Fathers Canada

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Lew Rockwell | Take advantage of one of our remaining freedoms and secede from the public schools.

Lew Rockwell
LRC
February 22, 2011

In Fairfax VA, a 15-year-old boy was accused of having bought a legal mock-marijuana substance, though it was not found on his person. He was then forced into signing a confession, before his parents were even phoned, suspended and banned for seven weeks, and told he would be forced to attend a public school for “criminal” kids. His parents, on the advice of a PS commissar, did not take a lawyer to his disciplinary hearing. The boy took his own life a month later.

If parents are going to sentence their children to the yellow buses, they should at least teach them never to talk to any school official without being able to call their parents first, and parents should bring a lawyer to any hearing. Far better, of course, to take advantage of one of our remaining freedoms and secede from the public schools for private school or homeschooling.

In Arvada, CA, upon the instructions of public school officials, the police arrested and handcuffed an 11-year-old boy with a disability for “inappropriate drawing.” Good thing he wasn’t singing that ancient student anthem, The Burning of the School:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school
We have tortured all the teachers – we have broken all the rules
We cheated [principal's name] in a dirty game of pool
And our troops go marching on!
Glory, glory, hallelujah
My teacher hit me with a ruler
I hid behind her door with a loaded .44
And the teacher don’t teach no more!

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Court rules against Pittsburgh parents in drug vaccine case

Daniel Malloy | U.S. Supreme Court today ruled against a Mt. Lebanon family in a case dealing with child vaccines.

Daniel Malloy
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
February 22, 2011

The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled against a Mt. Lebanon family in a case dealing with child vaccines, upholding limits to lawsuits against drugmakers.

In a 6-2 decision, the court ruled that the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act prohibited the family of Hannah Bruesewitz from taking their claim against drugmaker Wyeth to state court. When she was an infant, Hannah sustained violent seizures that have rendered her mute and in need of constant care, a condition the family contends was caused by a diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine produced by Wyeth that the company later discontinued.

But the Vaccine Act established specialized no-fault vaccine courts to hear such claims. The Bruesewitz case against the Tri-Immunol vaccine was rejected in 1995, with the vaccine court ruling the family could not prove the vaccine had caused the seizures.

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Comment: Would anything have been handled differently by Crown Counsel and the court, if it were the father or step-father that did this…?

That little excursion was part of Ms. Alexander’s failure to get the baby any medical attention for what was clearly a catastrophic injury. She phoned 911 only early the next day, by which time he was dead.

Although all the evidence is that the young woman was alone with the children that whole day and probably dunked the boy into a scalding hot tub, an earlier charge of second-degree murder was dismissed by another judge after a preliminary hearing.

Ms. Alexander was committed to trial only for manslaughter, the allegation centring not on what she probably did, but on what she didn’t, that in other words she caused Miguel’s death by failing to provide what in law is called “the necessaries of life,” which includes proper medical care.

God forbid her bail should be revoked while she awaits sentencing just because of that. Heavens no.

Only the terrific, hard-nosed judge, Anne Molloy, even raised the possibility. She asked about the terms of the bail imposed when Ms. Alexander was first charged in the fall of 2007.

Crown prosecutor Barry Stagg mistakenly replied that it was “a house arrest bail,” only to be corrected by Ms. Alexander’s lawyer, Catherine Currie, who told the judge it was in fact a surety bail put up by Ms. Alexander’s grandmother.

Mr. Stagg, roused to action by the judge’s question, then suggested that if Ms. Alexander wasn’t “asked to step into custody,” then perhaps Judge Molloy ought to impose a more restrictive bail.

“Into custody? Why?” Judge Molloy asked, hopeful it appeared that the prosecutor might have an answer and at least make the case, which is just what many prosecutors would have done.

Mr. Stagg muttered weakly about “the severity of the offence,” but in the same breath admitted Ms. Alexander has “been on a bail a long time and there’s been no difficulty.”

The judge asked about Miguel’s surviving brother, and if Ms. Alexander had access to him; she doesn’t. Left with a prosecutor who seemed indifferent, a defence lawyer who was strongly arguing against jail and with no small person to protect, Judge Molloy had little room to manoeuvre.

She then asked about tightening up the bail, and Mr. Stagg suggested Ms. Alexander report in once a week to the authorities.

Ms. Currie immediately objected. Judge Molloy asked what Ms. Alexander was doing now, “on a daily basis” that would make such a condition so onerous.

Ms. Currie said Ms. Alexander “has been employed and she’s looking for a job” and exploring her educational options.

In other words, she’s doing sweet boo all, a fact which didn’t escape the judge, who arched a brow and imposed the reporting condition. Sentencing was set for April 19.

The judge found that Ms. Alexander, now 25, was the only person who “had direct knowledge of the extent of his [Miguel’s] distress”; that she lied like a rug to everybody about how it had happened (she said the baby had pulled a pot of boiling water onto himself); that she robbed him of his “last hope of survival” when she deceived his dad, Sergio Fernandes, about the extent of the injury; that Miguel would have been screaming and utterly inconsolable and that “going shopping for two hours instead of taking him to a hospital is nothing short of shocking.”

