Former Hall County School Bus Driver, Minister Sentenced To Six Years For Child Pornography

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A former Hall County school bus driver and self-described “Patriot Preacher” will spend the next six years behind bars for distributing, receiving and possessing hundreds of images of child pornography. Senior United States District Court Judge William C. O'Kelley handed down the sentence Friday to John Cooper Spinks, 41, of Oakwood, Georgia. His punishment also includes 20 years of supervised release and a $2,000 fine. There is no parole in the federal system. “As a school bus driver, this defendant was in daily contact with the children of Hall County,” said United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates.

Zero Tolerance, Zero Common Sense? Author Proposes Widespread School Security Reform

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Police officers, armed security guards, surveillance cameras and metal detectors are now commonplace at schools across the country. They go hand in hand with zero tolerance polices adopted by school systems in the wake of highly publicized outbreaks of violence. In a new book, Homeroom Security: School Discipline in an Age of Fear author Aaron Kupchik argues that these polices need to be reassessed to include some flexibility and more common sense. Research at four public high schools helped shaped Kupchik’s argument. He compiled more than 100 hours of interviews with students, administrators,  teachers and police officers assigned to each of the schools located in the nation’s Southwest and Mid-Atlantic regions.

ACLU Challenges School Arrests

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School systems across the country will be watching as the American Civil Liberties Union confronts the New York City school district for allowing police to arrest kids for things like drawing on school desks. The ACLU is working on behalf of five kids who were arrested, claiming police used excessive force to get kids to follow school rules. In a memorandum of law, the ACLU sites cases like this:
Plaintiff L.W. was sixteen when School Safety Officers at his Queens school punched him repeatedly in the head, poked him in the eye, and handcuffed him—all because they suspected he had a cell phone, which he did not, and because he indicated that he did not want to be searched. Click here for the full memorandum.

DJJ School System Loses Out On Some Federal Money, But Is Preparing For Dual Accreditation

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By Chandra R. Thomas

Department of Juvenile Justice School System leaders are recovering from a major disappointment, but also celebrating other victories while working toward maintaining the system’s academic standing. First the bad news: The school system did not get any of the Race To The Top grant money received by 26 other school systems in the state. Last month Governor Sonny Perdue announced that Georgia was selected as a winner by the U.S. Department of Education for the second round of the grants. Georgia is projected to receive $400 million over four years to implement its plan to create conditions for education innovation and reform. The fund is a $4 billion grant opportunity provided in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to support new approaches to improve schools.

Worst of the Internet – Manual on Molesting Children

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A 170 page manual, with instructions on how to find and molest children, is being passed around on an email listserv.  Police in Orange County, Florida are horrified by this discovery.  They have no idea where it originated, but they hope to track where it goes.  WFTV-TV in Orlando interviews Det. Phillip Graves, a sex crimes investigator, who says this booklet is one of the most disturbing things he's seen online.  The author calls himself “the mule” but police have no idea who he is. The story is generating outrage and buzz about First Amendment rights. Investigators say sending the manual by email or possessing it is not a crime.  You can guess the reaction from a website called shuddup.com.

Link Between Literacy and Prison?

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Some states may be looking at elementary school reading scores to help forecast the number of jail beds they need for the future, according to the Ferst Foundation. The Ferst Foundation, based in Morgan, Ga. focuses on improving childhood literacy across the state.   We have asked the Ferst Foundation for more specific details on how literacy is used by prison planners.   In the meantime, their mission is to improve the life long prospects for Georgia's children. “We know that approximately 61 percent of low-income families do not have a single piece of reading material suitable for a child,” the Ferst Foundation website points out. The foundation gives one book a month to kids involved in the program from birth to age five.

At Risk Kids: Education Strategy Guides

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Three new guides are available from a center whose name says it all: The National Evaluation and Technical Assistance Center for the Education of Children and Youth Who Are Neglected, Delinquent, or At-Risk . This center has created two strategy guides and one issue brief aimed at helping teachers, administrators and program coordinators provide better education to at-risk and delinquent kids.  Check them out below:

Making It Count: Strategies for Improving Mathematics Instruction for Students in Short-Term Facilities

Adolescent Literacy Guide: Meeting the Literacy Needs of Students in Juvenile Justice Facilities

Issue Brief: The Importance of Literacy for Youth Involved in the Juvenile Justice System

Public School Security Battle

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Many school districts are looking for ways to cut costs and watching the legal battle in Detroit.  More than 200 public school officers were fired earlier this month and replaced with a private company, according to an article in the Detroit Free Press. Detroit Public Schools hired Securitas Security Services to provide in school security, saving them $5.5 million with a one-year contract. The officers who got fired filed an injunction. The judge ruled in their favor and forced the district to reinstate them immediately. The officers accused the district of union busting and putting kids at risk because Securitas guards would not get as much training.

Gangs and Drugs: Crisis in Public Schools

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Twenty-seven percent of public school students from 12 to 17-years-old report that kids are using, keeping or selling drugs onschool grounds, according to a study by the National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse. The survey, done annually over the past 15 years, found many surprising statistics:

Students in schools with gangs and drugs are five times more likely to use marijuana and three times more likely to drink. 46 percent of teens at public schools say there are gangs at their schools compared to only 2 percent of teens at private and religious schools
The percentage of middle schools with drugs on campus (kids 12- to 13- years old and younger) has increased from 23 percent last year to 32 percent this year
Teens with strong family ties are far less likely to smoke, drink or use marijuana or hang out with people who drink regularly, use illegal drugs and abuse prescription drugs

Click here for the full report.

Atlanta Grad Rate Investigation

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Atlanta Public Schools claim a 30 percent increase in high school graduation rates since 2002, but the boost in numbers may be the result of hidden truancy rates, according to an Atlanta Journal Constitution investigation. The story says:
The mass exodus from Atlanta’s high schools may be the primary reason for one of the district’s proudest academic achievements: a dramatic increase in its graduation rate… District officials boast that the rate of students getting diplomas within four years has risen 30 percentage points since 2002. But the rate’s only surge, from 43 percent to 72 percent, came between 2003 and 2005, the Journal-Constitution’s analysis of state data found. During that time, the district removed from its rolls about 30 percent of all pupils in grades nine through 12 — roughly 16,000 students. As a result, most of those students no longer figured into the district’s calculation of what Superintendent Beverly Hall has descried as the “all-important” graduation rate: The fewer students being counted, the fewer graduates needed to make the rate higher.  A student listed as a dropout would count against the rate.  A transfer would not – even if school officials didn’t know, or didn’t try to find out, where a student went.