School watch

The discussion addresses how current homework practices in privileged, high-performing schools sustain students’ advantage in competitive climates yet hinder learning, full engagement, and well-being.

Starting this term, every public school student in Oregon is supposed to be graded solely by whether they have mastered the academic skills covered in class.

Turning everything in neat and on time, bringing back signed forms and racking up extra credit won't boost grades. Turning assignments in late, skipping homework and talking during class won't hurt, as long as the student can demonstrate the key skills and knowledge covered in the course.

A Virginia teen has been suspended from school and is facing possible expulsion after he fired an airsoft gun outside his own house.

Khalid Caraballo and some friends were shooting "Zombie Hunter" airsoft guns at targets and at each other in the front yard of the 13-year-old's Virginia Beach home, when a neighbor, the mother of one of the kids playing in the "airsoft gun war," called the cops to complain.

"This is not a real [gun], but it makes people uncomfortable," the unidentified woman later told WAVY. "I know that it makes me (uncomfortable), as a mom, to see a boy pointing a gun."

That 911 call set off a chain reaction that resulted in Khalid getting suspended from Larkspur Middle School along with two other boys.

Now he and his friend Aidan Clark are being threatened with expulsion for the remainder of the school year for "possession, handling and use of a firearm."

Khalid acknowledges hitting a boy with one of the gun's plastic pellets, but says the claim that he fired at the school bus station that is located 70 yards from his home is false.

"t's unfair because we were in our yard," he said. "This had nothing to do with school. I didn't have anything at school at anytime."

Khalid's mom Solangel agrees with her son.

"My son is my private property," she said. "He does not become the school's property until he goes to the bus stop, gets on the bus, and goes to school."

Solangel admits her son disobeyed her by using the gun without her permission, but insists she should be the one to punish him.

A Virginia Beach Police rep said the "juveniles" involved would be in violation of the city code if there were not exercising "reasonable care" while firing the "pneumatic gun."

The code defines "reasonable care" as ensuring that all projectiles are "contained on the property by a fence or backstop."

The 911 caller acknowledged that Khalid was using a net to catch the pellets.

"It's terrible," Khalid said. "I won't get the chance to go to a good college. It's on your school record. The school said I had possession of a firearm. They aren't going to ask me any questions. They are going to think it was a real gun, and I was trying to hurt someone. They will say 'oh, we can't accept you.'"

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Actually the education experts do agree with you. It's the politicians and businessmen who disagree.

I had her erase the entire worksheet they did in class, I spent 15 minutes tops and explained what was going on. She then said, I should teach the class - that 15 minutes taught her what she had not learned in 2 weeks in the classroom.