Parent: Why I Can’t ‘In Good Conscience’ Leave My Kids in Public School

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Photo Credit: Washington Post(By Lynne Rigby) The letter is addressed to Florida Gov. Rick Scott, Seminole County Schools Superintendent Walt Griffin, state Sen. David Simmons, state Rep. Karen Castor Dentel, Bear Lake Elementary School Principal Alex Agosto, and Bear Lake Assistant Principal Virginia Brouillard.

There are some abbreviations in the letter that you may not recognize: VPK is voluntary prekindergarten; FCAT is the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests, the state-mandated exams that have been used for years for “accountability” purposes in school districts across the state but which are being replaced by a new test aligned to new Florida standards and being designed by the American Institutes for Research, or AIR. The new Florida Standards in math and Language Arts were approved earlier this year after the state pulled out of the Common Core State Standards initiative and devised their own, which actually look a great deal like the Core. EOCs are end-of-course exams. SCPS is Seminole County Public Schools.

Dear Governor Scott, Mr. Griffin, Mrs. Stewart, David Simmons, Karen Castor Dentel, Mr. Agosto and Mrs. Brouillard and Seminole County School Board Members,

I am a parent of five children in Seminole County Schools aged 4 (VPK) to 16. My husband and I are deeply embedded in this community. We are both successful products of Lake Brantley High School and the middle schools that fed into it. I graduated from the University of Georgia in 1995 and came back to Seminole to teach Kindergarten at Pinecrest and Wekiva; he is currently the pitching coach for the Lake Brantley varsity baseball team. Our ties run deep. We stayed here so our kids would be blessed with a similar educational experience and opportunities.

This year has been completely disheartening for us. You see, I’ve been okay with FCAT…show what you know, I get it….some sort of accountability. That was until this year. My third grade son, Jackson, the fourth of my four boys has had mostly As, a scattering of Bs through his Bear Lake career, much like his brothers. However, he has had the Discovery Education tests added to his school year. I saw his score on DE in first grade and it was scary low, in the 20s. But he had 1s and his teacher said that she knows him and he was doing fine with nothing to worry about. Same thing in 2nd grade, though, knowing that FCAT was looming, I began to panic a bit. We read out loud together each night through the summer, talked about the books as we read and I believed that that would pay off on the first DE test of 3rd grade because he was doing really well. I was wrong. His first DE test was similar to others but now his teachers start panicking because their pay depends on it. He is sent to remedial LEAP and ultimately a math pullout group. All the while, he has mostly As and a few Bs.

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Obama Admin Willing to Hand Over Terrorists But Has “No Time” for Christian Meriam Ibrahim

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Photo Credit: LifeNewsWhile the weekend headlines were dominated by one American’s release, the world still waits for news on Sudan’s Meriam Ibrahim and her two little children, still imprisoned in Sudan.

After conflicting reports, one of which implied that Meriam’s release was imminent, no one seems to know the status of the mother, whose American husband is desperate to free his family from the brutal conditions in the Khartoum prison. According to the Sudanese government, comments about the trio’s discharge were taken out of context. Hours after hopes were raised, officials backpedaled and insisted the family would have to await the court’s verdict.

Read more from this story HERE.

‘I. Am. The. Mom.’: It Didn’t Go Over Well When a Hospital Allegedly Told a Mother They’d Need to Have a ‘Private’ Conversation With Her Teenage Daughter

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Photo Credit: Christy Duffy / Creative Commons We will be discussing this story and all the day’s news on our live BlazeCast with Editor-in-Chief Scott Baker (@bakerlink) beginning at 3:00pm ET:

When Christy Duffy took her 17-year-old daughter to her local hospital in Michigan, she was stunned to see a notice posted alerting parents that a nurse will need to “have a short 5 minute private conversation with your child.”

In a fiery blog post published on Monday, Duffy took a bold stand in favor of parental rights. She explains how the situation unfolded:

I was there last week for an appointment for Amy. She hurt her foot, which makes dancing difficult, so we had to get that checked out. Amy is 17; I asked if this policy was in effect and if so, how could I opt out. The receptionist told me it’s a new law and there is no opting out. Working to keep my cool, I said, “I’m sure there is.” She said, “No, there isn’t.” At which point I asked if I needed to leave and go to the urgent care center because I was not submitting my daughter to such a conversation.

That did not go over well

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Public School Kids Rebel Against Michelle Obama’s Healthy School Lunches As First Daughters Get Meatball Subs, Ice Cream

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Photo Credit: TownHallI know, the last thing you’d expect from the Obamas is hypocrisy. Alas, I bring you yet another example, this time regarding school lunches. First Lady Michelle Obama has been widely criticized among hungry students across the U.S., a result of school meal nutrition standards that she successfully lobbied for in 2010. Twitchy has done a great job capturing the reactions and photos to some of these lunches and it’s not pretty (click here, here, and here for examples). But CNS News decided to dig a little deeper. What exactly are Michelle O’s daughters eating at lunch? Is it in any way comparable to the lunches in our nation’s public schools? Obviously, the answer is no:

With public school students using #ThanksMichelleto tweet photos of their skimpy, stomach-turning school lunches, I decided to look at what Michelle Obama’s daughters are served at Sidwell Friends school, and it turns out the girls dine on lunches from menus designed by chefs.

Read more from this story HERE.

Baby’s Bittersweet First Day: Mother Faces Hanging in Sudan

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Photo Credit: Justice Center Sudan The baby girl born to a woman sentenced to hang in Sudan for marrying a Christian American citizen met her father for the first time — a moment that was captured in a bittersweet photo.

