James McMenemy, a former teacher at the Kerelaw school for troubled kids in Scotland has been brought up on 15 charges for violence against students.

In a competency hearing staged against the teacher he has been accused of lining students against a wall and then firing golf balls and rocks at them before throwing them in a nearby river.

A former student spoke with the Daily Mail and revealed:

“I had cuts and burns from where I was dragged to the floor.”

The student went on to note:

“There was no point complaining because this happened all the time.” and ”It wasn’t just McMenemy, but a lot of them.”

The acts of violence against students was also witnessed by a Glasgow city counselor who says:

“There was an air in the senior management of ‘This is Kerelaw, we do things our own way.’ They covered for each other.”

That counselor says they also witnessed an inappropriate amount of force being used against students.

Thankfully Kerelaw school closed in 2006 but not until nearly 400 allegations of teacher bullying and outright child abuse were reported. A former art teacher has already been sentences to 10 years in prison for the physical assault and sexual abuse of various students.

Do you think officials should have acted more quickly in closing the school and bringing charges against it’s various power abusing teachers?

Scottish Teacher Accused Of Throwing Kids In River, Hitting Golf Balls At Students is a post from: The Inquisitr

Following Gov. Scott Walker’s bill which took away a large portion of a teacher’s collective bargaining rights in the state of Wisconsin, while making them pay more for benefits, a record number of Wisoncin teacher’s have chosen to retire this year, nearly double the normal amount the state typically receives.

Reports show that teachers began filing for retirement weeks before the Republican bill was set to take effect, a time when various top level public officials also decided to accept their pensions and exit the public services field.

One teacher, Ginny Fleck of Green Bay said that after 30 years teaching she left because:

“It wouldn’t make sense for me to teach one more year and basically lose $8,000.”

If Ginny had continued to teach she would have taken an $8,000 hit to her salary under the new agreement.

Ginny is one of nearly 5,000 teachers who decided to call it quits, causing a huge experience drain on the state.

The University of Wisconsin System has also witnessed a doubling of retirements from 480 last year to 1,091 through the first half of 2011.

When all is said and done, 9,933 public workers left their posts through June 2011, while retirements for all of 2010 were just 4,876.

With so many retirements occurring at one time the Governor’s plan to cut educational expenses in the state appears to be working, the Beloit school district alone has saved in the vicinity of $920,000 from retirements, but at what cost? Class sizes will need to increase dramatically until new teachers are hired, if they’re hired at all and the drain from experienced educators can already be felt across the state.

While Wisconsin teachers have been jumping ship at record numbers, other state employees have also been tossing in the towel and calling it quits with State agency retirements nearly tripling from 747 in 2010 to 1,966 from January through June 2011.

What do you think about the number of teacher’s who chose retirement in the state?

Record Number Of Wisconsin Teachers Retire is a post from: The Inquisitr

From Dr. Phil to anyone looking to make a name for themselves when railing against the Internet the one subject they all like to pick on is cyber-bullying and how it is destroying our children. However they aren’t the only one’s in our school systems that are having to deal with what can be the traumatic effects of cyber-bullying.

A new study out from Plymouth University in England has some pretty bad news on this front because they have found that more than a third of teachers have been abused online. While the majority of abuse, 72%, is coming from students it seems that parents can’t stay out of it as 26% of them are abusing teachers online.

“This parental abuse is something we haven’t come across before,” said Prof Andy Phippen, the author of the report.

A total of 35% of teachers said that they had been victims of online bullying — 60% of which were women.

Most of the abuse comes through chat on social networks, but there are many people setting up Facebook groups to target certain teachers. There are also cases of videos being posted on YouTube and reatemyteacher.com has always been a popular venue for abuse.

After being the victim of cyber abuse from a parent using social media sites, one headmistress suffered a breakdown and was left feeling suicidal.

Another teacher was treated for depression and suicidal thoughts after a social media-induced questioning from police.

via TechVibes

One parent, who runs an abuse blog aimed at teachers, didn’t see anything wrong with what they were doing, and according to one teacher this is just something that they have to “live with”.

