a big mistake, as Republican state Sen. Jean Fuller warned, to pass a bill that takes away from educators' "appropriate discretion" to make decisions that protect young children and teenagers. "High-school students are not known for their maturity," Fuller noted.  No doubt Ammiano wrote this bill to protect transgender children from the torment of growing up feeling freakish and unwelcome. He apparently believes that it is wrong for kids to agonize privately about their sexuality, so he's pushing a bill that would make a student's gender issues very public, possibly before some students truly know who they are.

Sadly, supporters seem to believe that if the law requires that transgender students have access to the locker rooms and sports teams of their choosing, all their problems will melt away. An Equality California press release announces that the bill's passage would "ensure the success and well-being of transgender students." It never seems to occur to Ammiano and company that for some children, this bill could open the door to a world of pain.

And Now Junior Will Lead Us In A Prayer to Satan....

Satanists Rally Against the Real Evil:  Lack of Prayer in Schools


http://now.msn.com/satanists-will-rally-in-florida-to-support-school-prayer-bill


Apparently Satanists are now going for more of a civic-duty vibe than an exciting, evil one. A group of Florida Satanists are planning to rally to celebrate Governor Rick Scott's signing of Senate Bill 98. The bill lets "district school boards adopt resolutions that allow prayers by students at school events" — and apparently it doesn't matter whether you're praying to God or, you know, someone else. A spokesman for The Satanic Temple organization said that the January 25 rally will show that Satanists have a sense of civic responsibility, just like Christians and Jews. "We feel it's time for Satanists to come out and say exactly who we are," said Lucien Graves.

Transgender first-grader wins civil rights suit after girls’ bathroom ban

http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/24/transgender-first-grader-wins-civil-rights-suit-after-girls-bathroom-ban/


The Colorado Civil Rights Division has decided in favor of the transgender first-grader who had been prohibited from using the girls’ bathroom at a public elementary school.
The Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, which filed the complaint on behalf of the first-grader’s family, announced the ruling on Sunday, reports Denver FOX affiliate KDVR.

The student, Coy Mathis, was born biologically male but wears girls’ clothes all the time. The six-year-old had also been using the girls’ bathroom at Eagleside Elementary in Fountain, Colorado near Colorado Springs.

In December, the school banned Coy from using the girls’ bathroom. http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/28/school-district-bans-transgender-first-grader-from-using-girls-bathroom/

The new policy was for Coy to use either the boys’ bathroom, a teacher’s lounge bathroom or the nurse’s bathroom. At the time, the Mathis family responded by taking Coy out of school .  The ruling by the state’s civil rights division, which enforces anti-discrimination laws, decreed that Mathis was a victim of illegal discrimination.

Division director Steven Chavez pronounced that a policy directing Coy to “disregard her identity while performing one of the most essential human functions constitutes severe and pervasive treatment, and creates an environment that is objectively and subjectively hostile, intimidating or offensive,” according to The New York Times.

The decision mentioned the latest research on transgender issues, adds KDVR. “Compartmentalizing a child as a boy or a girl solely based on their visible anatomy,” Chavez wrote, “is a simplistic approach to a difficult and complex issue.”

“The parents of Coy Mathis have filed a charge of discrimination with the Colorado division of Civil Rights,” part of the statement said. “They have chosen to publicize this matter by appearing on a nationally televised show with their child, sharing their point of view with national and local media, and holding a public press conference to announce the filing of the charge. The District firmly believes it has acted reasonably and fairly with respect to this issue.”  (The nationally televised show was “Katie,” a syndicated talk show hosted by journalist Katie Couric.)  School officials are concerned about what will happen to the child later on — in middle school and high school — when gender and sexuality will be more important to all the other students, KOAA says.

At the press conference, Kathryn Mathis told reporters that Coy began to identify as a girl “as soon as she could express herself.” She described Coy as restless and generally miserable before the parents decided to permit the transgender child to dress like a girl and act like a girl.

“We couldn’t get her to leave the house, go the playground, play with friends,” Mathis said, according to KMGH. “She would break down crying. She was so deeply unhappy and a three-year-old or four-year-old shouldn’t be that unhappy and that was when we sought professional help.”

Coy Mathis is a triplet (along with a brother, Max, and a sister, Lilly). There are two other siblings as well, one older and one younger. Since the school district changed its policy, the family has taken Mathis out of school. The Coy Mathis saga is the first-ever legal challenge under Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act of a transgender person’s ability to use the bathroom assigned to a particular gender.

5-Year Old Suspended

How can people trust their children to schools like this?  I understand taking guns seriously, but reprimanding kids for using their fingers as guns?  Overreact much??  These people are actually in charge of children every day.  Grilling a 5 year old (FIVE YEARS OLD) for two hours before contacting his parents - lecturing him so long that he pees his pants?  Questioning his first grade sister??

