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Cluster of Texas Teachers Accused of Having Sex or Sexting with Students

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by Merrill Hope 7 Nov 2015

Incidences of Texas teachers accused of improper relationships with students continue to stream into the 2015-16 school year. An autumnal cluster full of allegations of sexual acts or “sexting,” sending explicit sexual text messages or images, with under-aged minors have been reported.

Waco police arrested Michael George Benns, 35, a former full-time paraprofessional teacher’s assistant at the Midway Independent School District (ISD) Alternative Education Center. Benns was charged Wednesday with having an improper relationship between an educator and student plus sexual assault of a female minor. In March, Benns was fired after the district learned of the February police investigation into his conduct. Waco Police Sergeant Patrick Swanton told the Waco Tribune that the alleged sexual encounter occurred in January between Benns and the victim, a girl under the age of 17, in a downtown parking lot. The victim’s mother reported the incident to police.

“As far as they know at this point, it was a single encounter not on school property,” Swanton said. A forensic interview performed at the Advocacy Center for Crime Victims and Children proved instrumental to the case, said the sergeant. Benns remains in the McLennnan County Jail in lieu of a $50,000 bond since his arrest Nov. 4 arrest.

Midway ISD Superintendent George Kazanas emailed parents Wednesday afternoon about the situation. “Benns came with strong references from youth organizations in the community,” he wrote. However, he noted that Benns “came to us already with a prior connection to a young lady who now is no longer a student at Midway High School. Due to this prior connection, an inappropriate relationship occurred outside of school hours and off-campus. We will continue to work closely with law enforcement officials to maintain a safe and healthy learning environment for our students.”

On Tuesday, in the Houston area, police arrested Deer Park ISD substitute teacher Blake Saucillo, charging him with allegedly sexting explicit images to a female high school sophomore. According to the Houston Chronicle, Deer Park police investigated a June 1 South Campus High School report of an inappropriate teacher-student relationship. Officers determined Saucillo sent explicit videos, photos, and text messages back and forth with a student over a period of several days, although there was no evidence that the sexual misconduct happened at the school. The  substitute made bail set at $30,000 following his arrest and was released for a Wednesday Harris County court appearance.

In late October, a similar case occurred in the Austin area. Eanes ISD officials notified Child Protective Services and the Travis County Sheriff’s Office of an investigation into a female high school math teacher for inappropriate communications with a male student over social media and texting. She taught at Westlake High School and the district said her background checks cleared when she was hired.

This week, just outside of San Antonio, the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office charged Mark LeGault, 35, with an improper relationship between and educator and student. sheriff’s office spokesman James Keith said the Wagner High School band director accused of sexual misconduct was in a relationship with a 17-year-old female student since August but police did not disclose if the victim was one of his band students. Keith told KENS-5 the girl’s parents first contacted the sheriff’s office about the inappropriate relationship on Monday.

The sexual misconduct began after the teenaged girl broke up with her longtime boyfriend. She told deputies LeGault offered her comfort and said, “Let’s hang out. I can make things better for you.” The teen felt pressured to stay in the relationship with LeGault, telling police LeGault threatened to commit suicide.

The suspect had suicidal tendencies. Keith said LeGault showed up with bleeding arms for a meeting with district officials after being placed on administrative leave. First responders rushed LeGault to the hospital.

Since his Tuesday arrest, high school parent Quawanna Peoples told KENS-5 that she was relieved LeGault no longer taught at the school but she emphasized: “It’s shock and disappointment because we look at these educators to look after our children.”

The Texas Classroom Teachers Association (TCTA) reminds education professionals they are “perceived role models in the community” in their 2015-16 Survival Guide, defining improper sexual relationships for teachers and the criminal consequences of these actions. It lists what constitutes real and perceived solicitations of a romantic relationship, warning teachers to “take care to avoid situations in which professional boundaries become poorly defined.”

