Published: June 23, 2009 11:30 pm      

Charles Oliver: It couldn't happen here?

Several hundred children in San Bernardino County, Calif., will have to make up 34 days of school this summer because of an administrative error. It’s a bit complicated, so bear with me. Each week schools in the system have a short day. By state law, those days must be at least 180 minutes. But a review in May found those days lasted 175 minutes at one school in the system and 170 minutes at another. So none of those days counted. The kicker? Even with the short days, students still spent more time in class than the state requires. But that doesn’t matter. The state says the students at those schools still have to make up those days.



In New York City, school officials have told the appropriately named MeMe Roth that she might want to consider sending her children to another school. Roth is president of something called National Action Against Obesity, and she seems to really hate what she considers to be junk food. In fact, the New York Times reports that police were called to a YMCA two years ago after she took sprinkles and syrup from a table where ice cream was being served to members. Anyway, she has a habit of sending angry e-mails to teachers and school officials when the school serves chips or cakes, or when parents send such treats to school with their children. School officials finally told her that if she considers such food such a threat to her children, she might want to place them in another school. This isn’t the first time this has happened. In 2006, according to the Times, Roth lived in Milburn, N.J., and people there got so tired of her war against “junk food” that a member of the PTA e-mailed her and told her to “Please, consider moving.”



Judges in Maricopa County, Ariz., aren’t happy with Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The sheriff’s department is supposed to make sure that inmates are brought to court appearances, something that hasn’t been happening. On one day, for instance, just 15 of the 60 prisoners scheduled to appear actually were brought to court.



Ting-Yi Oei was an assistant principal at Freedom High School in South Riding, Va., who was asked to investigate claims students were sending nude pictures of each other on their cell phones. He found one boy who had a picture of a female on his cell phone. Her face wasn’t visible. She was nude from the waist up but her arm covered her breasts. He showed the picture to his principal, who told him to save it on his computer. Bad move. When the boy got in trouble again a few days later, his mother called the police and told them about the image on Oei’s computer. The police looked at it and concluded they could not tell how old the female was and even if she was underage, it wasn’t legally child porn. The local prosecutor felt differently and had a grand jury charge Oei with possession of child porn. A judge later dismissed the charge. But Oei spent $150,000 to defend himself and endured a year of having his name connected in the media with child porn.



In England, the Broadland District Council paid £30,000 ($49,400 in U.S. dollars) for a plane with a thermal-imaging camera to find homes and businesses using more energy than the council thinks is necessary. Council members plan to educate home owners and businesses targeted by the camera about ways to save energy.



Charles Oliver is a staff writer for The Daily Citizen.