Judge Molloy said that when Ms. Alexander left to hit the mall, probably around 1 p.m. that day, it’s possible Miguel “was still screaming in agony” or possible “that his body was already going into shock and he was starting down the path towards unconsciousness. Either scenario is disturbing.”

The little guy didn’t have much of a life. He was taken into care by the Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto shortly after he was born, as Mary McConville, the agency executive director, confirmed to The Globe and Mail in a recent interview. He remained in care for more than six months before being returned to Ms. Alexander, who by then had moved in with Sergio.

Theoretically, the agency was still supervising the baby at the time of his death.

Maria Fernandes, Miguel’s paternal grandmother, remembers the day he was born. “I didn’t even know she was pregnant,” she told The Globe on Monday, but then Sergio said that, “She [Ms. Alexander] doesn’t want him” and asked her to come to the hospital.

It took her 20 minutes to get down there; by then, she said, Ms. Alexander had handed him over to the CCAS. Ms. Fernandes released balloons, including a teddy bear, outside the courthouse on Monday in honour of what would have been Miguel’s fifth birthday, last Friday.

More tomorrow about this wretched case.

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NY Daily News | School principals-turned-Inspector Gadgets had their online spy-gear store shuttered after the Daily News exposed their link to the sleuthing market.

Rachel Monahan

NY Daily News
February 13, 2011

School principals-turned-Inspector Gadgets had their online spy-gear store shuttered after the Daily News exposed their link to the sleuthing market

The city Education Department pulled the plug on its website portal to an I-Spy-type arsenal where principals browsed for hidden cameras to trick out their halls.

Among the 45 undercover devices The News found listed on the site, were:

- A fluffy teddy bear with a built-in camera.
- A mini-cam fitted electric pencil sharpener.
- Neckties that double as spy-ties

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A father protested outside an Ontario school for the second straight day Tuesday after his son with special needs was left behind on a field trip. Educators in Kitchener, Ontario, are learning some hard lessons after a nine-year-old boy with learning disabilities was left behind after a class trip to a skating rink. A father is pulling his children out of their Kitchener school after his son, who has special needs, was left at a park.

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China selling toxic food to the world, Don't buy or eat their products.

Delicious fake plastic rice from China!

 

Watch full episode later on RT. This time Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, talk about fake rice and real inequality and about a ‘new model’ that looks a whole lot like an old model called capitalism. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Pierre Jovanovic, author “Blythe Masters,” about credit default swaps, the Queen of commodities and Marie Antoinette

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Toddlers fed a diet of junk food can suffer lasting damage to their brainpower, researchers warn.

JENNY HOPE
UK Daily Mail
Feb 8, 2011

Toddlers fed a diet of junk food can suffer lasting damage to their brainpower, researchers warn.

Children who eat more chips, crisps, biscuits and pizza before the age of three have a lower IQ five years later, a study showed.

The difference could be as much as five IQ points compared with children given healthier diets with fruit, vegetables and home-cooked food.

But even if their diet improves, it could be too late as the ill-effects can persist for a lifetime.

This is the first study to suggest a direct link between the diet of young children and their brainpower in later life.

The project at Bristol University took account of factors such as social class, breastfeeding and maternal education and age.

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Proposal would fundamentally change approaches to post-separation parenting
By Judy Van Rhijn | Publication Date: Monday, 07 February 2011
A fundamental change to the very basis on which post-separation parenting is viewed is being urged by some members of the legal and mental-health professions while others fiercely oppose the idea.
 
‘Generally, there is a parent and an assistant parent. How does a judge make those two positions coincide?’ says Kristen Bucci.In fact, the introduction of a presumption of continued joint custody after separation is a measure that provokes strong opinions on both sides of the argument. Garry Wise of Wise Law Office in Toronto says that bringing in a presumption of joint custody would be an “across-the-board” approach to family law reform that would reduce the number of cases coming before the courts.

“This would be the biggest solution of all. What we do not have is a legally sanctioned culture of joint parenting at the federal level under the Divorce Act or the provincial level. We have an anachronism of a custody/access-based system that evolved one or more generation ago when one parent was at home and one parent was working.

Almost all families now do the parenting together, and we have an arbitrary, artificial concept of best interests of the children that is so pliable and subjective that you can read it every which way.”

With a presumption in place, Wise says the first message couples would get from courts and legal practitioners is the expectation of shared parenting.
“The discussion would begin differently. It would set the stage for more cases to settle in a way the parties themselves feel is appropriate and equitable. With that culture combined with mandatory mediation where the parties narrow the issues and resolve more issues that affect the ability of the parties to parent, we’d be well on the way to forging a new culture after separation.”

Wise compares the idea to the introduction of the child-support guidelines. “It was unfair to certain parties and fair to others but it established a new status quo and took almost all the cases off the table. I’d propose something equally radical.”
The issue was given an airing in a lively debate at the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts Ontario conference in October. Edward Kruk, an associate professor with the school of social work and family studies at the University of British Columbia, presented the case for a rebuttable presumption of equal or shared parenting responsibilities, with the opposite view being given by lawyer Martha McCarthy.

