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What were they thinking!?

News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd

By News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd

Published Jan.14, 2015

What were they thinking!?

Those Frightening Alabama Schools: (1) In October, a mother charged that officials at E.R. Dickson School in Mobile, Alabama, first detained her daughter, 5, for pointing a crayon at another student as if it were a gun, and then pressured the girl to sign a paper promising not to kill anyone or commit suicide. "What is suicide, Mommy?" the girl asked when her parents arrived. (2) In a 2010 incident at Sparkman Middle School near Huntsville, Alabama, an administrator coaxed a special-needs girl, 14, into a boys' bathroom to "bait" a 16-year-old boy who had previous sexual misconduct issues into committing a prosecutable offense -- and then failed to protect the girl. (The girl's family sued and won a summary judgment, but the school board appealed, and in September 2014 the U.S. Justice Department formally endorsed the family's lawsuit.) [WPMI-TV (Mobile), 10-10-2014] [Al.com (Huntsville), 9-18-2014]

The West Briton newspaper reported in October that a darts team composed of blind men was ready for its inaugural match at an inn in Grampound, England, sponsored by the St. Austell Bay Rotary Club. The inn's landlord acknowledged that the game-room door would be closed "just in case" a dart strays off course. (The blind darters would be aided by string attached to the bull's eye that they could feel for guidance.) [West Briton (Truro), 10-21-2014]

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