End of year DVDs are a popular classroom memento. After all, who doesn’t love a nice reminder of the highlights of the past school year? The classmates. The holiday parties. The science fair. The couch sex.

Yes, the couch sex. An Elk Grove, California teacher sent home a DVD that included a homemade sex scene. It’s unclear what precisely was on the DVD, since the parents only watched a few seconds before removing the DVDs from their players and immediately destroying the discs (*cough* yeah, right *cough*). Although the school district tried to keep the teacher’s identity under wraps, news agencies soon ferreted out her name and splashed it across the paper. The woman in question teaches the fifth grade, and the video was sent home to her 24 students. When the teacher realized what had happened, she phoned each family (in hysterics, of course) to apologize and asked that they destroy the video immediately.

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Ah, Patrick Swayze. *dreamy sigh* Who among us 30-something women didn’t dream of visiting a resort in the Catskills with our straightlaced parents and secretly learning to dirty dance with the local bad boy while the “squares” were in the pavilion learning the cha cha? Well, I’m officially old, because Patrick’s, like, so yesterday. My new crush is on High School Principal Jason Perrins. 

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Could there be a correlation between increased ADD and ADHD diagnosis and the elimination of recess from elementary schools? According to “Recess or Ritalin” by Lisa Farino for MSN Health & Fitness, research is helping to clearly define the importance of children’s play, and their need for physical activity to help them focus during classroom time.

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There are three boys in my ten year old daughter’s year who are known as Those Boys Who Get Into Trouble All The Time. There’s one in my seven year old’s class. Every school has them. For a few years when he was young, my brother was one of Those Boys. I can remember my parents’ anguish at having to go down the road to school to see the Principal, yet again, because of some mischief my brother had gotten himself into. But I didn’t really appreciate how difficult it must have been for them until today.

I was standing in the playground this afternoon, chatting with a couple of other mothers as we swapped kids for afternoon play-dates, when I was struck in the back of the head with something sharp and hard. The force was enough to knock my teeth together and send my sunglasses right off my face and onto the ground. I clutched the back of my head and spun around to see what it was and where it had come from. One of the other mothers picked up a small rock as three boys turned away from me with their hands in their pockets and their eyes cast upwards. Wasn’t us.

I looked down at my hand, fully expecting to see blood, but there was none. My head was aching immediately and now, about an hour later and despite a couple of pills, I’ve got a dull ache behind my left eye. So, not a serious injury, but it was all I could do to hold myself together as I turned to look at these boys and try to figure out why on earth they might have decided throwing rocks was a good idea.

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Unfortunately, this isn’t an April Fool’s Day joke…

Graduation Rates a ‘Catastrophe’ in Cities
By KEN THOMAS,AP

WASHINGTON (April 1) - Seventeen of the nation’s 50 largest cities had high school graduation rates lower than 50 percent, with the lowest graduation rates reported in Detroit, Indianapolis and Cleveland, according to a report released Tuesday.

Ranking:

#50 - Detroit: 24.9 percent
#49 - Indianapolis: 30.5 percent
#48 - Cleveland: 34.1 percent
#47 - Baltimore: 34.6 percent
#46 - Columbus: 40.9 percent
#45 - Minneapolis: 43.7 percent
#44 - Dallas: 44.4 percent
#43 - New York: 45.2 percent
#42 - Los Angeles: 45.3 percent
#41 - Oakland: 45.6 percent

– There wasn’t any information provided as to what percent went on to receive their GED.