Frankfort Kansas And Public School Textbook Rentals

While your faithful blogger is digging up posts from the past, concerning public schools, here is another oldie but goodie. This one is about textbook rentals.

Textbook Rentals. That's what someone from the superintendent's office at Vermillion, USD 380, in Kansas told yours truly about the unlawful tuition that Dean Dalinghaus, the principal of Frankfort School, in Frankfort, Kansas, charges the parents of the unlucky children who attend his institution. According to federal law, there is no such thing as a "textbook rental" in a public school for a required course. If a student loses or destroys a textbook, it is, of course, another matter; but Frankfort has no legal business charging any parent 50.00 for its moth eaten, outdated, information-challenged tomes that are seldom even read by students.

Prior to paying for a "textbook rental", each parent should inspect the property for which the unlawful tuition is purported to pay. Is the textbook torn up or missing pages? Was it published in 1953? Was it written and compiled by authors whose contributions to the subject matter have been superseded by better authorities? If so, the school should not charge, in the name of state and federal government, for the use of the published material.

The savvy parent should also call the publishing company used by the school and inquire about the actual prices paid by the school for these textbooks. Have the books already been paid off, many times over, by parents who have paid "textbook rentals"? If so, it is very inappropriate and legally questionable, even in cases wherein such a fee is legal, to force a parent to pay for such a thing. How much would the publishing company charge a parent for a new or used textbook? Shouldn't the parent have this information, up front, before paying rental fees? One would not rent a car, or a home, without knowing the actual cost of purchase, so why not find out how much a used book would cost?

USD 380 and Dean Dalinghaus should stop charging tuition for public school. If Dalinghaus wishes to charge parents more money than the actual value of his product, he should attempt to pimp his product in the private market for childhood education, and find out, there, the actual value of his services and textbooks.

Another Word About Public School Enrollment Fees

Textbook Rentals. That's what someone from the superintendent's office at Vermillion, USD 380, in Kansas told yours truly about the unlawful tuition that Dean Dalinghaus, the principal of Frankfort School, in Frankfort, Kansas, charges the parents of the unlucky children who attend his institution. According to federal law, there is no such thing as a "textbook rental" in a public school for a required course. If a student loses or destroys a textbook, it is, of course, another matter; but Frankfort has no legal business charging any parent 50.00 for its moth eaten, outdated, information-challenged tomes that are seldom even read by students.

Prior to paying for a "textbook rental", each parent should inspect the property for which the unlawful tuition is purported to pay. Is the textbook torn up or missing pages? Was it published in 1953? Was it written and compiled by authors whose contributions to the subject matter have been superseded by better authorities? If so, the school should not charge, in the name of state and federal government, for the use of the published material.

The savvy parent should also call the publishing company used by the school and inquire about the actual prices paid by the school for these textbooks. Have the books already been paid off, many times over, by parents who have paid "textbook rentals"? If so, it is very inappropriate and legally questionable, even in cases wherein such a fee is legal, to force a parent to pay for such a thing. How much would the publishing company charge a parent for a new or used textbook? Shouldn't the parent have this information, up front, before paying rental fees? One would not rent a car, or a home, without knowing the actual cost of purchase, so why not find out how much a used book would cost?

USD 380 and Dean Dalinghaus should stop charging tuition for public school. If Dalinghaus wishes to charge parents more money than the actual value of his product, he should attempt to pimp his product in the private market for childhood education, and find out, there, the actual value of his services and textbooks.

First Day Of School In Frankfort, Kansas

 

It's that time of year again in Frankfort, Kansas, and this story will appear once again on this site, because the school here in Frankfort has not seen fit to come into compliance with safety standards observed by schools in other parts of Kansas, and has not come into compliance with federal law concerning the presence of weapons on school property, bullying, or student safety. The only change made is that credit shall be granted where it is due: the name of the errant and uncorrected guidance counselor who has been granted carte blanche to endanger children is Tom Schroeder.

Anyone who's listening, I will tell you a story. It's a true story, and it happened in October of 2009. Thankfully, it had a happy ending.

