[jyl]

Chris, your comment to me is partly true I suppose - my kids are in prviate school. But they went to the typical pre-school like everyone else and then in the French immersion grade school system (gee, that's a mouthful) the teachers still tend to be more female than male, and the tendency to "political correctness" in such a school - in Berkeley CA and Portland OR no less - is pretty darn strong, you better believe it.

My main point is that there is a difference between what is actually being experienced by the bulk of parents and kids in the real world, and the occasional ridiculous/outrageous incidents that get blown out of proportion on the internet.

Out of 1,000 grade-school kids, how many do you think are actually getting labeled as "sex offenders"? In the real world, not the internet world? In all the grades in all the years during all the schools my kids have gone to - which would cover a few thousand kids - I can't actually recall any. We're very active in our schools, on the Board and so on, and would hear of this sort of thing if it happened. The closest was a 7th grade boy who was asking the girls in his (private school) class for blowjobs. He didn't get kicked out, although he got counseled rather intensively. Well, I also knew a 5th grade boy who brought a loaded pistol to school and accidentally fired it while showing off to his friends. He got himself a permanent expulsion from that (public) school district. Not sure I agree w/ that response, but I believe the district's rules on students' possession of deadly weapons might not have left the principal a whole lot of choice. So the kid finished up in private school and grew up just fine.

When you become a parent, I suspect you'll find that over-reaching political correctness isn't real high on your list of actual school concerns. You will probably be more concerned about whether the teacher works with your son to overcome his reading struggles, or draws your daughter into asserting herself in class, or whatever actual educational challenges your kids face, than on whether she let your kid play with a toy gun.