Teens Suspended For Photo With Airsoft Rifles At Home

Two high school students in Massachusetts have been suspended for 10 days after they posted a photo of themselves holding Airsoft rifles.

According to WBZ-TV, 15 year-old Tito Velez and his girlfriend Jamie Pereira posed for a picture at Velez’s home with the Airsoft rifles before the Bristol Plymouth Regional Technical School homecoming dance last Friday.

Airsoft rifles shoot plastic pellets and Velez competes with a team.

The photo was posted to Facebook and later discovered by school officials.

“I understand but I think they took this way too far,” Pereira told WBZ-TV. “Suspending us for 10 days and possible expulsion is way too much.”

“These students know what is provocative,” Superintendent Dr. Richard Gross said. “To tie that to one of our school events kind of puts it over the top which brings us into it.”

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School Issues ‘No Trespass Order’ on Iraq Veteran Who Questioned Daughter’s Homework Assignment on Islam

An Iraq veteran was banned from his daughter’s high school after objecting to a required homework assignment about Islam.

Kevin Wood, father of an 11th-grader at La Plata High School in Charles County, Md., was upset to discover a teacher had asked his daughter to write a three-page essay about Islam’s Five Pillars, Mecca and Mohammed.

After Wood met  with the school’s vice principal to discuss the matter, the school banned Wood from the property late last week.

“I don’t agree with it,” Wood  said in a phone interview with Fox News. “I said you can’t study God or Christianity in school; you have atheists suing schools for saying God and the pledge, and not being able to say prayers before football games … but we can force-feed our kids Islam.”

Katie O’Malley-Simpson, spokeswoman for Charles County Public Schools, told The Daily Signal today that Wood, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq, was banned from school property because he was “threatening to cause a disruption at the school that could compromise the safety of the students and staff.”

“We don’t issue no trespassing orders lightly,” she said.

O’Malley-Simpson defended the assignment on the Islam, saying it is part of Maryland ‘s “world history curricular standards that are a requirement for all counties in the state.” She said:

The particular unit in question at La Plata High School is on the formation of Middle Eastern empires in which students learned the basic concepts of the Islamic faith and how it, along with politics, culture, economics and geography, contributed to the development of the Middle East. Other religions are introduced when they influence or impact a particular historical era or geographic region.

Tearing up, Wood’s wife said in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday that the school doesn’t understand the sensitivity of the subject.  “The people do not understand what he endured when he was over in Iraq,” she said. “[H]e lost friends, and he lost brothers and sisters to these people.”

O’Malley-Simpson said the dispute between Wood and the school is not yet resolved, and the school and Wood are in discussions that will continue into next week.

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UK: Sex between 13-year-olds is NORMAL, says controversial 'traffic light tool' sent to schools to teach about relationships

So they want 13-year-olds having babies??

Sex between 13-year-olds is 'safe and healthy' behaviour, according to controversial guidance offered to schools to teach youngsters about relationships.

Family campaigners warned teachers were being urged to encourage behaviour which was against the law, while MPs said youngsters should be told that under-age sex is 'harmful' and 'dangerous'.

The 'Traffic Light Tool' produced as part of sex and relationship education lessons also suggested masturbation and 'consensual kissing' was a 'Green behaviour' for child as young as nine.

Education select committee chairman Graham Stuart warned youngsters should be told that under-age sex is 'dangerous' while Sarah Carter, of the Family Education Trust, said that sometimes what is taught in school sex and relationship lessons is against the law

Recently-published supplementary guidance on sex and relationship education (SRE) for schools included a link to the 'Traffic Light Tool' from sexual health and advice service Brook.

The tool on sexual behaviours, which is available online, is meant to help professionals assess whether children and young people's sexual behaviours are healthy or unhealthy.

It sets out green, amber and red 'behaviours' for different age groups.

Under the 13-17 age group, it lists a number of green behaviours, which are described as behaviours that reflect 'safe and healthy sexual development' displayed between children and young people of similar age and developmental ability and 'reflective of natural curiosity, experimentation, consensual activities and positive choices'.

The approved list of behaviour for 13-17-year-olds includes 'having sexual or non-sexual relationships', 'sexual activity including hugging, kissing, holding hands' and 'consenting oral and/or penetrative sex with others of the same or opposite gender who are of similar age and developmental ability'.

Sarah Carter, of the Family Education Trust, sounded the alarm about the guidance, warning that sometimes what is taught in school sex and relationship lessons is against the law.

She told the Commons education select committee, how the Brook's tool 'states that young people who are consensually sexually active from the age of 13, this is normal behaviour and development, whereas actually the law states that young person should wait until they are 16 at least, never mind if they are ready or not'.

Miss Carter added: 'That's awfully unlawful behaviour, and so quite often what's taught in SRE isn't always lawful.'

The supplementary guidance on sex and relationships education (SRE), which contained links to a number of resources that could be used by schools, including the Traffic Light Tool, was developed and published by the PSHE Association with Brook and the Sex Education Forum.

Graham Stuart, the Labour MP who chairs the education committee, warned that critics might argue that to send out messages that 13-year-olds having sex together is part of growing up and 'not to send out a message that it's wrong, that it's harmful, it's dangerous, is in fact to almost to collude with something which we know is damaging to young people'.

Joe Hayman, chief executive of the PSHE Association, said that all the resources that the PSHE Association produces are clear about teaching about the law.

'I think the only challenge with dealing with these subjects, and this is why we need really well-trained teachers, is that we've got to deal with children's realities,' he told the committee.

Mr Hayman said: 'What I was saying was that it's really, really important that a dictatorial-from-the-front lesson on what one should and shouldn't do is less likely to have an impact and I think we've got to start from where children are, their reality.

'There's no one in our community who feels we should be trying to sexualise children, or any of those kinds of things.

'What we want is children to develop healthy and safe relationships and it's really important that teachers are provided with the necessary training in order to do that.'

Questioned further about Brook's Traffic Light Tool, Mr Hayman insisted it was difficult for him to be accountable for every piece of information linked to in the PSHE Association's supplementary guidance, which has many links within it. He agreed to write to the committee about the issue.

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