police were called to a third-grade class party

http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20160629_Why_police_were_called_to_a_South_Jersey_third_grade_class_party.html

On June 16, police were called to an unlikely scene: an end-of-the-year class party at the William P. Tatem Elementary School in Collingswood.

A third grader had made a comment about the brownies being served to the class. After another student exclaimed that the remark was "racist," the school called the Collingswood Police Department, according to the mother of the boy who made the comment.

The police officer spoke to the student, who is 9, said the boy's mother, Stacy dos Santos, and local authorities.

Dos Santos said that the school overreacted and that her son made a comment about snacks, not skin color.

"He said they were talking about brownies. . . . Who exactly did he offend?" dos Santos said.

The boy's father was contacted by Collingswood police later in the day. Police said the incident had been referred to the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency. The student stayed home for his last day of third grade.

Dos Santos said that her son was "traumatized," and that she hopes to send him to a different Collingswood public school in the fall.

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Why?

According to district officials, the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office (CCPO), has stripped school staff of its authority to investigate any incident that could potentially be deemed a criminal violation, instead ordering the involvement of local law enforcement. The impact of that edict has even kept teachers, aides, and administrators from communicating with children directly about behaviors they may have typically corrected on the spot.

“Their claim is when we investigate on the school disciplinary code, [law enforcement] investigate[s]on the criminal code,” said Collingswood Superintendent Scott Oswald. “If we do ours first, it could interfere with theirs.”

Oswald said that standard has forbidden school staff from doing much more than calling the police for every infraction, no matter how minor, rather than risk failing to follow the statute. For the past several weeks, the first call home about something as routine as a scuffle on the elementary school playground has been made by a Collingswood police officer instead of a representative of the school.

“We were told that if we were deemed to be interfering with an investigation there would be potential criminal consequences for us,” Oswald said, including criminal indictment of school staff or the loss of state licenses.

http://www.njpen.com/police-investigations-mandated-for-discipline-issues-at-collingswood-schools/

XtraMath and touch screens

XtraMath is a program used at my daughter's school to help students remember the answers to number facts quickly. My daughter was using it on a laptop and typing numbers on a QWERTY keyboard was a source of many mistakes for her.

You can purchase an iPad or Android version of XtraMath for an additional fee. Or you can run the chrome web browser as you would on a PC, except the keyboard on the touch screen works. By using the on-screen numeric keypad, my daughter was able to complete a session with no mistakes.

free minecraft server

I am running a free minecraft server for classmates of my daughter.

If you are the parent of an MSJE student, send me an email with the subject "minecraft server" and I'll send you information on how to access it. (if you don't know what MSJE is, you aren't)

There is no official affiliation with the school.

Mission San Jose Elementary Classrooms

The original site seems to consist of:

An administration and kindergarten building. Only one K classroom.
3 wings of 4 classrooms each, labeled from 1-12.
This would mean two classrooms per grade.
Wings 1 and 3 had bathrooms, as well as another set of bathrooms next to the admin building.

A kindergarten classroom was added. It has a bathroom, unlike the first.
This newer classroom is labeled K1 and the original room K2.
A transitional kindergarten classroom was added, labeled 1A.

A total of two additional wings of temporary/permanent portable classrooms were added west of the original 3 wings. These new rooms had far fewer windows.

The first wing, from north to south, holds rooms 13, 14, and 15 in a cluster.
Room 16 is standalone.
Another set of rooms 16A/B/C are also standalone for special services such as the PE instructor, speech therapist and other short term uses.

The final 3 rooms in the first wing of added rooms,, 17, 18, 19 are close together but don't touch.

The final, west-most wing, holds rooms 20 and 21 with a shared wall, rooms 22 and 23 with a shared wall, and room 24, a triple wide, as a standalone. It currently is a science room.

This gives a total of 24 numbered rooms plus K1, K2, and 1A. However, 24 is not a classroom and 1 is used for K. This leaves 22 rooms for grades 1-6. The nominal assignment is 3 rooms per grade so only 18 are needed.

In 2015-16, there were 4 5th grade rooms and 4 6th grade rooms but only 2 2nd grade rooms.
That means 18+1+1-1 = 19 rooms were in use, leaving 3 available for other purposes. They were rooms 4, 6 and 12, one in each of the original wings.

There was a bubble in the kindergarten class of 2013-14 where entry into kindergarten was severely restricted and many qualified families were forced to go to other schools. The kindergarten class of 2014-15 was able to accept all applicants.

liability for negligence

A crucial factor in establishing liability for a slip and fall injury is showing that the defendant had notice of the hazardous condition. Without such notice, no liability will attach. The plaintiff may satisfy this burden by proving actual notice, or by showing constructive notice. 

Actual notice of a particular hazard may also be established through third persons who testify that they warned the defendant directly of the dangerous condition prior to the injury-causing accident. 

http://www.bpslawyers.com/Articles/Actual-Notice-of-Hazardous-Conditions.shtml

Grade 2 - Math - Comparison Bars

This is a list of the cases covered in the video Grade 2 - Math - Comparison Bars.

1. Compare with Difference Unknown (how many more)
   Jeremy has 10 crayons. Amanda has 3.
   How many more crayons does Jeremy have than Amanda?
2. Compare with Bigger Unknown (more)
   Noah has 10 more caps than Ben. Ben has 10 caps.
   How many caps does Noah have?
3. Compare with Difference Unknown (how many fewer)
   Dan reads 9 books. Ana reads 11 books.
   How many fewer books does Dan read than Ana?
4. Compare with Bigger Unknown (fewer)
   Jim has 5 fewer balls than Sadie. Jim has 9 balls.
   How many balls does Sadie have?
5. Compare with Smaller Unknown (more)
   Nike hikes 12 miles. Nick hikes 4 more miles than Zia.
   How many miles does Zia hike?
6. Compare with Smaller Unknown (fewer)
   Jen eats 2 fewer peas than Scott. Scott eats 9 peas.
   How many peas does Jen eat?

A 3rd grade problem