Kruk has become one of the most vocal supporters of a presumption and favours a transition from shared parenting in a two-parent household to shared parenting in two different households. Kruk believes the “winner-take-all” adversarial approach through sole custody isn’t working for either children or parents and that change is urgently needed.

His numerous papers emphasize the negative effects on children with absent fathers and the positive impacts on children of shared custody arrangements compared to sole custody situations. He also notes there’s decreasing parental conflict in joint custody families as compared to an increase of such problems over time in sole custody families.

In his presentation, he varied his basic proposal for a presumption by coupling it with a rebuttable presumption against shared custody in cases of family violence and abuse, as proposed by the National Association of Women and the Law.
His published opinions say this would apply in proven cases involving a criminal conviction in a matter directly affecting the parenting of the children or a finding of a child in need of protection by a child welfare authority. Kruk proposes that the much more stringent standard of child in need of protection be applied before removing a parent’s legal custody rather than the test that looks to the best interests of the child.
Wise is in favour of putting the onus to prove that a presumption is inappropriate on the spouse who doesn’t agree. “If legislation said the starting point is joint custody, and the onus is on the parties to provide evidence that a different arrangement is in the best interests of the children, it would be difficult for a parent to ever satisfy that,” he says.

This is precisely what worries Toronto lawyer and mediator Barbara Landau, who was present at the debate and strongly disagrees with the proposal. “Where there is an onus, it is often on the victimized party to disprove it,” she says. “It makes for a potentially much more adversarial situation. If a parent thinks a situation is inappropriate for a shared arrangement, they have to go to court and argue against it.”

Landau believes there’s a lack of understanding of the difference between joint legal custody, where parties agree to consult with each other on significant decisions, and joint physical custody, which involves having the children 50 per cent of the time.
This is echoed by other practitioners. Jane Murray of Burke-Robertson LLP in Ottawa is concerned about the various interpretations of joint custody.
“There would have to be a clear definition of exactly what you’re presuming or there would be a lot of litigation around the definition,” she says, noting she believes a presumption is unnecessary. “There is already a direction in the Divorce Act that one of the factors be maximizing the child’s time with each parent.”

Lawyer Kristen Bucci of Zochodne Bucci in Thunder Bay, Ont., isn’t in favour of true joint custody, which she defines as joint decision-making. In her experience, it works only in rare cases. “At the point of separation, there is a lot of animosity. You need two people to talk calmly, rationally, and in the best interests of the child, and that rarely happens in real life.”

With respect to shared physical custody, Landau finds it’s rare that people come up with a plan for 50-per-cent sharing of physical custody. “You need geographic proximity because the children attend school and have friends in the neighbourhood.
You need co-ordination and you need availability. People must have jobs that allow them to be available to have the children that much. I see people who have to be at work from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Their plan is to leave the children with a caregiver when the other parent is at home.”

Landau adds: “You also have to consider the stage of development and temperament of the child. Do the children take to change easily or do they suffer anxiety over the smallest changes? There is a need for stability, security, and a reasonable routine.”

Landau also stresses the need to look at the parenting connection before the separation. “Some parents who are asking for 50 per cent have never looked after the child on their own except for maybe 20 minutes while someone went to the 7-Eleven. You need to build up the child’s comfort and confidence.”

Landau also stresses that the level of communication between the parents needs to be respectful so the children aren’t travelling back and forth between war zones.
Bucci, meanwhile, believes parents need to prove they were equally involved in parenting prior to separation. “One partner says, ‘Yes, I was absolutely equally involved.’

The other partner says, ‘Absolutely not. I did the majority of the decision-making.’ Generally, there is a parent and an assistant parent. How does a judge make those two positions coincide?”

Bucci, in fact, finds a lot of litigants get very hung up on a particular label. “So many parents want joint custody but are not really prepared to put in the work.”
Landau places the blame for this situation squarely at the feet of the child-support guidelines. “The question of equal time is contaminated by the supposed 40-per-cent rule of child support. Virtually every man wants 40 per cent of the time in the mistaken belief that they won’t have to pay child support.

I call it the faint-hope clause. If you took away the 40-per-cent rule, there would be a lot less fights over the percentage of time.”

Landau believes most cases start with a presumption that it’s in the child’s best interests to have a full relationship with both parents in any case. “A judge has an overriding responsibility to deal with each case in an individualized way, and that doesn’t preclude joint physical or joint legal custody.”
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The violation of school rules that landed a Mt. Pleasant mom in jail represents a different form of public school truancy — an unexcused absence from common sense.

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Feb 7, 2011

The violation of school rules that landed a Mt. Pleasant mom in jail represents a different form of public school truancy — an unexcused absence from common sense.

Jessica Heiser says she called her children’s Mt. Pleasant Area elementary school to arrange an extended Christmas break in 2009 for her two young sons, both good students. But because Mrs. Heiser, 31, didn’t get the school principal’s permission, the absences were counted as “unexcused.” And she was slapped with fines totaling $353.70, which, on her waitress salary, she couldn’t pay.