And I'm the crazy one for keeping my kids at home to educate them. 



http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/cowboy-style-cap-gun-gets-5-year-old-ousted-from-school-in-calvert-county/2013/05/30/a3a8a178-c93c-11e2-9245-773c0123c027_story.html

By Donna St. George,   

May 31, 2013 02:34 AM EDT

The Washington Post

         

A kindergartner who brought a cowboy-style cap gun onto his Calvert County school bus was suspended for 10 days after showing a friend the orange-tipped toy, which he had tucked inside his backpack on his way to school, according to his family and a lawyer.

The child was questioned for more than two hours before his mother was called, she said, adding that he uncharacteristically wet his pants during the episode. The boy is 5 — “all bugs and frogs and cowboys,” his mother said.

“I have no problem that he had a consequence to his behavior,” said the mother, who asked that her name be withheld to protect her son’s privacy.  “What I have a problem with is the severity,” she said, and the way it was handled.  The family’s attorney appealed the suspension late Thursday, asking that the action be reversed and the child’s record be expunged.  If the punishment stands, it would become part of the boy’s permanent school record and keep him out of classes the rest of the school year, the family said. He would miss his end-of-year kindergarten program at Dowell Elementary School in Lusby.  The issue will be examined at a disciplinary conference Friday.

Kim Roof, executive director of administration for Calvert schools, said she could not comment on the case but pointed out that such incidents are fully reviewed at disciplinary conferences to determine the most appropriate outcome. The case comes at a time of heightened sensitivity about guns in schools across the country. Locally, children in first and second grade have been disciplined for pointing their fingers like guns and for chewing a Pop-Tart-like pastry into the shape of a gun. In Pennsylvania, a 5-year-old was suspended for talking about shooting a Hello Kitty bubble gun that blows soap bubbles.

In Calvert County, the trouble began Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. on a 10-minute bus ride to school.  According to the family, the boy’s friend had brought a water gun on the bus a day earlier. On Wednesday, unbeknown to his parents, the boy stowed his cap gun — from Frontier Town near Ocean City — inside his backpack as he left for school.
He told his mother after the incident that he had “really, really” wanted to show his friend.
The mother was called by the principal at 10:50 a.m. and was told that her son had the cap gun and pretended to shoot someone on the bus. She said that both the kindergartner and his first-grade sister, sitting nearby on the bus, disputed that account.  The mother said the principal told her that if the cap gun had been loaded with caps, it would have been deemed an explosive and police would have been called in.  The child’s disciplinary referral said he was being suspended for possession of a look-alike gun.

The child’s mother is a high school teacher in Calvert who said she strongly supports the school system and loves the teachers at her son’s school. She and her husband, who coaches youth sports, are active community volunteers.

For the family, a major concern is the long period the 5-year-old was questioned without parental guidance or support. "His sister was questioned, too," she said.  “The school was quite obviously taking it very seriously, and he’s 5 years old,” she said. “Why were we not immediately contacted?”

The family’s attorney, Robin Ficker, said that the age of the child is important and that the incident could have been used as a teachable moment.  “Kids play cowboys and Indians,” he said. “They play cops and robbers. You’re talking about a little 5-year-old here.”

Principal Stands Up for Serial Bully

 http://thestir.cafemom.com/in_the_news/155488/serial_bully_banned_from_all?utm_medium=sm&utm_source=facebook&utm_content=thestir_fanpage

By Kiri Blakley

A judge has decided that one 14-year-old girl in Jacksonville, Florida is not fit for any of the schools in that county. Not because she's a genius. And not because she has disabilities. But because she's allegedly an inveterate bully. The eighth grader allegedly lured classmate Aria Jewett off school grounds and then attacked her while 30 students stood around watching. The fight was videotaped. Aria suffered a fractured skull. The attacker girl was arrested. Aria's parents asked for an injunction to keep the girl out of Aria's school but the judgment surprised even them. The judge declared that the girl was too much of a danger for her to be in any of the public schools in the entire county.

Said Florida Circuit Court Judge Henry Davis in his ruling:

This child is a threat to all of the children at any school. The injunction is a permanent injunction barring this child from returning to any public school in Duval County.

Seems like a common sense approach, but the school's superintendent actually disagrees . The superintendent, Nikolai Vitti, says:

I don't think we should use the bad decision that children make outside of school as an example or scapegoat to make a message.  (Never mind that this girl should be in jail for her actions.)

He reportedly went on to say that education is a constitutional right, and that even a girl who smashes another girl's head and videotapes it deserves one. The unnamed girl already has a lawyer and the lawyer is trying to return her to county public schools.  (Contrary to what this uneducated principal thinks, the US Constitution makes no mention of it's citizens having a "right" to a free public education.  And this man is in charge of students and educators?!)
 
