Category Archives: NZ Media

Porno gang’ warning at school

Posted on by

Porno gang’ warning at school

By CATHERINE WOULFE – Sunday Star Times

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/2838214/Porno-gang-warning-at-school

Six teachers at an Auckland school have been caught with inappropriate emails on their school computers.

Outraged insiders have dubbed the group a “porno gang”, and say authorities are covering up a scandal.

The school is Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate (SEHC) in Otara, Manukau, a decile-one state school with a roll of 548, and about 50 staff. It is not known which teachers were involved and school commissioner Gail Thomson refused to give details about the emails, saying only that they contained images and text “inappropriate for a school”.

Five teachers were found out last year during a routine sweep of the school’s computer system. The sixth was picked up this year during an audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Thomson said five of the teachers were still working at the school, but were on final written warnings and would be fired if they reoffended. A computer sweep early this year revealed one of the teachers caught in the first check had reoffended; that person resigned and left the school that day, and Thomson said “appropriate authorities” were informed.

Without access to school records, she could not say yesterday whether a complaint was made to the watchdog body, the Teachers Council. The council’s 2009 decisions are not yet public but decisions between 2006 and 2008 show it has little sympathy for teachers looking at pornography on school or even home computers. It has stripped six teachers of their registrations in that time, forced one to work under strict conditions and given another a formal warning. The council is powerless to investigate a teacher, or ban them from the classroom, unless a complaint is made by an employer or the teacher reports a conviction.

The SEHC incidents emerged last week when the Sunday Star-Times received an anonymous letter from authors who said they could not reveal themselves for fear of dismissal. It said: “The Ministry of Education [and] Education Review Office [ERO]… are involved in a `cover-up’ which defies belief.

“There is a porno gang of five guys at SEHC who have collected, composed and distributed serious porn on their school computers. Some pupils have seen some of it and most staff are aware of it. We wrote to the commissioner three times urging appropriate action, to no avail. We then wrote to the Ministry and ERO. Still no action. Why?”

Thomson said the “cowardly” letter-writers were trying to undermine positive work at the collegiate. There was a small volume of problematic emails, and most were sent to teachers from outside the school. Some emails had been “recirculated”, but she had no evidence any pupils had seen them.

The emails she had seen were “not at the highest level of concern, but inappropriate for a school”.

The former board of trustees dealt with the first five teachers caught, after seeking advice from the secondary teachers’ union and the School Trustees Association. In January the education minister sacked that board and replaced them with Thomson, following an ERO report raising serious concerns about student safety.

Thomson handled the teacher who reoffended, and the sixth teacher who was caught during the audit this year. She said the audit revealed a “historical matter”, but that teacher’s email use had been clean for the past two years.

All staff and pupils were subject to a computer use agreement, Thomson said.

The Ministry of Education refused to comment last week. Principal Karen Douglas, and other staff at the school, were not permitted to speak to media.

Five suspended after violent attack

Posted on by

More weapons used in school fights

LATEST: An Auckland secondary school today suspended five students after an attack on a pupil at another school.

The victim, a 14-year-old boy, was beaten up at Lynfield College on Monday by a group armed with a softball bat.

Lynfield College yesterday suspended one of its own students, who led the group of eight teenagers to the classroom where the incident took place.

Nearby Mt Roskill Grammar School today said five of its students had been suspended as a result of the assault.

The five would appear before the school’s board of trustees next week, principal Greg Watson said in a statement.

The board would decide whether the boys would be excluded or allowed back to school under certain conditions.

All eight in the group are also being dealt with by police, although police have said they will not face criminal charges.

Police are also investigating an incident in Porirua in which about 20 boys, believed to be from Mana College, went to Bishop Viard College and threatened students on the rugby field.

They were believed to be armed with a baseball bat.

Meanwhile, Secondary Schools Principals Association president Peter Gall said anecdotal evidence of an increase in school-related incidents involving weapons was a cause of real concern.

“It could be a baseball bat, a cricket wicket, an iron bar, a hammer, a screwdriver,” he said.

Mr Gall, principal of Papatoetoe High School in south Auckland, said people carrying such items, when questioned, would reply that they did so for their own protection.

“Well, that’s nonsense,” he said.