So last month, more than a year later, a constable took her to jail, where Heiser spent an afternoon until a friend provided the cash to get her out.

An usual case? Sure. But it’s also a tutorial on just how far public school policy can traduce parental prerogative.

Choose a conventional school, public or private? Not unless parents pay that tuition plus their school taxes. Fire a poorly performing teacher? Not when that teacher’s union threatens litigation.

The Heisers aren’t alone in this Kafkaesque nightmare. For decades parents’ rightful say in their children’s education has been marginalized by the intolerable authoritarian creep of self-serving public schools

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Phillips had asserted that homosexualists are now attempting to suppress any public opposition to their political goals. The reaction to this statement, she said, reveals a basic “totalitarian mindset” that is behind the homosexualist agenda.

Phillips had asserted that homosexualists are now attempting to suppress any public opposition to their political goals. The reaction to this statement, she said, reveals a basic “totalitarian mindset” that is behind the homosexualist agenda.

“Indeed, the total inability of those who subjected me to such abuse to realise that they are, in fact, spewing out the very hatred, intolerance and incitement to violence of which they are accusing others would be hilarious were it not so terrifying

Hilary White
Life Site News
Friday, February 4, 2011

(LifeSiteNews.com) – A prominent conservative UK columnist has said she received death threats after she criticized plans to insert homosexual materials into all subjects in the curriculum in Britain’s schools. Writing in the Daily Mail this week, Melanie Phillips said that she had been expecting a reaction, “which would amply bear out the truth of what I had written.”

“The response, however, exceeded even my expectations.”

For the last week, she said, “I have been subjected to an extraordinarily vicious outpouring of hate and incitement to violence” through emails, the internet and in mainstream media.

“If the gay lobby had set about trying to prove my point, it could hardly have done a better job.”

Phillips had asserted that homosexualists are now attempting to suppress any public opposition to their political goals. The reaction to this statement, she said, reveals a basic “totalitarian mindset” that is behind the homosexualist agenda.

“Indeed, the total inability of those who subjected me to such abuse to realise that they are, in fact, spewing out the very hatred, intolerance and incitement to violence of which they are accusing others would be hilarious were it not so terrifying.”

In her January 24th piece titled, “Britain’s New McCarthyites,” Phillips wrote that plans to insert references to homosexual relationships throughout the schools curriculum are nothing more than “a Government-backed drive to promote the gay agenda.”

She pointed to the many cases in which opposition from Christians or others who uphold traditional sexual mores has been quashed through actions in the courts. “What was once an attempt to end unpleasant attitudes towards a small sexual minority has now become a kind of bigotry in reverse,” she wrote.

“Expressing what used to be the moral norm of Western civilisation is now not just socially impermissible, but even turns upstanding people into lawbreakers.”

Phillips said, “The response to this warning against an attempt by the gay lobby to silence dissent? An eruption of tweets on Twitter suggesting that I should be killed.”

She offered samples, including, “Someone just kill Melanie Phillips please”; “your homophobic rant equals that which comes out of a dog’s rectum. Kill yourself you ****”; and “throw her in the Thames.”

Emails she received called her a “vile, poisonous, horrible old woman,” and said, “people like you should be silenced as you insight (sic) bigotry and fear. Go and suck a tail pipe, get cancer, GET RAN OVER BY A TRAIN. I hope your ******* house burns down.”

Phillips, who is Jewish, is a libertarian conservative political columnist for the Spectator and comments widely on Israel, the global crisis of Islamic violence, and more broadly on cultural issues. In her new book, “The World Turned Upside Down,” Phillips has denounced the loss of and vilification of Judeo-Christian religious belief that “has meant the West has replaced reason and truth with ideology and prejudice, which it enforces in the manner of a secular inquisition.

“The result has been a kind of mass derangement, as truth and lies, right and wrong, victim and aggressor are all turned upside down.”

“Thus the West is losing both its rationality and its freedoms. It is succumbing to a ‘soft totalitarianism,’ which not only is creating an ugly mood of intolerance but is undermining its ability to defend itself against Islamic aggression.”

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Infowars.com | Get the VaccinationCouncil.org Special Report released by NaturalNews

 
Click the read more below to get the VaccinationCouncil.org Special Report released by NaturalNews. The report contains useful information on the fact vaccinations have never been proven safe or effective, the profit motive behind Big Pharm’s vaccine push, why vaccinated children have far worse health outcomes than unvaccinated children, and more

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Are routine vaccines dangerous for children? Dr Suzanne Humphries, a practicing nephrologist (kidney physician) says the vaccine industry isn’t giving people both sides of the story, and parents need to get informed before subjecting their children to vaccines that can potentially cause serious harm or even death.

Mike Adams
Natural News
Feb 2, 2011

Are routine vaccines dangerous for children? Dr Suzanne Humphries, a practicing nephrologist (kidney physician) says the vaccine industry isn’t giving people both sides of the story, and parents need to get informed before subjecting their children to vaccines that can potentially cause serious harm or even death.

