Last week was no different. Here's a small sampling of shocking occurrences from around the United States.
At Woodland Park Middle School in San Marcos, CA, 8th graders were forced to participate in a classroom activity that has parents furious.
The story was reported to 10News by the parents of a 14-year-old student who said that as part of a sex education lesson, students were told to stand under signs labeled "smiled at, hugged, kissed, above the waist, below the waist, and all the way."
The activity was part of a "dating lesson" in family life and health class.
School officials say the goal of the activity was to "discuss what is appropriate for dating at the middle school level."
But that's not how some students and parents felt about it:
Since when is it up to schools to do that? Now they want to dictate what parents and their children talk about regarding personal relationships? Who gets to decide what "dating expectations" are for any given age group?The couple says their daughter and her classmates were in disbelief because they thought the teacher wanted to know how far they've gone sexually. And their daughter said she felt "peer pressured"
The school's principal told 10News "The parents sign permission slips for the class and can look at the curriculum prior. The purpose of the lesson was to open the lines of communication between parents and students about dating expectations."
The school's principal told 10News the lesson came from a community clinic and has been used over the past several years.
At Pine Valley Middle School in California, 8th graders were shown a slideshow during sex education class that contained offensive material. Parents say the information given was appropriate, but the associated images were not.
ABC15 reports:
The presentation was organized by Mountain Empire Family Medicine.One slide talks about "Top Conception Myths" and mentions douching. The photo accompanying the slide shows young men with the caption "douche bag."
Another photo shows a man on all fours, with a woman standing on him. The caption reads "girl on top can still get pregnant."
The photo that enraged parents the most was a slide also focused on conception myths, but showed a picture of a man with blood on his face. The caption for that picture read: "A real man loves his woman every day of the month."
Dr. Kathy Granger, superintendent of the Mountain Empire School District, said the curriculum is approved through the Pupil Services Department, and that the curriculum is "factually and medically accurate."
Calling young men "douche bags" and saying "a real man loves his woman every day of the month" are "factually and medically accurate" comments?
Dr. Granger said the presentation has been "modified" for future classes. It's a little too late, isn't it?
Teri Grimes, a drama teacher in Washington state, held an awards ceremony for her students that included profanity, jokes about a priest having sex with kids, and a box of sex toys.
A parent who attended the ceremony in the auditorium at Bellingham High School contacted KOMO news to report what happened:
As if that wasn't bad enough, the awards the teacher passed out were offensive and inappropriate too:"I sat there with my mouth open in shock and the final straw was when a joke was told on stage about a teacher, a lawyer and a priest on a plane. The plane was going down and the teacher says we have to save the children. The attorney says "F*** the children!" and the priest says "OOOOH..Do we have time for that???" the email reads.
Grimes has apologized and is facing an investigation.The parent said the awards handed out during the ceremony weren't appropriate for children. She said one of the categories was for "the horniest stud," where the award was a sex toy.
Some teachers and school employees took things further by providing "one-on-one" sexual education to kids.
Robert Yaek, 25, a teacher at a middle school in Michigan, resigned after accusations that he had a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old student earlier this year.
The Detroit Free Press reports:
Yaek is facing charges including three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, which carry possible life sentences, and one count of distributing sexually explicit matter to children.Yaek, a science and math teacher at Armada Middle School, had a series of sexual encounters with the girl, a seventh-grader, between February and May. The encounters allegedly took place in a closet next to his classroom and in a rented house in Armada.
Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith said that Yaek must be held accountable:
A high school teacher in Baltimore experienced the wrath of a father who found "several dozen" text messages between his 15-year-old daughter and the 42-year-old male instructor."Parents entrust their children to the care of teachers," Smith said. "We place our children's lives in their hands every day. This man's actions are an outrageous breach of that sacred trust. He must account for that breach under the law."
The girl's family called police after finding the messages, which police said "described an emotional relationship that seemed inappropriate for a teacher and student."
The Baltimore Sun reports:
From The Sun Chronicle:Hours later, at 9:45 a.m., police were called to girl's home in Nottingham for a report of a disturbance.
The girl's father said the teacher who sent the texts showed up to their house uninvited, "saying he wanted to talk," police said. Her father told the teacher to leave, but he refused. The father then struck the teacher with a baseball bat, police said.
Police said the teacher sustained minor injuries but did not press charges.
The Crimes Against Children Unit continues to investigate and the department said it won't release the names of the girl and her parents.
Across the nation, lurid reports of sexual contact between students and teachers, administrators and coaches have surfaced.
Last Friday, a California elementary school principal who was under investigation for sexual activity with a girl under the age of 14 killed himself.Just within the past week, a female special needs teacher in Philadelphia was charged with having sex with a 14-year-old male student.A teacher in Joplin, Mo., was accused of emailing nude pictures and having sex with a 16-year-old boy.In Arizona, a male teacher was charged with sexually assaulting two girls, 15 and 16 years old, in his home, and filming them in various states of undress.
A 23-year-old Minneapolis middle school teacher who posted an ad soliciting sex with high schoolers was arrested in late May.
Unfortunately, the news is filled with stories like this every week.
What is happening to our country? Aren't kids supposed to feel safe in school? Why are so many adults viewing children as sexual beings, exploiting them through inappropriate "learning" material at school, and engaging in sexual activity with them?
What is this, a preview of Scary Stories for Boomers to Tell in the Dark?
The awards ceremony story has already been debunked as being almost entirely false. For instance, the "box of sex toys" was actually a box of condoms that a male student brought unbeknownst to the teacher. But don't let facts get in the way of sensationalized journalism.
Protip: don't believe everything you read.