“As far as I’m concerned, they don’t need that sort of protection – ever.”

Mr Gall said his own school had been troubled by a youth gang that was “obviously working in a planned and co-ordinated way” in targeting students on their way home.

“They had hammers and stuff, and they were pinching cellphones off kids,” he said.

“We got some good information to the police and they made four arrests and that cleaned that up pretty quickly, but the fact that it happened is a real concern.”

He said the issue was a difficult one for schools to address and they had to be “incredibly security conscious”.

Staff had to be active while on duty and management relied on students to pass on any information about unusual activity.

– NZPA

Violence blamed on removal of corporal punishment

Posted on by

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/2814572/Violence-blamed-on-removal-of-corporal-punishment

NZPA

Last updated 11:18 29/08/2009

A big increase in the number of primary school children suspended for violent acts is being blamed on the removal of corporal punishment in schools.

Figures from the Ministry of Education show a 88 per cent increase in suspensions of eight-year-olds from 2000 to 2008 for assaults on classmates, a 73 per cent rise for seven-year-olds, a 70 per cent increase for six–year-olds while the suspensions over the same period had increased by 33 per cent for five-year-olds.

“It is significant that as schools have removed corporal punishment, schools have become more violent,” Family First national director Bob McCoskrie said today.

“School yard bullying by pupils on other pupils and staff is now the new form of ‘corporal punishment’ in schools.

“We have a generation of children who have been victims of a social experiment of how best to raise our kids and the role of correction.

“And it continues with the smacking debate – another example of undermining parental authority and `state knows best how to raise your kids’.”

Mr McCroskie said student behaviour would continue to deteriorate “for as long as we tell them that their rights are more important than their responsibilities”.

Auckland Primary Principals Association president Marilyn Gwilliam said schools were struggling to handle the children because by law, they were not allowed to touch children to calm them down, even when they “kick and they bite and they hit.”

In many cases, schools had no choice but to stand children down, she told The Weekend Herald.

The Post Primary Teachers Association is set to discuss solutions to combating the schoolyard violence at its annual meeting next month.

Because of schools limited number of in-school counsellors and teacher aides, the association’s advisory group on conduct problems will suggest that schools need access to trained psychologists and social workers.

Let’s dispel some myths about home-schoolers

Posted on by

Let’s dispel some myths about home-schoolers

http://www.al.com/news/huntsvilletimes/ht.ssf?/base/news/125110539416800.xml&coll=1

Monday, August 24, 2009
Huntsville Times

Almost every time I tell someone I’m home-schooled, I get the same response: “Do you do school in your pajamas”?

People seem to think home schooling is an easy way out of work. You stay up late, sleep in and never get any schoolwork done.

Not exactly.

I’m not allowed to stay up as late as I want. School still starts at 8 a.m. And no, I don’t wear pajamas all day. Not unless I want to get in trouble with my “teacher,” I mean Mom.

I have to try hard not to laugh when I’m told how easy school is because my mom is teaching. They assume she’s biased and always bumps up my grades. If my mom ever gave me a higher grade just because I’m her daughter, I’d say the world had gone wacko. She pushes me academically to help me be the most I can be.

Also, I don’t get sick days. Unless I’m physically incapable of reading or writing, I’m not allowed to skip school. I never get weather days, time off for swine flu or anything like that.

However, home-schoolers have flexible schedules. We don’t have to wait until school lets out to go on vacation. We can go places, such as Disney World, in the off-season without the worry of having to make up a bunch of work when we return.

I also get to make my own schedule, which is a big plus. If I feel like doing Spanish first that morning instead of English, I can. Class lasts only as long as it takes me to finish all my work.

I have a huge say in what I study. Instead of just picking between biology and chemistry, I get to help choose what program I’ll use. Trust me; I’ve been begging my mom for weeks to let me do virtual dissections as opposed to the real thing. In public schools, without a doubt I’d be stuck slicing up dead frogs.

Just to clear up another myth about home-schoolers, we aren’t anti-social weirdos. I used to be busier than some of my friends in public school.

Through all its ups and downs, I love home-schooling. I love the flexibility, the work and even my teacher. While it may not be for everyone, home-schooling is definitely for me.