It’s all being revealed in a one-hour NaturalNews interview with Dr Suzanne Humphries. You can view the entire interview on NaturalNews.TV at:http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=BAE7F…

In that interview, you’ll hear Dr Humphries talk about:

• Why she became concerned about vaccines after noticing kidney failure in patients who recently received vaccines.

• Why vaccines are often contaminated with unknown viral strains, and why the vaccine industry has covered up known vaccine contamination (and knowingly sold contaminated vaccines to be used on the public).

• Why the entire vaccine industry needs to be questioned, and why a new effort is needed to scientifically assess whether vaccines are really safe or effective.

• Why the fairy tale that “vaccines eradicated polio” is a false mythology — here’s what really happened.

• Why the “smallpox” vaccine has never been proven to be effective against smallpox at all.

• Why vaccine industry research is extremely flimsy and ignores rigorous standards of scientific evidence. (Using improper placebos designed to minimize the appearance of side effects, for example.)

• Why the vaccine industry won’t test vaccines versus unvaccinated children (they’re terrified of the results).

• Why children caught up in outbreaks of measles are often the very same children who were vaccinated against measles!

• Why vaccines may actually suppress the immune system and cause increased vulnerability to future infections.

• Why many childhood infections such as chicken pox are perfectly natural, normal and even HEALTHY.

• Why the outlandish and unscientific behavior of the vaccine industry is causing an erosion of credibility across all “science.”

• Why many of the people engaged in pushing vaccines have financial ties to vaccine companies.

• Why the vaccine industry is utterly unwilling to tolerate anyone asking intelligent questions about the safety of vaccines

Hear all this and more in this exclusive interview with Dr Suzanne Humphries:
http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=BAE7F…

Dr Humphries is one of the signers of the groundbreaking new document just released by the International Medical Council on Vaccination, calledVACCINES: Get the Full Story: http://www.naturalnews.com/Vaccines…

Stay tuned to NaturalNews.com for yet more interviews and breaking news about vaccines in the days ahead. We will air an interview with Dr Sherri Tenpenny tomorrow, followed by an exclusive video interview with Dr Andrew Wakefield the following day.

If you haven’t yet seen the video from Cryshame, which shows an autistic child damaged by vaccines, you can view it here:http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=5659B…

Note, also, that nearly all those who push vaccines are also pushers of GMOs. Both poisons are being forced upon the world in the name of “science,” but both are actually based on extreme distortions of science and driven by for-profit corporate agendas

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Barbara Kay February 1, 2011 – 12:41 pm read more ...

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

 

the

YORK REGIONAL POLICE

and the 

York Region

CHILDREN’S AID SOCIETY

were involved …

 

 … IN THE COVER-UP!!!

 

 

It was soon discovered that Sherry was a massive fraud artist

who was having an affair with the "investigating" YRP detective.

I was repeatedly arrested and abused because I fought to reveal the truth.

To what lengths would I go to my kids back and reclaim my life?

Find out by reading my tragic story

YORK REGION TELEVISION COVERAGE OF THE DEMOTION OF OFFICER TERRY JORDAN AFTER HE ADMITTED HAVING AN AFFAIR WITH SHERRY MAJOR

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Big Bother  & Police State Government Terrorism and the way they think (socialists) that parents need to be rated to be Parents...The State is out of Control, kick these NWO kooks out of office...

Orlando Sentinel | Parents with children in pre-K-to-third-grade would get “satisfactory,” “needs improvement” or “unsatisfactory” ratings in four broad categories.

Every year, Florida’s students, schools and districts are graded based on their performance. Now, it’s time to start rating parents, a state lawmaker says.

State Rep. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, filed a bill Tuesday that would require elementary school teachers to evaluate parents based on “the quality” of their involvement in their children’s schools.

Parents with children in pre-K-to-third-grade would get “satisfactory,” “needs improvement” or “unsatisfactory” ratings in four broad categories.

They would be judged on their response to requests for meetings or communication, their children’s completion of homework and preparation for tests, their children’s absentee and tardy rates and their children’s “physical preparation for school,” including a good night’s sleep and appropriate meals.

They would be judged on their response to requests for meetings or communication, their children's completion of homework and preparation for tests, their children's absentee and tardy rates and their children's "physical preparation for school," including a good night's sleep and appropriate meals.

Parents' grades would appear on their kids' report cards.

"Although the school environment has a great impact on a child's well-being and academic success, parents and the home environment form the foundation of a child's present and future life," Stargel explains in the bill, HB 255.

"Without proper parental involvement in all aspects of a child's life, the child's prospects to be a well-equipped and useful member of society are greatly diminished," the bill states. Stargel, a mother of five, could not be reached late Tuesday.

Parents and teachers raised questions about the bill, saying it could backfire and make parent-teacher relations more tense. They also feared it would add to teachers' workloads if they had to keep track of parent progress as well as their students'.

"I think it would create a more hostile environment if the parent wasn't doing what they were supposed to do," said Andrew Spar, president of the Volusia Teachers Organization, that county's teachers union.

"At the end of the day, I don't think this would change anything. It would just create more work."

