Parents of special needs students say school district covered up abuse

Wed, 16 May 2012 17:54:26 GMT

Slammed into lockers, isolated in darkened schoolrooms, vulgar language by a teacher -- it was just another day at school for special needs student Alex Williams.

Recently released court documents say Alex, who has cerebral palsy, was routinely abused by teacher Melanie Pickens at Atlanta-area Hopewell Middle School between 2006-07. Despite extensive abuse of Alex and other students that was substantiated by a Fulton County School district investigation in 2007, no charges have been filed against teacher Melanie Pickens or then-Principal Frances Boyd. None of Pickens' special needs students had the verbal abilities to tell anyone they were being physically and emotionally hurt.

You might expect that documented child abuse, in a public school, with many reports by teachers, school nurses, and staff, would automatically result in criminal charges - at least against the teacher actually doing the abusing.

Parents of Melanie Pickens' former students say: Think again.

The way the Williams family learned of their son's mistreatment was circuitous and indirect, according to Lisa and Doug Williams of Atlanta suburb Alpharetta. The parents of another student, Jake Marshall, informed the Williams, according to court documents released earlier this year. That's because the abuse of student Jake Marshall was the first to be uncovered. Now 19, Jake lives with Angelman Syndrome and is non-verbal.

Back in 2004, special needs teacher Melanie Pickens taught a class of middle school students, at Hopewell Middle School, in the Atlanta suburb of Milton. She taught in an area of the school called G Hall, which is the section of the school used solely for special needs students.

In May 2007, another special needs teacher, Susan Tallant, says she found Jake isolated in a room, alone and strapped in a chair. She says it was obvious he'd been there a long time, because he was covered in his feces. "He had defecated and actually gotten it everywhere. All over him, all over the chair he was sitting in, all over the floor," Tallant said in an exclusive interview with CNN's Julie Peterson.

Tallant's colleagues discouraged her from reporting what she'd seen. They told me "I could say something to the higher-ups but nothing would ever get done," Tallant says.

Tallant wrote up the Jake Marshall incident. Her written report forced a formal investigation commissioned by the Fulton County School District. "I was just doing my job," Tallant told CNN.

Outside investigation firm BDI was hired by the Fulton County School District immediately following the May incident. Recently released court documents reported BDI's conclusions. BDI found that many teachers and school nurses made verbal reports about Pickens' treatment of students but nothing had been done. Judge Kimberly Schroer's decision in the Williams case states that Pickens' abuse "was known and reported by the G Hall staff, but that Boyd refused to act on their reports."

A principal is required to report allegations of child abuse under Georgia law.

Court documents say the investigation uncovered that from 2004-07, teacher Pickens had been doing many violent things to her students: slamming one boy into lockers face-first nearly every day, screaming at the children, pressing her breasts in students' faces, hitting them, and calling the students vulgarities. In one incident, the report said Pickens even sprayed a girl with Lysol after the student passed gas.

Both teacher Pickens and Principal Boyd lost their Georgia teaching certifications, says the Professional Standards Commission's John Grant. Pickens was gone immediately from the school, in the summer of 2007, and Boyd was taken out of her principal position and put in a school job that allowed her to use up her paid and unpaid leave, retiring with her pension in 2008. In surrendering her certification, Boyd said she did not violate the Code of Ethics in any way.

Boyd now is an adjunct teacher of education at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, CNN has learned.

Pickens has denied the abuse, in court documents, and Boyd has stated that she actually reported the abuse to the Fulton County School District's Personnel department and was told not to fire Pickens. Neither Pickens nor Boyd has applied to have their teaching certifications renewed.

Neither Pickens nor Boyd nor their lawyers would accept our invitation to provide comment for this story, citing pending litigation.

In the course of the district-commissioned investigation, Jake Marshall's parents were interviewed in 2007- they say this was the first clue to them that something was amiss. The school system still hadn't told them anything, the parents say. The Marshalls then began a two-year process of trying to obtain documents of what happened to their son. This eventually resulted in the Marshalls filing a complaint against the Fulton County School District. The complaint was resolved, and agreement details are confidential.

Judy Marshall, mother of Jake, called Lisa Williams, mother of Alex, to let her know what she learned from the 2007 district investigation. Williams learned that her son Alex, who has cerebral palsy, was hurt by Pickens nearly every day. This explained changes in his behavior, like refusing to use the toilet. The Williams family couldn't explain at the time, back in the 2006-07 school year when Alex was in Pickens' class.

