LOCAL PAPER TIDBIT

In our local paper, I read an article where a high school student's mother got arrested and charged with disrupting a public school, obstruction of a law enforcement officer, and disorderly conduct.

When it happened, it seems she and her son were in a conference with the assistant principal at the high school. And the son's probation officer.

For some reason, the sixteen-year-old son suddenly started throwing furniture and shouting obscenities. While the assistant principal and probation officer tried to calm him, the mother jumped into the middle of it.

This isn't an alternative school, it's a regular high school. So I'm not understanding the probation officer thing. Are kids on probation allowed in school? And are school officials required to help out probation officers?

No wonder so many parents are choosing to home-school. I've never wholeheartedly approved of home schooling because I feel the energy could be better spent improving public education. But I'm not sure I'd want my kid in a place where another kid's liable to blow any minute, where probation officers are taken for granted, and where a teacher or principal has to step into the fray.

And a parent adding to the turmoil! A shame parents can't be failed like students.

Hats off to the educators who form the front line every day.