Spar said the descriptions of ideal parental involvement in Stargel's bill are good and there is no doubt that involved parents are key to student success. But trying to create a formal grading system — complete with parent appeals — would have little impact but to "put a tremendous burden on the teacher," he said.

Susan Persis, president of the Florida Association of School Administrators and the principal at Pine Trail Elementary in Ormond Beach, has other concerns – fairness being the chief among them.

"There are some parents who work two and three jobs and who care about their kids just as much as the parent who's the president of the PTA and is there at school every day," Persis said.

 "It could be a time thing. It could be something going on in the family. Who is the teacher to say, 'You're not doing a good job?' "

But John Wilson, whose two sons are in kindergarten and third grade at Bentley Elementary in Seminole County, thinks Stargel's bill is a great idea.

 Parents who are doing their part would appreciate the positive feedback from teachers, he said. Those who aren't doing their part might be encouraged to start.

 "Someone who truly wants their child to learn and succeed and go above and beyond, they're not going to take it as an insult — they're going to step up and do more," he said. 

It's not clear whether Stargel's bill will get any traction in the legislative session that starts in March, when many education-related ideas will be considered.

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Planned Parenthood Launches ‘Social Change Initiative’ to Teach Parents How to Educate Children About Sex, Including Masturbation, Homosexuality

CNS News | The Planned Parenthood Federation of America is signaling its intention to dominate the national sex education agenda.

The project aims to teach parents and caregivers how to educate children about sex — from birth. And it recommends telling teenagers about masturbation, oral sex and “where to go for help to prepare to be sexually active.”

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Globe and Mail - They may require a gender-specific approach to stay engaged. A Globe editorial concludes our six-part series

In 1970, women made up just 38 per cent of Canada’s university undergraduates. Today, men make up roughly the same proportion. For men, it is 1970 in reverse.

Are boys the new girls? Of course not. There is no glass ceiling. There is no rejection of aspirations to powerful positions. But boys are struggling academically, and they act as if their choices are circumscribed. If women were still just 38 per cent of undergraduates, we wouldn’t tolerate it. If women were 64 per cent of high-school dropouts, we would be up in arms. Such poor achievement levels would damage society – all that lost productivity. And it would harm individuals – all that lost potential

Published Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010 10:19PM EDT

Last updated Monday, Oct. 25, 2010 11:25AM EDT

They may require a gender-specific approach to stay engaged. A Globe editorial concludes our six-part series

In 1970, women made up just 38 per cent of <:st1><:st1>Canada’s university undergraduates. Today, men make up roughly the same proportion. For men, it is 1970 in reverse.

Are boys the new girls? Of course not. There is no glass ceiling. There is no rejection of aspirations to powerful positions. But boys are struggling academically, and they act as if their choices are circumscribed. If women were still just 38 per cent of undergraduates, we wouldn’t tolerate it. If women were 64 per cent of high-school dropouts, we would be up in arms. Such poor achievement levels would damage society – all that lost productivity. And it would harm individuals – all that lost potential.

More related to this story

• Time to lead discussion: Is 'failing boys' too simplistic a notion?
• Why boys need extracurricular activities
• Failing boys: What other countries are doing 

Video

Part 3: Can haves and have nots co-exist?

Video

Part 4: Where are all the male teachers?

Video

Part 5: Are we failing boys?

A generations-long push to knock down stereotypes and expand aspirations helped girls and young women rocket forward in education. They have raised the bar for achievement, and that’s a good thing. Now it’s time for a push for boys and young men. It’s an economic imperative for a future in which even manufacturing jobs will require high-school-plus; and it’s in keeping with the moral purpose of education.

Girls’ energy – unleashed – is wonderful to behold. Go to francophone medical schools in <:st1><:st1>Quebec, where 70 per cent of the students are women. Go to <:st1><:st1>McGill <:st1>University, where women are substantially in the majority in professional schools for law, medicine, dentistry and architecture, and narrowly in the majority in the faculty of management. Go to the University of Toronto Medical School, where there are 1,843 female medical students, and just 996 male ones

But what if a similar push helped boys reach higher? The number of women who achieved university degrees (graduate and undergraduate) in 2008 was 50 per cent higher than it was in 1992. The push worked. The number of men who achieved those degrees rose just 29 per cent over that same period. (Women had a larger base, too; they were already a large majority on campus by 1992.) It’s as if news of the knowledge economy had barely reached men

Five key principles stand out in trying to reach the boys:

1. Boys and girls learn differently

There are many individual exceptions, of course. But an understanding of gender differences should inform teaching practice. Boys need a choice of reading materials, some stressing action, war or humour rather than feelings. Non-fiction should be offered. The days of all children in a classroom reading the same novel should be numbered. New technologies should be employed in literacy and other areas of instruction to help boys become more engaged. Boys tend to need some opportunity for movement. Some girls, too, will be helped by each one of those changes, because not all girls learn in the same way. Good teaching practices for boys are therefore consonant with good teaching practices generally.