The 2014-15 school year marked the 7th consecutive year Texas teacher-student improper relationship cases increased, upping from 179 cases opened by the Texas Education Agency to 188.” Previously, expert Terry Abbott blamed the rise of sexual misconduct on social media and secret electronic messaging which he said “created an open gateway for inappropriate behavior,” including developing “improper relationships with students out of sight of parents and principals.” He underscored that the wave of educator sexual deviance in the classroom extends beyond Texas, calling it “epidemic” nationwide.

Follow Merrill Hope on Twitter @OutOfTheBoxMom

 

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Texas Textbook Adoption Process Criticized By Texas Freedom Network President

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BRIGHTDALLAS, Texas — Splashed onto the cover of September 6, 2014 Outlook section of the Houston Chronicle was an opinion piece penned by Kathy Miller, Texas Freedom Network (TFN) president, in which she slammed the state’s textbook adoption policy, namely the current review of Social Studies instructional materials, calling it “deeply flawed and politicized” and that “Texas families simply can’t trust it.”

Right now, the State Board of Education (SBOE) is in the process of Proclamation 2015, reviewing the textbooks for next year as part of the policy written into Chapter 28 of the Texas Education Code (TEC) relating to Chapters 31 and 39. Section 28.002 (c) ensures the “the direct participation of educators, parents, business and industry representatives, and employers.” This process will continue until November.

In a brief overview of the textbook adoption process, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) explains that the SBOE calls for bids from publishers, listing curriculum standards, the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skill (TEKS), and other requirements. The publishers then submit completed textbooks to the TEA, 20 regional service centers (for public review), and state review panel, all of whom, make recommendations to the Commissioner of Education who prepares a preliminary report on the textbooks for the SBOE, who will vote to accept or reject these title.

However, Miller voiced, if given her druthers, she would prefer the process to be less transparent because she wants it to be for “teachers and scholars” only. Miller’s griped about a low level of college level scholars on the panel yet there have been a total of 144 Social Studies textbook panelists of which 136 are education professionals who work in a variety of capacities including on a university level, based on data provided to Breitbart Texas by the TEA. That means there are only a miniscule eight parent or business community members on these panels.

Then Miller balked that the “panels include a number of people with no relevant qualifications or teaching experiences” and “political activists” descending on the process in the last Social Studies materials adoption process, 2002.

State Board of Education (SBOE) chair Barbara Cargill, told Breitbart Texas “We are told to nominate parents, industry leaders as well as educators.” She added, in reference to Miller’s complaints, “But when we do they are never deemed good enough. They can’t have it both ways.”

Last year, Miller did not like how the committee review panels were structured for the Science curriculum standards either and railed against the process and specifically against Cargill, a certified science teacher who taught high-school biology in the Texas public education system. She is also the creator of a reputable summer science camp.

Miller tried to play “gotcha” by glomming onto the conservatively challenged Thomas B. Fordham Institute to prove her points about the “right.” Using this policy wonk-house to slam the Texas standards in 2011, she accused the education of being a ‘politicized distortion of history’ filled with contempt for historians and scholars “whom they derided as insidious activists for a liberal academic establishment.”

It is a weak stretch, though, to use the Fordham Institute to try to smack down conservative Texas textbook reviewers by using a group that embraced the Common Core State Standards.

Miller also back peddled on panelist credentials in her written rant, groaning that it is not that panelists are not qualified but those poor qualified scholars must “spend their limited time debating panel colleagues who have an ideological agenda but lack any real qualifications” like the one she razzed as being “retired from a career in car sales.”

She likely meant business community member Mark Keough, also the Republican candidate for Texas House of Representatives, District 15. He’s a history buff who applied to review textbooks through the TEA formal application process. Cargill commented that Keough would not have gotten onto a history panel without the agency deeming his knowledge base was proficient.

