I remember how it was -- JR
UK: Head teacher brings in police sniffer dog and random bag searches to stop county lines drugs coming into secondary school in genteel market town
A highly-rated secondary school in a genteel market town is bringing in a police sniffer dog and random bag searches to tackle 'county lines' drugs, it has been revealed.
The head of Queen Elizabeth's School in Wimborne, Dorset, has warned parents in a letter of the upcoming enforcement measures.
The 'highly trained' sniffer dog will be accompanied by its handler and will roam the classrooms, library and shared areas.
There will also be a PCSO searching bags to ensure there are no banned substances, including tobacco, vapes and cigarettes, on site.
The mixed school, which has over 1,500 pupils aged 13 to 18, is rated as Good by Ofsted.
They said there is no 'drug problem' at the school but they are acting to 'protect the pupils from the dangers of illicit drugs'.
The hardline approach has been welcomed by some parents, although others have questioned whether it is right to 'forewarn' students as they will 'now leave their stuff at home'.
Michelle Lloyd said: 'If no other good comes of it, it will be a deterrent during school hours. 'It's a large issue to tackle and I don't think it will ever be stopped completely. 'Making it more awkward for people to use school kids is a good move forward.'
However, Andrea Holloway responded: 'Defeated the object now! Forewarning is forearming!
'They should have said it will be happening not when. Teenagers are pretty savvy!!!!!'
And one social media commenter said the measures were too heavy-handed as they made school like a 'prison'.
Cindy Lou said: 'I think schools are going to far with sniffer dogs, it's school not prison or a detention centre.'
The letter to parents explaining the initiative states: 'As part of our determination to educate students about, and protect them from the dangers of illicit drugs, the Queen Elizabeth's School has a programme of work that is delivered through assemblies and as part of the Curriculum for Life Programmes.
'In the light of recent news items about 'county lines', we have arranged for a drugs sniffer dog to attend on one day during the week beginning July 4, 2022. This approach has also been taken by a number of schools locally.
'Ensuring that our school is a safe, drug free and healthy environment for all students to learn and develop is a priority and reflects our community's values and expectations. 'It is with these goals in mind that we are undertaking this procedure.
'Your son/daughter will have had this explained to them by their tutor prior to the visit to prepare them. 'The dog will move across the school from class to class and in the shared areas, such as the library and reception. 'Students will be asked to file past the dog who will indicate any concerns to his handler.
'The student's parents would then be informed if, on further investigations, these concerns needed to be explored further.
'Periodically we will also be undertaking bag searches to ensure no banned substances, including tobacco, vapes and cigarettes have been brought into the school.'
The school, which has also erected a large fence to boost its security, said the sniffer dog will be on site next week as part of an initiative being run in several Dorset schools.
Katie Boyes, headteacher of QE School, said: 'It is important to state that the use of a dog is not in reaction to an incident and there is not a drug problem at QE School.
'We want to make the school as safe as possible and like other local schools decided to invite a sniffer dog in with its handler.
'It is entirely a preventative measure and is designed to help reassure parents that we are doing everything to ensure their children are safe.
'The visit of the dog for a few hours is allied to our programme of work that educates the children about the dangers of drugs.
'The new fence has been put up because it is a safeguarding requirement, and it is the recommended height for safeguarding compliance within schools.'
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Public schools in Texas would rename slavery as 'involuntary relocation' under new social studies standards
Public schools in Texas would describe slavery to second graders as 'involuntary relocation' under new social studies standards proposed to the state's education board.
A group of nine educators submitted the idea to the State Board of Education as part of Texas' efforts to develop new social studies curriculum, according to the Texas Tribune.
The once-a-decade process updates what children learn in the state's nearly 8,900 public schools.
The board is considering curriculum changes one year after Texas passed a law to eliminate topics from schools that make students 'feel discomfort.'
Board member Aicha Davis, a Democrat who represents Dallas and Fort Worth, raised concerns during a June 15 meeting that the term wasn't a fair representation of the slave trade.
The board sent the draft back for revision, urging the educator group to 'carefully examine the language used to describe events.'
'I can't say what their intention was, but that's not going to be acceptable,' Davis told The Texas Tribune on Thursday.
'The board -- with unanimous consent -- directed the work group to revisit that specific language,' Keven Ellis, chair of the Texas State Board of Education said in a statement issued late on Thursday.
The group consists of nine educators, including a professor at the University of Texas.
It is one of many such groups that are advising the state education board to make changes to the curriculum.
Part of the proposed draft standards obtained by The Texas Tribune say students should 'compare journeys to America, including voluntary Irish immigration and involuntary relocation of African people during colonial times.'
In this particular case, the have been given a copy of Senate Bill 3, Texas' law which dictates how slavery and issues of race are taught in Texas.
The law stipulates slavery cannot be taught as part of the true founding of the United States and that slavery was nothing more than a deviation from American values.