Sorry but this is totally wrong. How can you possibly expect the teachers that are trying so hard (and yes there are some) to teach our children to give their jobs 100% when they have to face crap like this.

That cyber-bullying going on against our kids? Well they’re not the only story here. is a post from: The Inquisitr

If you planned to start a website with a domain name ending in “book,” Facebook might be all up in your grill about that.

A tiny little start-up aimed at teachers- a demographic notoriously terrified of Facebook- hasn’t even launched yet, but “Teachbook” managed to draw the legal ire of the social networking giant. Tech blogs have taken a dim view of the move, widely viewed as arrogant and unnecessary, given the lack of threat Teachbook poses to Facebook.

TG Daily posted some of the comments in legal documents from the case, where Facebook contends stuff ending in “book” is “”highly distinctive in the context of online communities and networking websites,” and the blog adds:

Facebook’s highly arrogant claim continues to say, “If others could freely use ‘generic plus BOOK’ marks for online networking services targeted to that particular generic category of individuals, the suffix BOOK could become a generic term for ‘online community/networking services’ or ‘social networking services.”

Teachbook was all doe-eyed about the claim, which admittedly is clearly a Facebook reference:

“We’ve been sitting here scratching our heads for the last couple of days,” said the new site’s director Greg Shrader. “We’re trying to understand how Facebook, a multibillion-dollar company, feels this small enterprise in Chicago is any type of threat.”

I’m sure we’re not alone in pointing out that this is probably the best thing that could have happened to Teachbook in this phase of their launch. Hopefully a judge will rule in their favor, but either way, the PR generated couldn’t hurt. Also worth pointing out is that “facebook,” in case you weren’t familiar, is a college yearbook related term that far predated the advent of social networking and tagged photos.

Facebook sues teensy ‘Teachbook,’ seeks to own ‘book’ suffix on whole entire internet is a post from: The Inquisitr

A Milwaukee teacher has been charged with disorderly conduct and fined $175 after she cut the hair of a 7-year-old girl to punish the child for playing with it.

7-year-old Lamya Cammon says the teacher cut off one of her braids in front of the class, and described the incident:

“I went to my desk and cried. And they was laughing,” Cammon said. “She threw it away, and she said, ‘Now what you gonna go home and say to your momma? ‘ And I said, ‘That you cut off my hair,’” Cammon said.

Cammon’s mother is furious. She went to the school and confronted the teacher.

“I said, ‘Well, you know, you cut a lot of her hair off.’ And she was like, ‘Well, I do apologize.’ She said, ‘But I was frustrated,’” Cammon’s mother, Helen Cunningham, said.

Surprisingly, Cammon’s teacher remains at her post, though Layla has been moved to another class. Cammon’s mother doesn’t believe the teacher belongs in the classroom anymore, and the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association pushed an unrelated agenda declined comment on the specific incident in which Layla Cammon lost a braid. They did, however, indicate budget constraints may be causing a higher stress level among Milwaukee teachers. The teacher, who has not been identified, has also declined to comment.

Regardless of the stresses faced by elementary school teachers on a daily basis, how would you feel about an educator who believes this course of action is appropriate behavior spending hours with your child every day?

Teacher cuts girl’s hair as punishment is a post from: The Inquisitr

Meet Crystal Defanti, a Northern California school teacher who shared her home life in a very special way with her students.

It all started well for Crystal Defanti, who had intended to make a DVD filled with school memories from the past year to give to her students. The DVD itself began innocently enough with shots of the school and the students, but then out of the blue it suddenly cut to footage of Crystal Defanti having sex. To be precise, exactly 6 seconds of hard core home porn.

Thankfully Crystal Defanti didn’t find out about her mistake via the press, and quickly phoned parents crying and apologizing profusely and asking that they destroy the tape.

Strangely though for a case like this, Crystal Defanti may walk free. Police have made no charges, and although the local school board may punish her, they accept that it was a mistake and she’ll keep her job.

Crystal Defanti, teacher who accidently shared porn with her students is a post from: The Inquisitr