In fact Alex's father, a pediatrician, looked hard for a physical reason for the regression. Only later did he recognize his son's symptoms as post-traumatic stress disorder.

In February, an administrative court confirmed that the Fulton County School District knew about Pickens' abuse but never told parents. Court documents say Alex Williams was denied the "free, appropriate public education" he is due by law.

The Fulton County School District was ordered to pay for five years of special instruction and therapies for now 19-year-old Alex Williams to help him regain lost ground.

Pickens and Boyd were long gone when current Fulton County Superintendent Robert Avossa moved into the job in June 2011. Avossa says there are new procedures in place to keep abuse allegations from going unnoticed. "We decided to develop a more robust reporting process so that we ensure that there's no single point of failure," says Avossa. "So you report it to the principal, you report it to HR, you report it to the state." He adds that in the instance of principal Frances Boyd, "People reported it to the principal allegedly, and that person didn't act on it the way that they needed to. So we're broadening that scope."

With the February court decision making the substantiated abuse public, parents, whose children were students in Pickens' class at various times between 2004-07, are piecing together what happened to their kids. They say the Fulton County School District has never communicated with any of them about the abuse substantiated in the 2007 report. The parents say the only way they know about how their kids were mistreated is by reading the report supplied as revealed in the February Williams decision. No wonder some parents are angry.

Judy Marshall, mother of Jake: "It just infuriates me that this has happened to all these kids that were all non-verbal, couldn't go home and say: Mom, Dad, I don't want to go and this is why."

Shayne Lee, mother of Garrett: "You can't imagine how gut-wrenching it is, to know what's happened. And you kept sending them back, day after day, sending them back."

Each parent we spoke with says they now understand why their children regressed at the time they were in Pickens' class.

Lisa Williams, mother of Alex: "They all regressed in potty-training, they all started isolating themselves in their rooms."

Doug Williams, the pediatrician and Alex's father, says "I thought he had something medically going on. And we kept searching for it. And unfortunately we found it was the abuse and the PTSD that was really causing all his regression and his symptoms."

Shayne Lee, mother of Garrett: "He was just crying, crying, just miserable, and I just thought, I thought maybe the medication was not effective."

Significant questions remain.

Why hasn't Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard's office charged anyone involved in the abuse? CNN made repeated attempts to obtain comments from the DA's office, but we were told the Fulton County school police were still collecting information to be presented to the DA's office.

Did then-principal Frances Boyd report the abuse to Personnel and a school social worker, as she stated in a recent court document? And if she was in fact told "not" to fire Pickens at that time, why would this be so?

Why do teachers and staff at Hopewell say they were intimidated by Principal Boyd? The court determined Boyd created an "air of intimidation" that made staff afraid they'd lose their jobs if they reported Pickens.

So as Fulton County schools have a new superintendent, Hopewell Middle School has a new principal, and with new reporting procedures in place, many parents say they want charges filed. District Attorney Paul Howard's office and Fulton County school police tell CNN the school police continue to collect background -- eight years after the substantiated abuse began. Meantime, parents say their children will be making up for lost ground for a very long time.

"It may take a lifetime to get these kids back to where they were," says Judy Marshall.

One high school, 25 valedictorians

Wed, 16 May 2012 17:54:21 GMT

The iconic Highlander line, "There can be only one" might apply at most other high schools. But at Vanguard High School in Ocala, Florida, as many as 25 students could be classified as "valedictorian."

What this means is that there are expected to be 25 straight-A students. Since they have taken college-level courses, which carry weighted credit, the result is a 5.0 GPA for dozens of seniors. And that's not exactly unusual at Vanguard; last year, the school had 11 valedictorians.

So why is it graduating so many people at the top of the class? The school's ranking policy dates back to 2004, when there simply weren't as many college-level courses available. So with more of those to take and more students taking them, multiple 5.0 (perfect) GPAs are possible. And the school uses GPAs -- not numeric class scores -- to rank its students.

Sharing a top-of-the-class honor doesn't bother students like Preston Culbert. "We weren't trying to get a leg up on each other," he said, "but you get towards the end and suddenly look at all these people who have succeeded just as well as you have. I think it's really great we can be rewarded in this way."

The windfall of achievement does create a bit of a conundrum for school officials. With as many as 25 valedictorians, who gives the graduation commencement speech? And will there even be a salutatorian? A school official from Marion County said having one of those would be "silly...especially in this case."