This shows you just about everything that is wrong with schools (and parenting) these days. Students are living in fear of kids like this bullying girl, and yet what appears to be more important to the girl's parents and the school's superintendent is that she gets her education! Never mind that the education system had failed her so far. Perhaps it was teaching her math and science, but it certainly wasn't teaching her empathy or humanity. I think she needs a different school -- the school of Hard Knocks. (Sorry, but I disagree with the author of this article - it's not the school's job to teach these things; it's the parent's job.)

I don't mean like the hard knocks she gave Aria, that fractured her skull and could have killed her. I mean the school that says if you screw up, you pay for it. And if you screw up repeatedly -- as allegedly this girl had numerous videotaped beatings to her name -- then you pay royally. And that means maybe your parents -- who seem more concerned about hiring you a lawyer than teaching you how to behave -- have to move away or home school you. Sounds like instead of spending money on a lawyer, they could have bought their daughter a tutor and a lifetime supply of anger management classes. I wonder if Vitti would be fine sending a daughter of his into a classroom with this girl?  (Amen.)

Do you think this girl should be allowed back in schools?

27 People Dead, Mostly Children, at Connecticut Elementary School Shooting

My heart positively aches for these families.....WHY????


http://gma.yahoo.com/breaking-conn-school-district-locked-down-shooting-report-151955384--abc-news-topstories.html

More than two dozen people, mostly elementary school children, were shot and killed at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school this morning, federal and state sources tell ABC News.

The massacre involved two gunmen and prompted the town of Newtown to lock down all of its schools and draw SWAT teams to the school, authorities said today. 

One shooter is dead and a manhunt is on for a second gunman. Police are searching cars. One shooter was described as a 24-year-old armed with four weapons and wearing a bullet vest, sources told ABC News. 

It's unclear how many people have been shot, but 27 people, mostly children are dead, multiple federal and state sources tell ABC News. That number could rise, officials said.

President Obama was briefed on the shooting by FBI Director Bob Mueller. 

It is the worst shooting in a U.S. elementary school in recent memory and exceeds the carnage at 1999 Coumbine High School shooting in which 13 died and 24 were injured.

The Newtown shooting comes just three days after masked gunman Jacob Roberts opened fire in a busy Oregon, mall killing two before turning the gun on himself.

Today's shooting occurred at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, which includes 450 students in grades from kindergarten through fourth grade. The town is located about 12 miles east of Danbury. 

State Police received the first 911 call at 9:41a.m. and immediately began sending emergency units from the western part of the state. Initial 911 calls stated that multiple students were trapped in a classroom, possibly with a gunman, according to a Connecticut State Police source. 

A photo from the scene shows a line of distressed children being led out of the school.

LIVE UPDATES: Newtown, Conn., School Shooting
 
Three patients have been taken to Danbury Hospital, which is also on lockdown, according to the hospital's Facebook page.

"Out of abundance of caution and not because of any direct threat Danbury Hospital is under lockdown," the statement said. "This allows us simply to focus on the important work at hand."
CLICK HERE for more photos from the scene.
 
Newtown Public School District secretary of superintendent Kathy June said in a statement that the district's school were locked down because of the report of a shooting. "The district is taking preventive measures by putting all schools in lockdown until we ensure the safety of all students and staff."

State police sent SWAT team units to Newtown. All public and private schools in the town are on lockdown."We have increased our police presence at all Danbury Public Schools due to the events in Newtown. Pray for the victims," Newtown Mayor Boughton tweeted. 

State emergency management officials said ambulances and other units were also en route and staging near the school.A message on the school district website says that all afternoon kindergarten is cancelled today and there will be no mid-day bus runs.

Why

For the past couple years I've regularly read or watched in the news horror stories about our public school system.   While I'm sure there are many great teachers and safe schools out there (and I know a few wonderful teachers myself), the news doesn't lie:  scandals, cheating, bullying, failing grades, suicides, gunmen, hard-core drugs, revisionist history texts, and more are rampant in this country's schools, even the good ones.  Sad but true.

It's easy to read these articles, think about them for a while, then forget.  For a while I've wanted to have a place to keep track of all these stories, because they reassure me of the rightness of our decision to lovingly and safely educate our kids at home.  We made this decision after many months of consideration and prayer; it was not a decision made as a reaction to one specific thing or event.  So I thought maybe a blog might be the answer to keeping track of all these stories I read about our nation's schools.

This blog is not an open attack forum for those who don't understand or agree with home education.  For those that think I'm sheltering my children, I only have this to say:   What will you accuse me of next - feeding and clothing my kids?  Of course I shelter them, and will do so for as long as it makes sense to do so!  Being exposed to drugs or bullying in elementary school doesn't prepare my child for the "real world".  It only exposes them to situations that they're ill-equipped to handle on their own.  By choosing home education, my children can learn safely and mature into the people God intends them to be without a lot of "junk" getting in the way of that.  When they're mature enough to handle "the real world", I know they'll be ready.  Till then, I'll keep reminding myself of why I'm doing this for them......