Amy Joyner-Francis’ Murder Trial Reveals Huge Escalation In Fights At Howard High School

As the News Journal reported today, Howard High School experienced more than double the amount of fights between 2014-2015 and 2015-2016.

During cross-examination of Ursula McCoy, an 8-year faculty veteran at Howard who had worked in the discipline office, Deckers established that violent incidents more than doubled at Howard between the 2014-2015 school year and the 2015-2016 year.  There were 46 reports of violence last year, compared with 20 the year before.

Upon questioning from Deckers, McCoy said “there may be times when (fights) are not reported.”

Sorry Ms. McCoy, when it comes to fighting, all of them should be reported.  It is the law.  It is NOT let’s cherry-pick what is and isn’t a fight.  If the school determines it is a fight, it is a fight.  By failing to report that information to the state, YOU are breaking the law.  Notice the article said she “had worked in the discipline office”.  Why doesn’t she anymore?

I still don’t buy Trinity Carr’s excuse that she couldn’t have known the fight could lead to Amy Joyner-Francis’ death.  She and her friends beat her senseless.  At the very least, they should have known it would cause some type of trauma to her.  But no, we get her attorney defending someone who killed a girl.  I know, it is his job to defend her, but come on!  This was a planned fight.  Kids and teenagers say dumb things, no doubt about it.  I don’t know if that was the case with all this and it really doesn’t matter.  You don’t beat someone until they die because of it.

As for the school not reporting all their fights, I really hope they have learned their lesson and the state makes sure they did.  There is no reason not to report fighting no matter what the reasoning might be.  Some folks say get rid of the Delaware Department of Education, but I believe they are a necessary entity to make sure things like this are reported.  As well with special education issues and things of that sort.  There needs to be ramifications when a school admits in a major trial they didn’t report incidents of violence.  That will bring little solace to the family of Amy Joyner-Francis, but it should be a wake-up call to every single school in this state.  Perhaps if all the fighting were reported it would bring more interventions into a school if the reporting is done with fidelity.

 

High School Parent Watch: Tell Your Children To Give Only Necessary Information For SAT And PSAT

The College Board is asking for a lot of information from students they don’t need.  Such as social security number, family income, religion, and things like that.  A commenter named MEMO just posted a brilliant comment on an article I put up a long time ago.  Delaware is unique though compared to all the other states in that all students are required to take the SAT.  So you may not be able to get out of providing the student identification number.  But all the stuff listed below under “none of their business”?  Don’t let your kid provide that info because it truly is none of their business.

Please remind parents that the in school SAT will be taken by 11th grade students across the state- PSAT for 9th and 10th graders also. The ONLY information that students need to supply is Name, Address, Gender, and Date of Birth. You do not have to enter your student id. The proctor will encourage student to complete the none of their business questions- parent education level, income, religion, GPA, coursework taken or planing to take, etc… etc… do not provide your cell no, ss#, personal email, twitter, Facebook, etc.. keep everything separated from College Board. Have your child ask specifically which information is optional!

You can protect the amount of data going out on your child.  Get involved and make sure your child’s private information stays private!  As well as your own!

School Board Election Trolls

I see this more and more every year.  Someone who is opposed to a school board candidate.  They create a fake Facebook id, come off as some type of person of knowledge and authority, and blast the hell out of a candidate running for school board.  They go on the candidate’s campaign page and start writing awful and untrue material.  I like to call these people cowards.  If you can’t use your real name while slinging dirt, go someplace else.  This already began in the current school board campaign season.  I won’t go into details about what was said against a candidate, except to say the dirt that was slung had absolutely nothing to do with that person’s qualifications as a school board member.  Nor did it really have anything to do with the qualifications of the candidate as a human being.  It was just ugliness hidden behind a coward who should know better.  I have no doubt that if this coward were to be in the same room as the candidate they would politely smile and perhaps even shake hands.  Get a life coward!

When you see this happening, and you have never heard of the person before and they have NO mutual friends, ask yourself what their agenda is.  In any school district, a person should have least one to two mutual friends on Facebook.  If they don’t, assume the name is as fake as the person behind the fake name.  School board candidates should just ignore these kind of trolls and block them on Facebook.  School boards are voluntary.  It isn’t an all-out attack on a candidate’s personal life.  This happened with the recent DSEA election and I called “Sam Muskrat” out at that time.

Sure, I go after school board members and candidates all the time, but only on education thoughts, never their personal life.  If it doesn’t have anything to do with education or the things I write about, that person’s private life is private.