The solution: All of the valedictorian candidates are submitting the speech they'd give. A committee will select one winner to actually do the talking, and regardless of who that turns out to be, every valedictorian will get a silver plate on graduation day.

Critics say having so many valedictorians could dilute the honor at Vanguard. Others believe it's a motivating factor: Since more than one student can be valedictorian, more students will try harder for the shared title.

You won't find many principals who'd object to this, though. Principal Cynthia Saunders of Ocala's Lake Weir High called having multiple valedictorians "tremendous," saying she'd be happy to have the problem of choosing one graduation speaker from a group of top achievers.

As for the Vanguard valedictorians, no matter who is chosen to speak, their accomplishment speaks for itself.

What the student loan rate hike means to you

Tue, 15 May 2012 11:21:15 GMT

For student borrowers, that pricey college education is going to cost a bit more next year.

If Congress does not act, interest rates on federal student loans, which were temporarily held at a low 3.4%, will revert back to 6.8% for the 2012-2013 school year starting July 1.

That means more than 7 million students taking out Stafford and other federally subsidized loans to cover next year's tuition will have a harder time paying them off.

The average cost to students who take out a student loan next year will be $1,000 in increased debt, according to the White House.

Freshmen just starting out will feel the biggest hit. Assuming rates are 6.8% the next four years, students borrowing the maximum $23,000 in subsidized loans during college would pay an extra $38 a month after graduation. Over the standard 10-year repayment period, that's an additional $4,600 in interest.

For high school senior Brittany Ketchup, the high cost of college coupled with higher interest rates could mean the difference between her dream school and a more affordable in-state option.

"I've worked so hard to get in to Howard, but I may have to stay in state for college and probably attend the University of Georgia or Spellman instead," she said. "I don't want money to be the deciding factor but I have to be realistic."

For incoming seniors with just one year to go, the interest rate hike on a $5,500 subsidized loan will result in just $9 more a month over the same repayment period.

But that's on top of other of loans and grants that most students rely on to cover the cost of college. "When you are talking about a student that's cobbling together a financial aid package to pay for college, the reality is it's not all going to come from one place," said Haley Chitty, spokesman for the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. "If these student loans become more expensive, it all starts to add up."

For those just starting out, every dollar counts. "Everyone agrees that a higher education is worth the investment but it's getting harder and harder to afford," said Rich Williams, higher education advocate for consumer group U.S. PIRG.

More students than ever are relying on loans to pay for school. Two-thirds of students graduating from college or graduate school have student loans. Those loans averaged $23,200 per person in 2008, according to the Department of Education. That's up from an average debt burden of $18,650 in 2004, when just half of students had student loans.

"That high level of student debt is placing serious financial barriers in front of graduates," Williams said, referring to the rise. "With high monthly payments, saving up for a car or home might be delayed or even impossible, saving up to get married or start a family might be delayed and saving up for retirement and your children's education will be much more difficult."

"I'm really worried that I'll never be able to do all the things I want to do," said Katie Pantell. Pantell just finished her freshman year at Loyola University Chicago and is already concerned that joining the Peace Corps after graduating won't be financially feasible. Although Peace Corps volunteers can defer repayment of most types of federal student loans, the rules vary.

"I have to make sure I can pay back my loans first -- any type of program I do is limited by whether I can defer my interest payments," she said.

Shannon Litze, a financial advisor at Ameriprise Financial, suggests students minimize their burden by supplementing loans with summer jobs or several small scholarships at the outset.

"No matter what happens with interest rates you're going to have a big amount of loans at the end," Litze said. "If you work now to reduce them, then you are going to be in such a better position after graduation."

Holocaust survivor receives honorary doctorate

Tue, 15 May 2012 11:01:00 GMT

Zhanna Arshanskaya Dawson's name is etched on the wall of a stark underground memorial in Ukraine, next to that of her sister, Frina, their parents and grandparents. She was presumed dead, like the 16,000 other Jews from Kharkov who perished under the Nazis in the winter of 1941.

Only, Dawson survived, as did her sister.

They lived through the Holocaust, saved solely by their musical genius. Dawson's son Greg believes his mother and aunt are the only two Jewish survivors from Kharkov.

He came upon their names at the memorial in 2006 when he visited Ukraine to write a book about his mother, "Hiding in the Spotlight." After the war, she made a successful life for herself as an accomplished pianist in the United States and had kept silent on her history for many years until her sons had grown up.