Several provinces and individual school boards have begun offering guidelines to teachers on male literacy but “what I’m seeing in the classroom on a daily basis is that we haven’t quite shifted,” says Beverley Freedman, an educator who works with boards and education ministries in several provinces

2. Boys benefit from male educators

It is more than just a matter of role models. Imagine how a girl would feel in a school with all male teachers and administrators. Wouldn’t something be missing from how those schools understand her needs and communicate with her? “Some boys are willing to learn how to be a man from a woman, but some boys aren’t,” says <:st1><:st1>U.S. educator Barney Brawer

3. Local needs should drive innovation

What works in <:st1>Lethbridge may not work in <:st1>Moncton or <:st1><:st1>Montreal. There is no need for a massive growth in single-gender schools, but if some feel it works for them, they should go ahead, as the Toronto District School Board intends to do. <:st1><:st1>Edmonton has the Nellie McClung Girls’ Junior High to instill leadership, initiative, self-reliance and independence. Boys need those qualities, too. More than that, they need to feel supported, encouraged and listened to. Some boards have surveyed boys or set up focus groups to find out how to engage them better

4. Boys’ aspirations need a push

Junior A hockey players in <:st1>Oshawa, Ont., and university hockey players in <:st1><:st1>Fredericton have served as reading mentors to boys. It’s a start. What an upside-down country, where boys are taught that hockey is in the blood, but not reading. There are 976 scholarships specifically reserved for women in <:st1><:st1>Canada, and just 192 for men (mostly sports-related). Publishers saw to it that science textbooks for Grades 7 to 10 were rewritten to show girls and women as successes. Role-modelling programs and career days aimed at girls have been widespread. A strong tide lifts many boats

5. Helping boys should not mean removing supports from girls

The girls’ scholarships, schools such as Nellie McClung, special career programs – they should continue as long as they’re meeting girls’ needs. This is not a zero-sum game.

In retrospect, it was wrong to rewrite textbooks so that in portraying female successes they also cast males in the role of losers. “The unstated assumption was that boys did not need the same degree of encouragement,” one observer said. That assumption was wrong. All young people, boys and girls, need encouragement and support. They need the conditions that nurture academic success

The choices made by boys and young men do not reflect the natural order of things, any more than 1970 was where women should remain. They reflect the relative lack of nurturance our society provides for male academic success.

More related to this story

• Part 1: Failing boys and the powder keg of sexual politics
• Part 2: The endangered male teacher
• Part 3: Are we medicating a disorder or treating boyhood as a disease?
• Part 4: Red-flagged as problem pupils, are boys misunderstood?
• Part 5: Is affirmative action for men the answer to enrolment woes?
• Video Debates: Are parents to blame?
• More articles, features and videos on 'Failing Boys'

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We Are Change Brum | A father and son brutally and unlawfully assaulted by policy enforcement officers (aka the police) under orders of the SS (Social Services).

*Note: We don’t know all the circumstances of this case, but obviously the child services have become an epidemic on the family, and surely there are better ways to deal with breaking apart families.

We Are Change Brum
December 25, 2010

A father and son brutally and unlawfully assaulted by policy enforcement officers (aka the police) under orders of the SS (Social Services).

Watch out for the Section 34 (4) orders to prevent the child’s father having access ‘because he is aggressive and abusive’ and watch out for the S38A exclusion orders. They don’t need to PROVE anything, they just need to SAY it. We can tell you and work with you on things to say that will perk up the Judges interest.

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Paul Joseph Watson | “See Something, Say Something”: Neighbors report on man for refusing to make daughters drink tap water or take vaccines.

The New Police State coming home to you next!

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A father of two was harassed and investigated by Child Protective Services and police for feeding his daughters organic food, refusing to make them drink fluoride-poisoned tap water and not having them injected with mercury-laden vaccines, all of which constitutes “suspicious activity” in the new Sovietized America, a foretaste of what’s to come once Big Sis’ Wal-Mart spy campaign gets up and running.

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Author interview by Hamilton CHCH TV of newly published book(lulu.com), Courts From Hell - Family Injustice In Canada. The book details the destruction done to families by the dysfunctional Canadian Justice System.




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A child of twelve was charged with ‘threatening behaviour’ at his school in Bowmanville, East of Toronto last week. The arrest happened when the boy (who cannot be named for legal reasons) threw a tantrum refusing the Hepatitis B vaccine. It seems schools are taking it they can force any vaccine on children with or without the parents concent.

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What you got in BC is a government that has no right to rule on divorce cases in BC
RoadKill Radio with Terry O'Neil and Kari Simpson interview with: 

STEVE SMYTH from Equal Parenting and Ken Wiebe, from BC Fathers will join us to talk about the White Paper on Family Law Reform distributed by the BC government.

MEL MABBOTT, a father of 3, will talk about the horrors of his experiences within the BC courts as a father trying to protect the best interests of his children. Movies are made of stories like this!