My oldest daughter used to be quite the avid cross country buff when she was thirteen years old. She was good at it, too. But one day, while she was at practice, and I was at home, just assuming that all was well, her coach drove past my house, stopping to talk to my eight year old son. Mr. Coach wanted to know if Mr. Eight Year Old had seen his older sister. Mr. Eight Year Old had not. No one had seen my daughter in over two hours. She was lost. Why was she lost? Because her coach had dropped her off by the side of a highway, four miles south of the town we live in, by herself, and just left her. It was part of cross country practice. No supervision. If she had been stung by a bee, had tripped and hurt herself, or had some other medical emergency, no one would have been there to help her. (at this juncture, you should know that I offered to volunteer to help with cross country, but since I do not attend a Christian church, my offer was rejected. The school staff thought it better to take chances with a child's safety in the way I just described) When my daughter realized that she did not know her way back, she started to wander on a side road, hoping it would bring her to a house, or another person. This area has a lot of commercial farms, and there were no houses or places my daughter could go to for help.

Back to my eight year old son.......Twenty minutes went by. While he did not realize the signifigance of his conversation with Mr. Cross County Coach, (also Mr. Guidance Counselor) he did realize that no one knew where his sister was, and it was getting later and later, and no one was looking for her. So he told me about it. I looked all over town, called all her friends, searched the school (why was the school left unlocked after everyone had gone home?) and finally started home to call the police, when a couple of senior boys drove up with my crying daughter in their car. It was still within a few minutes of when I found out she was missing, but this cross country coach had known all afternoon, and had not called the police, or spoken to me. Why? I guess whatever he cared about, it WASN'T my daughter. Well.........I actually DO care about my daughter. Nowhere else have I met a teacher that did NOT care, at least a little, about the children he teaches, but I think that is what the problem is with Mr. Cross Country Coach/ Guidance Counselor.

Suppose it was not young men from her school who found her, but a dangerous person? I have been told time and time again by the people who live in this small Kansas town that "those things don't happen here", and "there ARE no dangerous people here", but there was a sex offender whose address was within half a mile of where my daughter was abandoned. The police were quick to point that out, but the principal only argued his harmlessness as a sex offender with them and the school board is not worried about the incident.

My children no longer participate in cross country at their school. It isn't safe.

Four Dead In Ohio

Richard Nixon's speech after four students were killed at Kent State. No one had threatened law enforcement; they simply determined that the approach of questioning authority should be met with lethal violence. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Ten days after the incident at Kent State, there was a similar protest at Jackson State University, a Black college in Mississippi. Police came, sprayed bullets into gatherings of unarmed students, and actually fired shots into dormitory windows, killing two and injuring nine. The media did not make a big deal of it, though.

Christian School Nurse Denies Service To Child

A Pennsylvania school nurse took it upon herself to refuse to treat a child because the child did not recite the pledge of allegiance to the flag while waiting in the nurse's office. The nurse at Wilson Middle School in Carlisle yelled at the student until she started to cry, and when the student tried to call her mother, the nurse refused to allow that, too. The nurse felt that because of the controversy about new laws concerning religious "liberty", it was her god-given right to refuse service to a child in attendance at the school where she works. Patriotism and devotion, expressed by mindless recitation of a verse with which many Americans do not agree. Nice. This is why Christians should be more like indoor house cats, and excrete their daily devotions in the litter box, rather than at work or around real people.

There are two problems with the pledge. One is that it states that this nation is "indivisible under god", when such a thing is no more possible than a nation being indivisible under Santa Claus, and the other is that the pledge ends with an affirmation that America sports "justice for all". Actually, many Americans do not get the benefits of justice, because while there is usually justice for those who can afford private attorneys, justice for "all" is certainly not a guarantee! Boycott The Pledge got involved on the child's behalf, and have contacted the school to request an apology for the christian nurse.

What Are They Teaching In Kansas Schools?

A couple of years ago, I confronted Dean Dalinghaus, principal of Frankfort School, in Frankfort Kansas, about his practice of allowing anyone at all, friend or foe, or unknown person, for that matter; to enter the school and wander the hallways and classrooms at will, no questions asked. Most schools do not allow this for obvious reasons, connected to safety of students and faculty. Dalinghaus rudely asked me if I wanted him to install a metal detector, like "inner city" schools.