Seeing her name came as a shock to Greg Dawson. He remembers his finger freezing upon the Russian lettering; shivers shooting up his spine.

How narrowly she had escaped death, he realized.

On this Friday evening, Greg Dawson, a writer for the Orlando Sentinel, is visiting his mother in Atlanta. The city's Oglethorpe University is honoring her Saturday with a doctor of letters. She will don a cap and gown and march down the aisle along with another honoree, CNN founder Ted Turner.

It is recognition for a woman who played the piano in the vein of Vladimir Horowitz but with the modesty of an unknown. Recognition for a triumph of spirit amid the worst of humanity.

Zhanna Dawson was selected for "her indomitable spirit, courage, honesty, and sense of purpose," says Oglethorpe Provost Denise von Herrmann.

Dawson hangs up a pair of creamy yellow pants freshly dry-cleaned for the occasion. She is excited that finally, at a youthful 85, she will earn her first degree. War kept her from high school; marriage drew her away from the prestigious Juilliard School.

But her love of music has always been with her.

It has been more than a decade since she last put fingers to a keyboard. She developed carpal tunnel syndrome and when doctors told her that surgery could, at best, bring her strength back to 70%, she refused and decided at that moment to give up what she loved most in life.

Eventually, when she no longer taught students she believed had potential, she disposed of the baby grand and upright that occupied a chunk of her condominium's living room, the space now occupied by glass-front cabinets bearing family photographs and mementos. None gives away the suffering she endured.

She has nothing left of her past, save a handful of family photos given to her many years later by a relative, and the one thing she managed to rescue from her house when the Nazis stormed in.

'Just live'

Dawson's love affair with the piano began when she was 5. A year later, she performed Bach's Invention Number 1 in public.

Her father, Dimitri Arshansky, a candymaker by trade, ordered a shiny new Bechstein piano from Germany and encouraged both his daughters to study music at the local conservatory. A professor there introduced little Zhanna to Chopin's "Fantasy Impromptu." She was determined to perfect her playing of the piece.

But life as she knew it stopped with World War II. The Nazis invaded Kharkov in 1941. Only 14 then, Dawson remembers seeing bodies of Jews hanging from lampposts.

On a frigid December day, German soldiers stormed into the house at 48 Katsarskaya Street, rounded up her entire family and shoved them into a long line of Jews forced to march out of the city.

It was the last time she saw her house. The only possession she was able to take with her was the sheet music sitting on her piano. "Fantasy Impromptu."

"I couldn't have possibly left it," she says, thinking back to that wretched day. She didn't need the written notes to play it; she knew it by heart. But it had her teacher's scribbles on it. And it was her favorite piece of music.

The Nazis forced Kharkov's Jews to walk 12 miles outside the city in the bitter cold and snow. Occasionally, a mother would push her young child toward the crowd watching the exodus, in hopes that someone would have sympathy and rescue the child. If her actions were detected, the Nazis shot her on the spot, Dawson remembers.

Her family was taken to an abandoned tractor factory designed to hold 1,800 people. The Nazis forced 13,000 Jews into the barracks without warmth or food. Many people died there.

"It was inhuman," she recalls in her son's book. "The sight of women the age of my mother and grandmother made me shake in shame for the Germans."

The day after Christmas, the Jews were ordered to prepare for transportation. Dawson says her father knew they were all going to die when he saw the trucks go north. There was nothing to the north. It was a road to Dobritsky Yar, a road to the unthinkable.

Dobritsky Yar had two giant pits like the ones at Babi Yar near the city of Kiev, where the Nazis killed 34,000 Jews in two days, most machine-gunned in the back.

Dimitri Arshansky pulled out his gold pocketwatch and flashed it in front of a young Ukrainian guard. He told the guard his family wasn't Jewish; to please let his little girl go.

Dawson says her father realized that he could not save both his girls -- two of them running would be too much commotion. He knew Zhanna, the adventurous, free-spirited one named after Joan of Arc, had a chance to survive. As the guard took the bribe and looked away, she fell out of line and ran like the wind.

"I don't care what you do," her father told her. "Just live."

Playing for the enemy

A few days later Dawson was reunited with her sister. To this day she does not know how Frina escaped the death march. Frina has never spoken of it or about anything else from that time. Dawson believes her sister was too traumatized to talk about it.