The White paper Submission of BC Fathers can be seen here
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FathersCan General Warning to ALL re Bulletin Katherine MacNeil- Child Advocate and Family Mediator

 

FathersCan General Warning to ALL

 

Bulletin re:  Katherine McNeil, Supposed “Child Advocate and Family Mediator”

Some of our principle Nova Scotia members recently had experience with a very dangerous woman and we feel the danger is sufficient to have us issue a general warning to all members, supporters, FR activists and others in the movement, This refers directly to a person using the alias Katherine McNeil, who self proclaimed herself a children's advocate and child mediator. One of our members, Jason Farnell of FathersCan East was working at a law firm in Nova Scotia in 2007 as a Family Law Paralegal when Ms McNeil telephoned the firm identifying herself as the above and offering her services at $150.00/hr. He spoke with Ms. MacNeil and she provided ample paperwork to prove her involvement in the Family Courts of British Columbia.

Ms. McNeil stated she always acted in the interests of children and never took the sides of any parents. She told me directly that she was aware that Men and Fathers were receiving unequal justice She also informed Jason that she had a brain injury caused by a domestic assault at the hands of her Native common-law husband but had recovered and was relocating to Nova Scotia to start over and work as a specialist in the field of Family Law to aid children who were not being treated fairly.

Jason gave her this writers email contact information and after some weeks of communication at which time she announced that she knew many prominent people including Senator Cools and several well known psychology and other professional figures in the West, I indentified her as a danger to children and that there was something wrong with her background pronouncements Jason’s firm apparently decided to use her on a couple of files and she also apparently did good work. At this point another member David  MacEwan came into contact with ‘McNeil’  and as a result of his experiences our suspicions proved to be wholly correct.

News reports here refer:

http://mobile.metronews.ca/halifax/local/article/682158--missing-woman-s-identity-under-dispute

http://www.scotiaweb.ca/201010073059/nova-scotia/rcmp/rcmp-and-sar-search-for-missing-katherine-mcneil.html

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2010/10/12/ns-missing-woman-wilderness-survivor.html

 

 

PLEASE EXERCISE CAUTION AND REPORT ANY SIGHTING OF OR CONTACT WITH HER TO LOCAL POLICE
 
ottawaoffice@fatherscan.com

And the following is a statement by FathersCan East member Dave MacEwan

Beware
For those who ever come in contact with this person, beware. The consequences of Katherine McNeil's involvement in your case could be forever damaging. A few years ago, Ms. McNeil, had been suggested to me by my lawyer as way of negotiation to resolve an ongoing dispute between my ex wife and me. Ms. McNeil was represented to me as a Family mediator. It was my understanding Ms. MacNeil was representing herself to local (Northern Nova Scotia) as someone who helped families in the throes of divorce.

I was excited at the chance to have mediation help sort out the remaining issues of my separation agreement. I waited for a contact from Ms. MacNeil, as instructed by my lawyer. About a week later, I spoke with my 9 year old daughter, and to my surprise she told me she and my son, aged 5, had attended Ms. MacNeil's personal residence, and my daughter described to me how they were interviewed by Ms. McNeil and watched special video's in regard to divorce.

This alarmed me as part of prior disputes between my ex and I was counselling she had our children attend through a service called Autumn House. This facility is a shelter for abused women located in Northern Nova Scotia. The counsellors at this place are not properly trained nor have any of them attended university or the like. They are definitely not qualified to counsel children and I did not want my children “counselled” again by someone without my knowledge.

I contacted my lawyer and explained what had occurred, and stated it was not my children who were to be part of this mediation and dispute resolution as it was only supposed to be my ex and me. I especially did not give my consent for my children to meet with Ms. McNeil.

My lawyer interrupted me and stated that Ms. McNeil had already contacted the firm and told him how she believed that my lawyer was in a conflict of interest in representing me due to information given to her by my ex.

At this point I refused to have anything further to do with Ms. McNeil and also did not approve of my children having any further “counselling” from her.
There was a number of strange emails between my lawyer's firm and Ms. McNeil. My lawyer's firm stood by their opinion that Ms. McNeil picked sides in a ongoing dispute. Ms. McNeil stated she was some kind of children's advocate and that I was angry with my ex and needed to start loving my children. At this point I had not me or even spoke with Ms. McNeil to enable her to come up with this conclusion. It was solely based on her meeting my ex.

Through communication between our lawyers, my ex agreed to stop using Ms. McNeil to see our children. A month or so later, Ms. McNeil further intruded into my life and situation by filing a family court application (something called 'too friend the court) in regard to my proceedings. Included in this application was a lengthy affidavit and references to her status as a family/child specialist. This application was ultimately denied by the Court.

Needless to say, I viewed Ms. McNeil as being a nuisance and crazy. After Ms. McNeil was no longer involved in my case and in the Fall (2010) I learned from local news papers that she had done this sort of thing before, that she has had brain damage from a tumor (not a domestic assault as she had told Jason Farnell), and that she has used, and is likely using, as alias and she is gone from this area after being taken to a local hospital and her whereabouts is unknown.

Please take heed, no one knows where she is, she could pop up in your neighbourhood. Ms. McNeil will state she is a children's advocate and she is friends with Senator Anne Cools. Our opinion here on the East Coast is she is very dangerous and needs to be avoided at all costs. If she arrives in your area, contact the police immediately.
Dave MacEwan
FathersCan – East

 

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