Culture
“We need a statewide policy where every student-athlete, coach and administrator will understand that these behaviors will no longer be acceptable and there will be consequences to both athletes and teams,” [Warwick Democrat State Representative Joseph] McNamara said. Do we really need this, or is it nanny-state political opportunism? According to Christian Winthrop of The Newport…
Sofia Barr reports for the Valley Breeze on teachers’ taking to the microphone at a school committee meeting, but not for the familiar subject of contract negotiations: Woonsocket teachers and building administrators took to the microphone at last week’s School Committee meeting, with the majority of educators voicing concerns about safety and student support. For more…
While commenting on the curiously non-Republican qualities of the lead Young Republican of Salve Regina University, I mentioned the experience of being ushered quickly past the Catholic institution’s chapel on a tour with a prospective student. Whereas the website of Providence College states “pride in being a Catholic and Dominican institution,” Salve is more-softly “inspired…
Rhode Islander and father Bob Chiarado gave a short presentation to the North Providence School Committee, urging members to revise their transgender policies, particularly with respect to athletics: He doesn’t quite go so far, but to my ear, Chiaradio hints that the state Department of Education has offloaded risk onto school principals should a student…
Details are important, of course. A police report that a “librarian at Pleasant View Elementary School [in Providence] was arrested after she allegedly … struck [a student] once with force with an open hand on his back” doesn’t tell us much. Was the student injured? Was he sprawled out on the floor? Did he even…
There is so much good in a post on X by Wokal Distance that you should read the whole thing, but a few points are worth teasing out independently. Wokal relates his son’s experience in school and, specifically, while visiting the high school to join the elementary school band. (I’m assuming Wokal is a man.) …
The Old Testament reading from today’s Roman Catholic Mass caught my ear with a line that’s typically overlooked. From Sirach, one of the Wisdom Books (emphasis added): Do not trust in sacrifice of the fruits of extortion, For he is a God of justice, who shows no partiality. He shows no partiality to the weak but…
Joseph Parks of the National Council for Mental Wellbeing promoted a recent report from his group during a Rhode Island–based webinar about “mass violence.” Either I’m completely missing his point or, like other people who count as “experts” in the modern West, he’s so tangled up in semantic nuances he says things that are plainly…
One day, perhaps, we’ll learn the extent to which the progressive movement’s social policies of the last decade were part of a conscious scheme to undermine American society and culture. Maybe the policies were a truly organic mania that swept through the country like a malicious illness. Maybe a cabal of radical activists hooked up…
Corey Plante reports in the Valley Breeze: Police said four separate fights broke out at the high school that day, and confirmed to The Valley Breeze that 12 juveniles were arrested on disorderly conduct charges. A separate arrest at Hamlet Middle School involved a student found carrying pepper spray, bringing the total number of arrests in…