Kids, Schools | featured news

Back-to-school time means shopping for school or dorm room supplies, picking classes and savoring summer's waning days.

Okay, parents. Depending on how you look at it, this next week or so is either dreadful or golden. It’s that lull between the end of camps and the start of school. That summer packed with promise is pretty much behind you, and the week or so before you is a wide-open, yawning black hole on your calendar. But let’s be positive. This is your chance to really dig in and enjoy our diverse area full of free museums, beautiful parks, nice waterfront and endless possibilities.

The bullying that bus monitor Karen Klein endured on a ride home from an upstate New York school was painful and egregious, but also shows how student harassment of teachers and administrators has become more spiteful and damaging in the online era.

Authorities in Mexico's Gulf coast state of Campeche said Wednesday they are investigating how a porn video was made by sixth-graders inside their school.

“Pink slime,” or “lean, finely textured beef” filler treated with ammonia to kill bacteria, has been making the headlines recently in response to the U.S. Department of Agriculture decision to make 7 million pounds of ground beef containing “pink slime” available to school districts for use in school meals.

The company that makes "pink slime" is suspending operations at three of four plants where the low-cost beef filler is made amid a public outcry over concern about the ingredient.

All this angst over "pink slime" has made one thing clear: We don't always know what we're getting when we bite into a big juicy burger....

"Pink slime" just went from a simmer to a boil. In less than a week earlier this month, the stomach-turning epithet for ammonia-treated ground beef filler suddenly became a potent rallying cry by activists fighting to ban the product from supermarket shelves and school lunch trays.

To send your snot-nosed, hacking child to school or not: That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler to miss yet another round of critical meetings, deadlines or social obligations to nurse him at home or suffer the slings and arrows of angry fellow parents . . . . Well, you get the picture.