With the help of friends, the two girls made it to an orphanage and were able to obtain fake, non-Jewish identities. For the rest of the war, they were no longer their father's daughters.

"My name is Anna Morozova. I am from Kharkov. My sister Marina and I are orphans. Our father was an officer on the Red Army and was killed in action. Our mother died in the bombing of Kharkov."

Dawson said it so many times during the rest of the war that it echoed endlessly in her head.

A piano tuner at the orphanage heard her play one day and offered her and Frina jobs with a musical troupe that entertained the Germans. It was a frightening prospect but Dawson kept thinking of her father's last words -- just live. They played for Nazi generals and in front of German audiences in the city of Kremenchug. Bach, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Liszt, Brahms, Chopin.

Years later people asked her how she could have done what she did. Was it not like the musicians who played as Jews walked into gas chambers in the concentration camps?

"I was playing for the memory of my parents," she says. "I was playing to survive."

And her music, she says, was the only spot of beauty in that bleak atmosphere. Music provided a psychological cocoon. Without it, her spirits might have broken.

There were moments when she feared they would be found out for who they really were and shot on the spot or sent to a gas chamber. One time, the German soldiers put the onus of proof that the girls were Jews on the people who ratted them out.

"We were a precious commodity for the Germans," she said. "We were more valuable alive than dead."

Months turned into years of hiding in plain view.

When the Germans began retreating, they took the musical troupe with them, back to Berlin. There, the Jewish Arshanskaya girls walked past Gestapo headquarters and even Adolf Hitler's bunker after the Allied bombing began.

When the war finally ended in 1945, they were taken to a displaced persons camp run by a young American officer, Larry Dawson, who had a passion for music. Dawson's brother David was an accomplished viola player.

Larry Dawson arranged for a concert. Zhanna and Frina were to play for survivors of Dachau, the notorious concentration camp near Munich.

Zhanna Dawson remembers how nervous she was on the evening of April 13, 1946. After years of playing for the enemy, she was finally going to perform for her own people.

"These were such special people."

In front of the stage at the Landsberg Yiddish Center, sat 1,200 Jews.

Gaunt. Ragged. Weary.

They exploded with applause and bravos, even though Dawson knew that technically, it was the worst she had ever played.

"This was a celebration," she says. "It was the only time I didn't care how I played. I thought again of what my father said. 'Just live.' Just play."

Soon after, Larry Dawson put the Arshanskaya girls on the first U.S.-bound ship of refugees from Germany. They arrived at Manhattan's Pier 64 on May 21, 1946, to begin their lives anew. By then, Zhanna was 19; Frina, 17.

Both won scholarships to The Juilliard School. Zhanna fell in love with David Dawson, married him and left Juilliard before finishing her degree to join him in Bloomington, Indiana. She began performing and teaching music at the university. She had two sons and raised them without ever uttering a word about her past.

Precious pieces of paper

Greg Dawson had no idea that he was Jewish until he was grown up.

His mother says she never spoke of surviving the Holocaust because she wanted her sons to experience normal, carefree childhoods. She didn't want to burden anyone.

But in the spring of 1978, when Greg Dawson was working as a reporter at the Bloomington newspaper, NBC began airing a four-part miniseries called "Holocaust." Until then, many Americans knew little about one of the world's grimmest periods of history; perhaps they had read "The Diary of Anne Frank."

Dawson wanted to write something for the newspaper and asked his mother to tell him more about her memories as a Russian who lived through the war.

"What she gave me was a life and death story of epochal dimensions that left me in disbelief," Greg Dawson wrote.

He was getting to know his mother all over again.

In the 1990s, his daughter, Aimee, asked the same question of Zhanna Dawson. Aimee was 14 then, and for a school project, she wanted to know what her grandmother's life was like when she was that age.

Zhanna Dawson penned an eloquent letter from Atlanta, where she had moved after her husband's death. After that, she began speaking publicly about her life and no longer kept secrets. Except one.

She had lied about her date of birth all those years ago so that the orphanage would take her in -- Russian orphanages did not accept children over the age of 14. Instead of revealing her true birthday of April 1, 1927, Dawson had changed it to December 25.

Her sons celebrated mom's birthday on Christmas day, until 12 years ago, when she came clean.

"I thought it was an April Fool's joke at first," Greg Dawson says.

"But I never changed the year," says Zhanna. And proud to share a birthday with pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff.