“The agency considers all applications and chooses reviewers based on their content knowledge, background, and adequate geographic representation. They try to form panels that are well rounded with educators, parents, business leaders, and other interested citizens,” Cargill added, emphasizing that Texas has an elected state board, which means that the board is held accountable to their constituents.

Miller’s name calling is an extension of when in January, the TFN reminded the Texas Federation of Teachers, the state’s chapter affiliated with the second largest union in the nation, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), about the upcoming Social Studies textbook review process. Texas AFT issued their own APB for citizen textbook reviewers that read:

“There’s an unfortunate tradition in Texas of undue influence on textbook selection by nincompoops with an ax to grind. Hence, as the folks at TFN have said, ‘It’s critical that truly qualified individuals serve on the review teams and counter far-right efforts to politicize the textbooks.”

Interestingly, it was a handful of the very people the Texas AFT called “nincompoops” who exposed the politicized radical left lessons being taught like the Boston Tea Party as an “act of terrorism” under the highly biased and controversial curriculum management system CSCOPE, which Breitbart News reported.

Miller also falsely asserted that the state requires its official reviewers to determine only whether proposed textbooks cover the curriculum standards. While reviewers might note some factual errors, “there is no requirement that they do so. Making matters worse, there is not sufficient time for diligent reviewers to examine the materials for errors in any systematic and thorough way. So most reviewers don’t do it.”

Cargill corrected Miller. She told Breitbart Texas, “Reviewers are absolutely told to check for factual errors! I’m not sure how she could get this so wrong.”

According to Cargill, reviewers work in teams so that if one panel member misses an error, there are other sets of eyes to catch it. Besides, she said, “Now that we know what college professors want our children to learn, as evidenced in the APUSH framework, now more than ever we need parents and other citizen patriots to take a stand.”

Cargill referred to the national firestorm started by the College Board’s radical rewrite of the Advanced Placement US History (APUSH) framework. SBOE member Ken Mercer will present the Mercer Resolution requiring that the College Board acknowledge and accommodate TEKS alignment.

The rhetoric coming from Miller is expected. Prior to heading up TFN, she served as TFN’s deputy director from 1996-2000. She’s also been Public Affairs Director for Austin’s Planned Parenthood Federation. In 2005, she returned to head up TFN and is the registered agent on file for the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund (TFNEF).

In 2006, TFNEF created Texas Rising, seeking out “young leaders (ages 18-29)” on college campuses throughout Texas. The group states its mission “to this work because developing an emerging generation of social justice-minded, informed and engaged leaders is essential to the long-term health of our communities and the development of progressive public policy in Texas.”

TFN was founded by Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood and the daughter of the late Governor, Democrat Ann Richards.

Throughout her arguments, Miller attacks the SBOE nominated panelists alleging they demonstrate an “open contempt for expertise.” She dismisses findings from “general public book review committee members” or watchdog groups, chalking them up to “ideological objections from people with strong opinions but few (if any) actual facts to back them up.”

Retired Lt. Col. Roy White chairs up such a group, the Truth in Texas Textbooks (TTT). This coalition of concerned citizens is participating in the Texas Social Studies textbook review.

White gave Breitbart Texas an exclusive sneak peak at the preliminary Social Studies textbook findings TTT has found including distortions, omissions and half-truths all passing for accurate high school history.

In a mild example, Edmentum’s “World History Since 1815” contains a passage:

“Before Lincoln could carry out his policy towards the conquered South, he was assassinated by a disgruntled Southerner.”

This lightly nuanced passage didn’t even acknowledge President Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth, by name nor did it mention the venue, Ford’s Theatre, which TTT highlighted.

Meanwhile, Perfection’s “Basic Principles of American Government” displays open bias in an excerpt:

“The radical right consists of groups that sometimes gather under the flag of militant anticommunism. Often known as reactionaries, they denounce most forms of government regulation, including progressive taxation and restrictions and industry. Strangely enough, these radicals would not hesitate to use the government’s police power to enforce the changes they desire. Examples of political groups on the radical right are the John Birch Society, the National States & Rights party, The Christian Crusade, and the Tea Party movement.

