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Have schools gone off the deep end on being "safe?"

Glenn Beck interviewed a father, Frank Harmeier, last week whose ten year old son Casey pulled a fire alarm cover off in the hall of the school (Texas) on a dare. When the cover was replaced, the alarm went off. It wasn't one that goes off at the police station, or even the principal's office, but is local for that area so a teacher can be summoned to investigate. When the teacher came (he didn't try to run away--he knew he'd done something wrong), he admitted his crime. Then the police were called, he was arrested and taken to the police station and interrogated for four hours before his parents were called. They are charging him with a felony; the parents are calling it child abuse. And as it turned out, the alarm went off because a school staffer pulled it when she tried to replace the cover. For its mistake, the school hasn't apologized for terrorizing a student, and has only asked that the felony charge be reduced to a misdemeanor. The juvenile authorities, according to Casey's father, wanted the parents to go through a family counseling and parent reeducation (North Vietnam comes to mind, doesn't it), the problem is they ARE counselors, she having given up her job to be a stay at home mom. And the father works in that school district. Series in the Houston Chronicle.

Imagine all this fuss and police involvement with illegals flooding across the border of Texas. Seems like some misplaced power struggles, doesn't it. The reporter following this story has discovered that gum chewing will also result in arrests.

Then in Oregon, "Two McMinnville middle school boys are in Yamhill County Juvenile Detention facing sex abuse charges after school officials said they inappropriately touched classmates.

The 12- and 13-year-old boys’ parents said students were part of a group of boys and girls at Patton Middle School who would spank each other’s backsides as part of a handshake or dance." Story here. Again, the children were arrested and the parents weren't called. What is this, the abortion trend in parent notification?

Kind of makes me glad we're going to our 50th class reunions this summer--you young folks in charge of our institutions are going bonkers. I hate to think what my generation would have been charged with. Eleven year old boys actually thought it was great fun to sneak up behind the girls and snap their bra! Now we've got libraries with really smutty stuff and fighting internet filters while insisting it's about about freedom of information, while 10 year olds are going to jail? The world is upside down.