Funny, Deanie-Boy should mention metal detectors. While metal detectors will not help him as much as a simple sign-in list with his strangers and the boogyman entering the building at will, a metal detector can be very useful when strangers, teachers, the boogyman, or students, particularly those already on probation, bring guns to school. A couple of months ago, the secretary in the superintendent's office at USD 380, Frankfort's district, telephoned the county prosecutor in hopes of having your faithful blogger arrested (!!!!) for complaining about the inordinate number of children with criminal records in Frankfort High School and requesting that USD 380 do more to protect the children who are not interested in crime. How is that for pressure and fear-mongering when someone steps forward with the truth? Mrs. Secretary was disappointed when she was told that it is not a crime to complain about crime in public schools. (where's the eye-rolley when I need it?)

As it turns out, the question was well placed. Not only is Frankfort High School a place where children feel free to drink underage and use recreational drugs, Frankfort High School is also a place where children feel quite free to express infantile rage (possibly escalated by inept and unqualified staff?) to the point of police presence in the school itself, and.....resulting in an arrest of yet another child, boosting the percentage of Frankfort students with resumes at the courthouse. I refer to an incident that happened about a month ago, involving a sophomore. Somehow, it seems that Deanie-Boy Dalinghaus could have managed the incident differently, if he really cared about any of the students; this child did not have a weapon. But back to metal detectors: last week, a senior, who is already on probation for other crimes, was arrested for taking a gun to Frankfort School. Two arrests on the campus in a month's time, one involving a weapon. Wow. In a school that only has about one hundred and fifty children from kindergarten to twelfth grade.

I forgot to mention that the senior was also arrested for drugs. Could the creation of a distraction be the real reason the superintendent's secretary wanted to fan as many flames as possible against yours truly, when yours truly wanted Frankfort High School to straighten up and fly right, for a change?

Siriunsun's Art Gallery

Deanna Ambrose painted this. The best art is often local.

In Case You Weren't In Church On Sunday

Can anyone say "overkill"? Responding with the words "bless you" when hearing a sneeze is not what our forefathers had in mind when they agreed upon separation of church and state. This Tennessee classroom has obviously gone overboard in giving a child in-school detention for instinctively using those words when a classmate sneezed. Now; if she seriously believed the archaic German/Christian superstition that one's soul disappears into the mists via the sneeze whenever this happens, and had reiterated that failing to say "bless you" could lead to eternal damnation, there may have been a slight violation; but this did not happen. Perhaps along with "overkill", she should say "gesundheit" next time.

A Fourth Reason To Consolidate Kansas Schools

Wouldn't it be nice if Kansas schools, like schools everywhere else in the nation, were administrated by educators, rather than politicians? Wouldn't it also be nice if every principal in Kansas had a degree in teaching and a few years of experience in the same? This provides yet another reason for consolidation of schools: tiny, often errant, independent little school boards comprising "unified" school districts, sometimes do not bother to hire qualified people for this post, making victims of all the students and their parents. That's what happened in Kansas USD 380. There should probably be an audit of USD 380's standardized test scores for the past ten years or so, too.

Insight

One of his students asked Buddha, "Are you the messiah?"
"No", answered Buddha.
"Then are you a healer?"
"No", Buddha replied.
"Then are you a teacher?" the student persisted.
"No, I am not a teacher."
"Then what are you?" asked the student, exasperated.
"I am awake", Buddha replied.
 

Spanish Fork Utah And Frankfort Kansas

 

Kiplyn Davis, or Spanish Fork, Utah, was last seen Spanish Fork High School some time after lunch, on May 2, 1995. She was fifteen years old, and when she did not show up for her afternoon classes, no one batted an eyelash. In fact, no one even considered her absence odd, until her parents couldn't find her. They reported her missing at 5:00 that evening, but it took police about three weeks to start looking for her. To this day, she has not been found.

Because of the publicity the case receives from time to time, law enforcement and the local prosecutors occasionally speculate about what happened, and a former classmate is serving about fifteen years for manslaughter in the case; a guilty plea was accepted without the requirement that he name the person he "saw" murder Kiplyn or reveal her location. Such is justice when children disappear from small Midwestern schools.

