Confronted with widely publicized accounts of assaults by juvenile sex offenders against fellow students or school staff members, several states are grappling with the issue of how to balance a student's right to an education with the threat that such a student may pose. Legislatures and agencies in several states, such as Arkansas, New Mexico,…

Some students with disabilities find that skilled companion dogs can help them achieve their goals, but schools do not always welcome the animals. Legal experts say that the law is generally on the side of people with disabilities who require assistance animals, but that the issues can become more complicated in the public schools. Guidelines ask…

Coming just four days before the anniversary of the Columbine school shootings, the mass slayings by a student gunman at Virginia Polytechnic Institute last week revived vexing questions and raised familiar fears for educators across the country who grapple daily with ensuring the safety of their students and staffs. The April 16 killings provoked…

This article discusses the March 21, 2005, shootings at Red Lake High School that brought to light an issue of whether school security personnel should be armed. Among the what-ifs being asked after the shootings at Red Lake High is one with uncomfortable implications for many school leaders: What if the two security guards posted near the…

This article reports, that in a growing number of districts, school leaders are ranking the threat of sex offenders-some of them the parents of enrolled students--as one of their chief student-safety concerns. That threat, they say, is a primary reason for investing thousands of dollars in a Web-based tracking system that tells school officials if…

Administrators and students at private schools tend to see their schools as safer than public schools. Spurred in part by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, many private schools have joined the national push to revamp campus safety plans. Kenneth S. Trump, the president of the Cleveland-based National School Safety and Security Services,…

Coaches and school administrators have been threatened, verbally abused, or physically assaulted in school sports incidents. Threats to coaches arise in a sports atmosphere that many observers say is marked by heightened incivility from the professional ranks on down to inter- scholastic and youth leagues. The demanding, coarser attitudes of…

Maryland became the first state to use its authority under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) to seize control of failing schools, as the state board of education this week ordered new management at 11 middle and high schools in Baltimore. Nancy S. Grasmick, Maryland's superintendent of schools, led the push to take over four high schools and to…

This article reports how fake firearms have become a growing problem for schools. These sophisticated look-alikes have caused a spate of incidents involving students at campuses and school-sponsored events. In Utah, two students were suspended from the Uintah High School pending an investigation after they were caught with look-alike pistols at a…

This article discusses a 52-hour hostage standoff at a school in southern Russia, which resulted in the deaths of more than 330 people, about half of them children. The horrific incident underscored the vulnerability of schools around the world, where the scope of security varies greatly. It has also prompted administrators to reevaluate the…

The Columbine High School shootings were still fresh in the minds of educators across the nation in May 1999, when school district officials in the small, quiet town of Port Huron, Michigan, unearthed a similarly violent student plot targeted for one of their middle schools. Four students from Holland Woods Middle School had allegedly written out…

Discusses the prevalence of school arson, motives for setting school fires, and sex and type of student involvement within the context of a detailed description of the high school burning in rural Cross Plains, Texas. Investigation findings and community and teacher reactions are given. (SAS)

In this article, the author stresses the dangers facing school leaders on the job. The school shooting at Campbell County Comprehensive High School in Jacksboro, Tennessee, on November 8, 2005, which left one assistant principal dead and the principal and another assistant principal seriously wounded, is an extreme example of dangers school…

This article reports reactions to the detention of a man in Iraq who possessed computer disks containing information about crisis planning, emergency procedures, and possibly even floor plans for several U.S. schools. The laws and issues surrounding restricted access to this information are discussed. Experts say that in most states, documents,…

This article examines the issue on the quality of water in Seattle's school districts. Seattle's water woes became public when four little containers of rust-colored water from fountains in the city district's Wedgewood Elementary School, collected by concerned parents, were tested by a certified laboratory and found to exceed federal lead limits.…