Posted by spooneybarger
Sun, 03 May 2009 22:18:00 GMT
The eighth-grade boy held out his wrists for teacher Carlos Polanco to see.
He had just explained to Polanco and his history classmates at Virgil Middle School in Koreatown why he had been absent: He had been in the hospital after an attempt at suicide.
Polanco looked at the cuts and said they “were weak,” according to witness accounts in documents filed with the state. “Carve deeper next time,” he was said to have told the boy.
“Look,” Polanco allegedly said, “you can’t even kill yourself.”
The boy’s classmates joined in, with one advising how to cut a main artery, according to the witnesses.
“See,” Polanco was quoted as saying, “even he knows how to commit suicide better than you.”
The Los Angeles school board, citing Polanco’s poor judgment, voted to fire him.
But Polanco, who contended that he had been misunderstood, kept his job. A little-known review commission overruled the board, saying that although the teacher had made the statements, he had meant no harm.
It’s remarkably difficult to fire a tenured public school teacher in California, a Times investigation has found. The path can be laborious and labyrinthine, in some cases involving years of investigation, union grievances, administrative appeals, court challenges and re-hearings.
Posted by spooneybarger
Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:33:00 GMT
An 8-year-old Saudi girl has divorced her middle-aged husband after her father forced her to marry him last year in exchange for about $13,000, her lawyer said Thursday.
Posted by spooneybarger
Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:38:00 GMT
The Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases are a danger to public health and welfare. It is the first step to regulating pollution linked to climate change.
Posted by spooneybarger
Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:28:00 GMT
Gordon Ramsay is serving customers ready-meals which are prepared in a London ‘food factory’ and sold with a mark-up of 586 per cent, it emerged today.
Posted by spooneybarger
Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:25:00 GMT
then, no food for wifey!
A new Afghan law that has drawn Western condemnation for restricting women’s rights does not allow marital rape as its critics claim, but lets men refuse to feed wives who deny them sex, the cleric behind it says.
Posted by spooneybarger
Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:07:00 GMT
We preach of freedom in this country all the time. From the left, from the right. Yet, people aren’t free to come and go as they please.
The nation’s two major labor federations have agreed for the first time to join forces to support an overhaul of the immigration system, leaders of both organizations said on Monday. The accord could give President Obama significant support among unions as he revisits the stormy issue in the midst of the recession.
Posted by spooneybarger
Tue, 14 Apr 2009 10:04:00 GMT
Woody Harrelson defended his clash with a photographer at a New York airport Wednesday night as a case of mistaken identity—he says he mistook the cameraman for a zombie.