Daniel Wani, an American citizen who lives in New Hampshire, held his daughter, Maya, in his arms as she rested peacefully days after being born at a Sudanese prison earlier this week.

The moment of joy was tempered by sorrow because her mother, Meriam Yehya Ibrahim Ishag, has been sentenced to flogging and a death by hanging by a Sudanese court for marrying Wani. The flogging and the death penalty had been delayed until after she gave birth.

Read more from this story HERE.

Mom of Fallen Soldier Turns Combat Fatigues into Something Extra Special (+video)

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Photo Credit: CNNLisa Freeman of Richmond Hill, Ga., lost her son, Matthew, after he had been serving in Afghanistan for only nine days. To keep the memory of the young Marine captain alive, she has turned the fabric that was once his combat uniform into a lovable keepsake — a teddy bear, according to a CNN report.

Read more from this story HERE.

Pay-To-Pee Teacher Faces No Discipline; Mad Mom Vows To Homeschool

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Photo Credit: YouTube screenshots / heivokasLast week, two Vancouver, Wash. third graders said they wet their pants after their teacher would not let them use the bathroom. The students, both girls, said the reason for the denial was that they hadn’t accumulated enough pretend classroom money to pay for privilege.

The unidentified teacher will not be punished in any way as a result of one investigation of the incidents, a teachers union representative told The Columbian.

A separate investigation of the same incident based on livid mother Jasmine Al-Ayadhi’s complaint remains pending.

The alleged incidents occurred May 15 at Mill Plain Elementary School.

The pretend money is designed to teach students about the value of money. Students earn the fictional funds by doing their homework, for example, or by being nice to others. They can spend it to buy pizza or pointless crap like a squirt gun. Students say they must also use the fake cash to pay for bathroom breaks.

Read more from this story HERE.

Black Pro-Lifer NAACP Silenced After Blasting Its Pro-Abortion Stance Appeals Decision

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Photo Credit: Life News A leading black pro-life advocate has appealed a judge’s decision effectively silencing him and prohibiting him from criticizing the NAACP after the civil rights group sued him for calling it the “National Association for the Abortion of Colored People.”

In February, the NAACP threatened to sue LifeNews.com and Ryan Bomberger, a LifeNews blogger , for a column that took the civil rights organization to task over its abortion position. The NAACP is upset about a column Bomberger wrote at LifeNews titled, “NAACP: National Association for the Abortion of Colored People,” which notes the organization’s 44th Annual Image Awards.

Following the piece, the NAACP sent Bomberger, the director of the Radiance Foundation, and LifeNews a threatening letter claiming infringement on its name and logo for including it in the opinion column. The letter accused Bomberger and his group, the Radiance Foundation, of “trademark infringement” over an ad campaign that exposes the NAACP’s pro-abortion position.

Stating that while “you are certainly entitled to express your viewpoint, you cannot do so in connection with a name that infringes on the NAACP’s rights,” the letter demands a response within a self-imposed time period.

In response to the letter, Bomberger asked a federal court to declare that the First Amendment protects his and the Radiance Foundation’s exercise of free speech and that his speech does not infringe on any of the NAACP’s trademarks or other rights. The lawsuit does not seek any damages.

Read more from this story HERE.

High School Senior Told He’s ‘Not Welcome’ at School after Raising Gadsden Flag

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Photo Credit: Greg StoneburnerGreg Stoneburner, a senior who just graduated from Central High School in Grand Junction, Colo., said he was told in no uncertain terms that he was no longer welcome at the school after raising a Gadsden flag on the school’s flagpole. Moreover, he told Examiner.com in an exclusive interview Friday, the principal withheld his flag and his diploma until after his graduation walk.

The incident, he said on Facebook, took place on May 9. That’s when he replaced the school’s flag with the yellow “Don’t Tread On Me” banner often associated with the Tea Party as a senior prank. He also posted a paper to the pole that told the history of the flag.

The prank didn’t sit too well with Jodie Diers, the principal of Central High School, who was livid over the prank. Other students, Stoneburner told Examiner, claimed she was angrily yelling to have the flag pulled down when she first saw it. According to Stoneburner, she pulled him out of a scholarship breakfast and told him and his parents the flag was a “slap in the face” to the school. She then said he was “not welcome” at Central High.

“She also confiscated my flag,” he wrote, even though she admitted he had not violated any law or school policy. Her reasoning, Stoneburner said, was that anything on the pole was school property.

Read more from this story HERE.

Sheriff: Investigate Planned Parenthood That Didn’t Report Rape of Teen, Allowing Man to Rape 18 Other Girls

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Photo Credit: LifeNewsA county sheriff wants state agencies to probe the Planned Parenthood abortion business and determine why it purposefully did not report the rape of a teenage girl that it saw as a customer, allowing the rapist to target other teen girls.

Planned Parenthood abortion clinics have come under fire countless times over the years for not reporting cases of statutory rape to authorities as required by state law. Earlier this month, in Arizona, officials says the abortion giant failed again to provide the proper report to authorities about a victim of a young man who is a serial rapist.

Not only did Planned Parenthood intentionally fail to report the rape but, in so doing, it allowed the rapist to rape as many as 18 or more teenage girls, authorities say, making it so the abortion company is partially responsible for victimizing them as well.

The Arizona Republic has more on the potential investigation into the Planned Parenthood abortion company:

The Pinal County Sheriff’s Office has asked two state agencies to investigate a claim that a Planned Parenthood clinic in Tempe refused to report evidence of a suspected teen rape.

Read more from this story HERE.