Bartlesville middle-schooler sent home after school finds BB gun

Garrett Giles has the story.

Are fifth graders ready for middle school?

"Fifth graders in Oklahoma City Public Schools will be joining older peers in middle schools across the district under a proposal unveiled this week," Oklahoma Watch reports.

Parents have voiced concerns about younger students being exposed to adolescent behavior too soon, particularly drugs, gangs, and bullying. Fifth-graders are typically 10 or 11 years old.

After pleading with bus driver not to make him get off the bus, sixth-grader attacked by older student

"A viral video showing a young boy in Locust Grove, Oklahoma, not wanting to leave a school bus in fear of a bully is now under investigation," Newsweek reports.

In footage shared on social media, the distressed child could be seen crying and pleading with the driver to not force him from the vehicle. Later in the short clip, filmed on a cellphone, an adult male voice, reportedly the bus driver, could be heard saying: “Hey, get out of here, go.”

When the child reluctantly exited the bus he was attacked by another child. From the footage, it appeared the driver did not immediately come to his aid, KTUL reported. The victim was a sixth-grade middle school student and the attacker was a ninth-grade student.

Based on the video, the child suffered blows to the body and head. Despite the footage, it was not immediately clear who the bus driver's comments were being directed at. The Mayes County Sheriff's Office confirmed on Friday that deputies were probing the bullying incident, which occurred on January 17. One top cop described the video as “alarming.”

The heartbreaking video is making international news.

Do smaller classes help?

"One would expect smaller classes to produce better results," Greg Forster writes. "But education policy must be informed by evidence and not just our intuitions. Small classes have a big price tag, but the empirical evidence shows that they don’t produce results."

Is TPS traumatizing children?

A Tulsa Public Schools parent "is furious at school officials for not letting students and staff know that an intruder-on-campus drill was just a drill until after it was over," KTUL reports.

"When your child is literally bawling into your arms, shaking ... I just got back from vacation; this was not how I wanted to greet my child, and you shouldn't have to," said parent Anita Keslter. 

Her eighth-grade son thought the intruder-on-campus drill was the real deal because no one said it was a drill until after it was over.

"If it's a drill, you address it as a drill," she said.

TPS told Tulsa's Channel 8: "It is important that we practice drills in 'real world' settings, so they are not announced in advance. Principal Doctor, in accordance with our practice, announced that it was a drill after it ended."

"If you want them to act appropriately, you don't scare the s*** out of them," said Kestler. ... The school was preparing for the worst, and doing so, from at least one mom's perspective, in the worst possible way.

"Traumatizing? I mean, honestly, it is. The way things have been going, you can't do an intruder-on-campus drill when you have had the cops to your campus multiple times and not tell me you're not going to frighten the children," she said.

Liberals' real problem is that Christian schools exist at all

Tony Perkins explains.

Salina student suspected of threatening to shoot up school

"Salina Schools in Mayes County promises to take appropriate disciplinary action against a student suspected of threatening to shoot up the school Thursday," the News on 6 reports.

Police arrest Haskell student for taking gun to high school

The News on 6 has the story.

School choice 'drains money' from public schools?

Perry school district 'did everything wrong,' must pay $3.5 million in sexual predator case

"Perry Public Schools has admitted liability for the 'unwanted and unlawful touching' of 14 girls by a former teacher's aide and agreed to pay the families $3.5 million to settle the case," The Oklahoman reports.

School district officials were accused in a federal lawsuit of shielding a sexual predator and branding children as liars when they accused Arnold Cowen of molestation. 

Cowen, 87, pleaded guilty in February to molesting 10 girls at Upper Elementary School in 2016 and 2017 and is serving a 10-year prison sentence. Four more girls came forward after the charges were filed against Cowen. 

"There was no doubt that these children were molested and (the school district) admitted it," Cameron Spradling, one of the attorneys representing the victims, told The Oklahoman on Wednesday. "There's no doubt that they were responsible for allowing that to happen. They did everything wrong."

Broken Arrow student arrested for bringing pellet gun to school

The News on 6 has the story.

Parents learn of hit list at Lindsay school weeks after initial discovery

KOCO has the story. And by keeping the threat quiet, News 9 reports, the school district broke the law.

Are teachers quitting at a record rate?

Actually, as Mike Antonucci points out, they leave their jobs at lower rates than almost everyone else.