But what does that have to do with Frankfort, Kansas? There is a small school there, too. There was also an incident involving a child who disappeared; thankfully, that child was found. But some of the elements are very similar to the Spanish Fork case. The child who disappeared from Frankfort High was a female freshman who had been abandoned by herself alongside of a highway by a guidance counselor who doubled as a track coach. When she disappeared, he looked for her a little bit, but gave up after awhile. He did not bother to call her parents or the police. After about three or four hours, someone noticed her walking on the shoulder of the highway and gave her a ride back to Frankfort. And now for the most disturbing similarity: Frankfort is largely populated by humanoid creatures who call themselves "people" who actually do not think that a coach or teacher "losing" a student and failing to call law enforcement or let the appropriate people know she is missing is dangerous or criminal! Had that child not been offered a ride by a person with good intentions, but found by someone with bad intentions, or had remained missing, the above mentioned humanoid creatures probably would never have tried to find her, or even tried find out what had happened. The fact that this freshman was not a native "Frankforter" disentitled her to basic safety and consideration. Tom Schroeder, the coach in question, is still employed at the school. Laura McNish, the Marshall County prosecutor, apparently does not have a problem with teachers who turn children into statistics.

On February 11, 2011, Timothy Brent Olsen entered a guilty plea to manslaughter in the disappearance of Kiplyn Davis. This was sixteen years after the last time Kiplyn was seen alive. The court did not require that he name his accomplices, and the court did not require that he reveal the location of Kiplyn's body. Had the child who was "lost" by Frankfort High School, in Kansas become a statistic, the faculty at Frankfort High School and the county attorney would probably not care about justice, or about finding her, either. They certainly didn't care about finding her during the first three hours she was missing.

 

 

Enroll A Child In School With No birth Certificate

Want to know where you can still enroll a child in school with no birth certificate, despite federal law, requiring that a school see a valid birth certificate prior to enrollment? Frankfort, in Frankfort Kansas will do this for you! Actually, you do not necessarily even need to prove that you have legal custody of a child, or that you are, indeed, one of the child's parents in order to enroll! Dean Dalinghaus, the principal at Frankfort, is so bent on harvesting all the dollars he can harvest for enrolling as many children as possible, while providing as little classroom instruction as possible, that he will enroll anyone under four feet tall! He will probably enroll dogs, cats, and parakeets if he can find inactive social security numbers or other identities for them!

I wonder which class Frankfort found for this new student.

In Case You Skipped Church This Sunday

The first thing that a certain undersheriff here in Marshall County, Kansas, and I disagreed upon was actually a lot more universal than it was personal. It concerned the presence of weapons in Northeast Kansas schools, and the fact that rifles and shotguns occasionally tag along to school in vehicles driven by students who hunt on mornings before school starts. The cop thinks that because he goes to church and votes republican most of the time, a gun in the hands of a younger student (mind you, many of the schools in Northeast Kansas go from kindergarten to high school because the schools are not consolidated and there are not many students) would not create the mayhem here that the same weapon would create in the hands of a younger student opening an older student's vehicle and finding a loaded gun in a "blue" state. I reminded him that religion and politics would not affect the outcome of such an incident, and that if anything like that ever happened, I would be on the phone with all the major newspapers immediately, informing them of the conversation he and I had just had. This was before this happened, involving my effort to help a Marshall County mom get her mother to care for her children after she had been arrested, and also before this incident, when the county attorney wanted all of the witnesses for a case she wanted to try in court to testify her way, instead of telling the truth. Would you have heard a message from the pulpit, if you hadn't skipped church, about Jesus voting republican and telling concerned parents to relax about children taking guns to school?

 

 

School Is Back In Session

School is back in session in a lot of places in the Midwest today, so I will dust off this post, one more time, and post it again. The subject matter bears repeating.

Anyone who's listening, I will tell you a story. It's a true story, and it happened in October of 2009. Thankfully, it had a happy ending.