'Young kids can grasp the concept of slavery and being kidnapped into it,' Annette Gordon-Reed, a history professor at Harvard University, said.
'The African slave trade is unlike anything that had or has happened, the numbers and distance. Using 'involuntary relocation' to describe slavery threatens to blur out what actually occurred during that time in history. There is no reason to use the proposed language,' she said.
'Tell children the truth. They can handle it,' she added.
Stephanie Alvarez, who is a professor at the University of Texas told the Tribune she was not at the meeting where the language was discussed but said she found it 'extremely disturbing.'
Texas' public education system has become heavily politicized in recent years, with lawmakers passing legislation to dictate how race and slavery should be taught in schools and conservative groups pouring large amounts of money into school board races.
Texas drew attention for a similar situation in 2015, when a student noticed wording in a textbook that referred to slaves who were brought to America as 'workers.'
The book's publisher apologized and promised to increase the number of textbook reviewers it uses.
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CUNY Schools Jews on the New Race Regime
Of all the signs that the Jewish community’s political influence has waned in New York City, perhaps none has been as stark as the City University of New York’s frequent spasms of open distaste toward the Jews, many of them Mizrahi, middle class, or foreign born, who attend its dozens of colleges and graduate schools.
The CUNY law school faculty unanimously endorsed a student council Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions resolution targeting Israel in May. Those students had also chosen Nerdeen Kiswani, founder of a radical activist group committed to “globalizing the Intifada” against Israeli Jews and their sympathizers, as one of their commencement speakers. The Professional Staff Congress, a union representing 30,000 CUNY employees, had passed a resolution in 2021 condemning Israel for the “massacre of Palestinians” and stating the union would consider an endorsement of BDS sometime in the near future.
Even if one doesn’t believe that repeated, organized, and highly selective attacks on the world’s only Jewish state are antisemitic, Jewish students and faculty have often reported a climate of stifling hostility that has forced them to hide outward signs of their Jewishness, and made it impossible to hold or promote even neutral events like Holocaust commemorations.
An engine of social mobility for generations of Jewish New Yorkers had become a place where one of the city’s largest ethnic minorities no longer felt welcome. Like the high quality of the municipal tap water, CUNY is one of the last points of pride in New York City’s rapidly declining public sector. But to its critics, the university administration doesn’t care about the antisemitism in its midst, or even recognize it as a problem.
Recourse lies with the few remaining elected representatives inclined to do something about the plight of the average New York Jew, who isn’t particularly rich, powerful, or cool, and holds the unhip belief that Israel should exist. The state of New York is in danger of losing its last Jewish member of the House of Representatives; meanwhile the city’s most powerful elected Jew, Comptroller Brad Lander, is a progressive from Brooklyn’s brownstone belt, someone notably at home in the bourgeois activist world of the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow. The charge against CUNY’s alleged complacency is instead being led by one of the city’s least powerful elected Jews, at least on paper: A Ukrainian-born, 37-year-old woman who is one-fifth of the 51-member City Council’s Republican minority.
Inna Vernikov stood at the base of City Hall steps on Thursday morning in front of rows of activists in blue #EndJewHatred T-shirts. In the back, a man in a blue Keep America Great hat cradled a small dog; on the other side of the plaza facing New York City’s beaux-arts capitol building, perhaps the entire male membership of the Neturei Karta Hasidic sect chanted its predictable anti-Zionist slogans, hoisting the same signs they’ve been bringing to events like these for most of the past several decades. Above Vernikov, a trio of differently patterned Pride flags hanging from a stone balustrade suggested the city had now come under the control of a coalition of very colorful militia groups. This was a typical New York circus, complete with a pro-Israel demonstrator who introduced himself to me as a retired NYPD officer and longtime clown. But the petite Vernikov is a figure before whom nonsense evaporates.
“We have a major problem in this city,” Vernikov began, “a culture of antisemitism that’s engulfed our college campuses.” Vernikov has shoulder-length hair that is almost hypnotically black; her nails were painted the same deep white as her jacket. She delivered her remarks quickly and clearly, in an accent that can only exist in New York—Chernivtsi by way of Sheepshead Bay, containing textures of sharpness and emphasis originating on opposite sides of the planet. The first Republican to represent anywhere in Brooklyn in the City Council since 2002 speaks with a directness that may very well be native to southwestern Ukraine, but which anyone who rides the Q, F, or D trains far enough can instantly recognize.
Vernikov explained that the morning’s hearing had originally been scheduled for early June, only to be canceled when CUNY Chancellor Felix V. Matos Rodriguez said he couldn’t attend. The meeting was postponed to accommodate him. In a rhetorical gift to Vernikov, Rodriguez decided at the last second that he wouldn’t show up today either. “What a sham,” thundered the councilwoman. “What an insult to the Jewish community of New York … This is why we have this problem, because nobody’s being held accountable.”
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/cuny-schools-jews-on-the-new-race-regime
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