TTT called this “editorial opinion stated as fact” noting there is no evidence that the Tea Party movement is militant or has used the government’s police power to enforce anything. “Identifying the Tea Party as radical and fascist is false and without merit,” they noted.

TTT also questioned the definition of “radical,” posing that if it means using the government’s police power to enforce desires changes, then the modern IRS, EPA, NSA and other federal departments bureaucracies which have used the police power of the government should be included.

The complete list of TTT’s preliminary Social Studies textbook review findings follow this report.

Texas Social Studies Textbooks Under Review 2015

 

Texas Social

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“Fired Texas Principal Speaks Out: `It Would Be Best To Speak English in Classrooms`”

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fired principal8.10.14 – Townhall.com

 

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2014/08/10/texas-principal-fired-for-telling-students-to-speak-english-n1876574

“Fired Texas Principal Speaks Out: ‘It Would Be Best to Speak English in Classrooms’ “

Leah Barkoukis | Aug 10, 2014

On November 12, 2013, Amy Lacey , the principal of Texas’ Hempstead Middle School, was placed on administrative leave and subsequently fired when she made a simple request to students: speak English.

Now that the gag order has expired, Lacey is speaking out about what happened that day, dispelling rumors that she banned Spanish from the school’s campus.

“I informed students it would be best to speak English in the classrooms to the extent possible, in order to help prepare them for [state] tests,” she wrote in a letter to the Houston Chronicle explaining her side of the story. “It is important to note that I did not ban the use of Spanish anywhere in the school or at any time, even though teachers had reported to me that they had experienced instances in which students had been asked to stop talking during instruction, and they responded that it was their right to speak Spanish — ignoring the fact that they shouldn’t have been speaking [in any language] during class without permission. The perception of the teachers was that students were being disrespectful and disrupting learning, and they believed they could get away with it by claiming racism.”

By telling students to speak English, Lacey was not being racist, she was merely pointing out that the academic language in Texas is, by law, English.

“Even so, I did not suggest that there would be any adverse consequences for any student speaking Spanish at any time. I merely encouraged students to speak English in classrooms by advising them that it would be to their advantage to do so especially with regard to state testing,” she continued. “English language immersion is an accepted best-practice teaching strategy, and Hempstead ISD board policy provides for its practice.”

She ended the letter thanking those who supported her “even when true facts were never given to the media” because she and others were not allowed to publicly defend her position.

“I think the public needs to know that in public education there are only one or two district personnel designated to talk to media,” she wrote in closing, “so any teachers that would have liked to speak on my behalf were not allowed without risking their job status.”

 

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Houston Chronicle on CSCOPE

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Obtaining news, the Houston Chronicle is my last place to turn due to their leftist bent. My hats off to editor Linda Falkenberg on coverage of CSCOPE. Though I don’t agree with Ms. Falkenberg’s attempt to minimize concerns with the CSCOPE’s controversial content.   I would like to say she did a fantastic job outlining the events that have led up to what has become a state controversy.
houston chronicle

 

 

Curriculum flare-up earned an ‘A’ in drama

August 21, 2013

Lisa Falkenberg

Lisa Falkenberg

 

The real shocker among the claims of conservatives fighting something called “CSCOPE” isn’t that the state-produced lesson plans are allegedly pro-Marx and anti-Christ, or even that they’re trying to indoctrinate Texas children into Islam.

It’s that, when you get past the craziness, there are some good questions being asked.

It remains to be seen whether any of those questions will get answered this Saturday in Tyler when Houston state Sen. Dan Patrick debates State Board of Education member Thomas Ratliff.