My oldest daughter used to be quite the avid cross country buff when she was thirteen years old. She was good at it, too. But one day, while she was at practice, and I was at home, just assuming that all was well, her coach drove past my house, stopping to talk to my eight year old son. Mr. Coach wanted to know if Mr. Eight Year Old had seen his older sister. Mr. Eight Year Old had not. No one had seen my daughter in over two hours. She was lost. Why was she lost? Because her coach had dropped her off by the side of a highway, four miles south of the town we live in, by herself, and just left her. It was part of cross country practice. No supervision. If she had been stung by a bee, had tripped and hurt herself, or had some other medical emergency, no one would have been there to help her. (at this juncture, you should know that I offered to volunteer to help with cross country, but since I do not attend a Christian church, my offer was rejected. The school staff thought it better to take chances with a child's safety in the way I just described) When my daughter realized that she did not know her way back, she started to wander of a side road, hoping it would bring her to a house, or another person. This area has a lot of commercial farms, and there were no houses or places my daughter could go to for help.

Back to my eight year old son.......Twenty minutes went by. While he did not realize the signifigance of his conversation with Mr. Cross County Coach, (also Mr. Guidance Counselor) he did realize that no one knew where his sister was, and it was getting later and later, and no one was looking for her. So he told me about it. I looked all over town, called all her friends, searched the school (why was the school left unlocked after everyone had gone home?) and finally started home to call the police, when a couple of senior boys drove up with my crying daughter in their car. It was still within a few minutes of when I found out she was missing, but this cross country coach had known all afternoon, and had not called the police, or spoken to me. Why? I guess whatever he cared about, it WASN'T my daughter. Well.........I actually DO care about my daughter. Nowhere else have I met a teacher that did NOT care, at least a little, about the children he teaches, but I think that is what the problem is with Mr. Cross Country Coach/ Guidance Counselor.

Suppose it was not young men from her school who found her, but a dangerous person? I have been told time and time again by the people who live in this small Kansas town that "those things don't happen here", and "there ARE no dangerous people here", but there was a sex offender whose address was with half a mile from where my daughter was abandoned. The police were quick to point that out, but the principal only argued his harmlessness as a sex offender with them and the school board is not worried about the incident.

My children no longer participate in cross country at their school. It isn't safe.

Do Students Belong In Duffle Bags?

Of all the insane outrageousness! Just when I though I had nearly heard it all, too! A "teacher" in Kentucky, for special needs children, decided that since a nine year old boy named Christopher Baker smirked at her and threw a basketball across the room, she'd stuff him in a duffle bag and pull the drawstring shut! She then put the duffle bag out in the hallway before calling the boy's mom. When Christpher's mom arrived, she did not know, at first, that her son was inside of a duffle bag, and was stunned to hear the bag say, "Mommy, is that you?"

Ya know......Christopher's mom must be a saint, because I am not sure, exactly, what I would have done if that were my child. Everything about this, from the risk of suffocation, to the humiliation, is simply abusive. I don't care how many times the little boy smirked. I also don't care how difficult of a day this special ed teacher was having, there is simply no excuse for something like that! I don't know this teacher personally, but I am forced to ponder if she took the job with special needs children because they have a more difficult time speaking up about abuse issues within their schools than normal children. If that's the case, she needs to go. But guess what....she's not going anywhere. Kentucky schools, and her principal, think this is an okay way to educate any child with aspergers or any other disability on the autism spectrum. Here's what the principal, Dennis Davis, had to say, quoting from the above referenced Yahoo article: "The employees of the Mercer County Public Schools are qualified professionals who treat students with respect and dignity while providing a safe and nurturing learning environment," Davis said in a statement."

Okay, now that we know that schools in Kentucky consider the inside of a duffle bag a safe and dignified place to learn, and that the "qualified professional" teaching in Kentucky will have an assortment of duffel bags in various sizes in which students can learn, a woman named Lydia Brown has put together a petition and a letter to sign, because Kentucky sees no problem with stuffing children into duffle bags. The Yahoo article did not include a link to the petition, so I will. Here it is. http://www.change.org/petitions/petition-to-board-of-education-of-mercer-county-kentucky

Another very serious consideration about this is the fact that if this child had died in the duffle bag, what on earth would have happened? Would someone have hidden the duffle bag for the teacher and would this have been another missing child case? Or, suppose someone had entered the school, picked up the duffel bag, Christopher still inside, and put it into the trunk of his car and departed? School camaras would not have recorded Christopher's image, the camaras would have recorded a person walking with a duffle bag. This is dangerous, folks. And very, very wrong. Please sign Lydia Brown's petition.