Describes the coping responses of three administrators who dealt with various school tragedies, namely, a senior's suicide, a classroom hostage situation involving a bomb explosion, and a tornado that collapsed a cafeteria wall. A sidebar outlines one district's crisis plan. (MLH)

In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a First Circuit Court of Appeals decision interpreting federal law as requiring school districts to provide educational services for every handicapped child. This article reviews legal developments pertaining to severely handicapped children's educational needs, analyzes the "Timothy W."…

Because of federal legislation and entitlement programs, increasing numbers of medically fragile and/or technologically assisted children attend public schools. Addresses the legal obligations of schools to provide the technology and the impact of assistive technology on current special education programming. (MLF)

To help protect students, schools need a two-part plan to deter child sexual abuse. Schools must educate staff and students concerning the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable behavior and develop written policies denouncing child sexual abuse. Schools must also develop procedures for handling complaints. The key to a fair investigation…

Home schooling, an alternative involving about 1 million students annually, walks a fine line in an educational reform era. Home-schooling families have succeeded in establishing their constitutional right to educate their children and have proven their educational programs' legitimacy with achievement test results and with successful "graduates."…

All adolescents have leadership potential. There are three stages of youth leadership development: awareness, interaction, and mastery. Transactional and transformational leadership provide a bridge between youth leadership development and character education. Therein lie the qualities that all parents and educators want to instill in youngsters.…

As four recent events in the Denver area show, parents' rights and society's needs sometimes collide, with battles often fought in public schools. This issue should be explicitly recognized in school policy. Policymakers should address disputed facts; develop guidelines for including parents in determining outcomes, solutions, and evaluation…

School districts must properly manage volunteers to protect children from negligent behavior. Districts can reduce the risk of using volunteers by developing volunteer-management policies and procedures; maintaining adequate liability insurance; developing descriptions of volunteer responsibilities; screening interested persons; and providing…

Before abused children can heal and learn effectively, the problem causing the trauma must be recognized and identified, and proper legal issues must be addressed. Through various local, state, and federal mechanisms, U.S. society has provided a process for reporting suspected child abuse and crafting a positive solution. (Contains 28 references.)…

In a suit involving an assaulted Native American middle school student, a federal court judge granted the Philadelphia Public Schools' motion for summary judgment. Even in this post-Columbine era, senseless on-campus, student-to-student violence is generally not considered a civil-rights issue. Exceptions are noted. (MLH)

In an era when the gods of diversity are supreme--enforcing an arbitrary sensitivity on campus and tossing all other moral propositions up for grabs--here and there the Protestant principles that shaped American still assert their institutional role "in loco parentis." Benjamin McArthur recognizes that loyalty to scripture seems anathema…

In 2002, the United States Supreme Court confirmed that in the school's role of in loco parentis, drug testing of students who were involved in athletics and extracurricular activities was constitutional. In a state of the union address, George W. Bush stated that drug testing in schools had been effective and was part of "our aggressive…

Fixed-tuition plans, which vary in specifics from institution to institution, rely on a common principle: Students pay the same annual tuition costs over a pre-determined length of time, ostensibly the time required to earn an undergraduate degree. Students, parents, and policymakers are demonstrating growing interest in such plans. At face value,…

This paper focuses on the pedagogical responsibilities of parents and schools, as well as the care provided by socializing agencies and local communities. A review of the literature has been carried out on the tasks of schools and parents and the relations between education, parenting and care in a changing society in eight countries: the…

When discussing what schools should teach, questions of both content and process must be addressed. Although many observers believe that a fixed content should be learned, it is impossible to separate content and process. In the process of education, experiences build on each other. This fact should cause educators to question the continuities…