But the planned clash between the two Republicans – one a tea party darling running for lieutenant governor, the other an outspoken East Texas pragmatist who helped dismantle the Religious Right’s grip on the state education board – has elevated to center stage a little known controversy thus far followed only by online conspiracy theorists and political junkies.

At issue is a computer-based curriculum tool known as CSCOPE produced by Texas Regional Education Service Centers. Until recently, it was being used in some part by 70 percent of Texas school districts, many of them in rural areas that may not be able to afford their own curriculum writers.

Teachers, some of whom have been using the curriculum guide since 2006, have complained of errors, shallow skimming of concepts and, mostly, the instructions they’ve received from some local administrators not to deviate from scripted lesson plans.

But a retired teacher named Janice VanCleave takes the credit for bringing the other issues to light. VanCleave, who lives in Riesel, just east of Waco, and has written many science-related children’s books, said she was trying to tutor students in her local district in 2011 when she asked about the textbook. When the children said there was no textbook, VanCleave got suspicious.

Doors began shutting

When she tried to obtain information on the computer-based lesson plans, she was turned away by the local school district and then by the regional service centers that produced the curriculum. Similar attempts by parents and even State Board of Education members to gain access to the material were rejected. The state centers claimed propriety concerns, but grass-roots conservatives smelled a rat.

And, since nothing feeds conspiracy theories like secrecy, accusations of a government curriculum rife with a progressive, even anti-American bias spread like wildfire. The lessons began to trickle out, providing endless fodder for bloggers who spun webs of intrigue and claims of insidious indoctrination. Glenn Beck and Fox News seized on the story. Then came the politicians, Patrick and the incumbent whose job he’s seeking, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, took up the cause in their respective bids to out-conservative each other.

Tea Party terrorism

The panic grew, even as Attorney General Greg Abbott announced that parents should have access to curriculum. Bloggers took issue with social studies lessons that, in one case, asked students to consider whether, from the British perspective, the Boston Tea Party was a terrorist act. (The fact that student had every right to say “heck, no!” didn’t seem to matter.) Another lesson asked students to design a socialist flag. Another that drew concern simply defined “Allah,” in short, as a monotheistic deity, otherwise known as the God of Abraham.

Not sure why this last one was such a big deal.

Lynn Mitchell, director of the religious studies program at the University of Houston, explained that “Allah” is simply Arabic for “God.” He pointed out that even Arabic-speaking Christians refer to God as “Allah.”

Premature celebration

In May, Patrick announced that the state education service centers had agreed to no longer produce the curriculum and conservatives cheered. But the issue flared back up when critics realized that some districts rushing to prepare lessons for the coming school year were still using the curriculum.

There have been some good issues raised by critics. No teacher should be forced to follow a one-size-fits-all canned script in the classroom. No state-written curriculum should be hidden from parents. The CSCOPE finances should be studied, and perhaps, as Patrick suggested, more oversight is needed in developing such curriculum tools. Certainly, a better editor to weed out the errors.

But these points could have been made without the fear-mongering, without the apocalyptic rhetoric. Even Peggy Venable, director of the conservative, anti-tax group, Americans for Prosperity, who raised solid concerns recently in her op-ed against the curriculum, couldn’t resist the temptation to include the charges of “indoctrination.”

Loaded language

That kind of language scores with the local tea party activists. It gets you on Fox News. And it gets certain primary voters riled enough to show up at the polls. But it’s not constructive.

For her part, the woman who started all this, Janice VanCleave, seems to be a thoughtful woman who is genuinely passionate about children’s education. She’s right that if the curriculum isn’t thorough enough to provide a solid foundation in a historic event such as the Boston Tea Party, then asking whether that event could be construed as a terrorist act is a jarring proposition some kids would be ill-equipped to answer.

“If you don’t really understand why they were throwing the tea, then you can’t really have critical thinking about it,” she says.

It’s her opinion that the curriculum left students ill-informed about Boston. But that’s a concern that makes sense. That’s a debate we could have had without all the drama.

 

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