She has recordings of her own concerts. And she loves to listen to music. She has expanded from classical to jazz and even popular piano music. Liberace, she says, can play like the best of them.

She cannot stand to watch television or movies with violence. She has never seen any movies about the Holocaust, not even "Schindler's List" or "The Pianist," Roman Polanski's film about Polish musician Wladyslaw Szpilman's survival in the Warsaw Ghetto. Too painful to watch, Dawson says.

However, she participated in The Shoah Victims' Names Recovery Project which aims to memorialize each Jew killed in the Holocaust by recording their names and stories. On her family's page are photographs of her mother, Sara, and father, Dmitri, and also of Prokofiy and Yevdokia Bogancha, the couple who helped Dawson and her sister after they escaped the death march.

Now, she has another validation of her life and the music that saved her: an honorary university degree. She will keep it as she has the other pieces of paper that matter. The five sheets of music of Chopin's "Fantasy Impromptu" that she tucked under her clothes and survived with her.

"How she preserved five sheets of music is beyond me," Greg Dawson says. "You know how perishable paper is."

The sheet music was Zhanna Arshanskaya Dawson's treasure; it kept her going all those years when there was so little hope for survival. It is safely locked away now in a bank safety deposit box, something for newer generations of her family to look at -- and remember a survivor.

Operation Prom gives deserving teens fairy tale moment

Sun, 13 May 2012 12:39:52 GMT

When Keren Charles works with teenage girls in Atlanta as part of her job at Operation Prom, she relies on her upbeat, positive nature and styling expertise to get her through an occasional tough appointment.

"I admit there are some who are very specific and will not try anything other than what they want," Charles says, "Those I really have to work harder with and I'll try and find something to please them."

But Charles says many of the girls that come to her are so excited to just get a prom dress that they put away any preconceived notions.

"The majority of my young ladies that come in are open. They trust me, they trust my opinion and they're able to find something that they really like."

As was the case with 19-year-old high school student Zyna Williams, who came to Charles to find a dress a week before her prom.

Zyna is getting her dress for free because of the work of Operation Prom, a nonprofit organization that helps teens in financial need, or who are sick or disabled, get formal wear for no cost.

After selecting a few bright colors from her collection in her equally brightly colored private studio, Charles gently encourages Zyna to try on strapless dresses, a style she wouldn't normally choose.

"Again I always advise the young ladies that come in just to try on a dress because some things don't have great hanger appeal," Charles tells Zyna, "but once you put it on you will probably fall in love with it, so let's just try."

Zyna ended up choosing a short, white, strapless dress that day to attend the Alpharetta High School prom, with Charles throwing in accessories and a free hair and makeup session.

For Zyna's family, it couldn't have come at a better time. Zyna's adoptive mother, Yasaland King, says an expensive prom dress was just out of reach for her. She's a single mom with two other children and adopted Zyna, who has cerebral palsy, 2½ years ago.

They came to the Atlanta Chapter of Operation Prom last year, and this year are again amazed by the outreach of the organization. King says Charles and Operation Prom are doing a phenomenal job of helping parents who are not fortunate enough to spend thousands of dollars on the whole prom experience for their children.

Not having thousands of dollars for prom is something that Charles can certainly relate to. There was a time when Charles herself had to face starting over with very little.

In August 2005, Charles thought what many in New Orleans did at the time. That Katrina was just another storm so she's take a break for a while and visit friends and family in Atlanta.

It turned out to be anything but just another storm.

Because they left everything back home in Louisiana, Charles and her family had to make a new life in a new city.

"Coming (to Atlanta) and having to start over, it was a tedious experience for my family, but I've grown up with some very strong women so there's nothing that we can't tackle."

After Katrina hit and Charles finally got back on her feet, the economy dealt her a second blow.

Charles lost her job working as a corporate trainer, and says after those experiences she decided that she never wanted to feel like she was backed up against a wall with nothing to fall back on.

"I think with Katrina and moving here to Atlanta I always said to myself, I don't want to ever not have a second option."

Now styling girls like Zyna is just one part of Charles' busy schedule. She has a full-time job as the owner of Fashion Envy, a formal dress boutique in Atlanta. She is also a personal stylist and shopper.

The styling goes hand in hand with her job as the Atlanta chapter director for Operation Prom. Charles does "wardrobe audits" with her clients and encourages them to donate dresses that are sitting in their closets. She also rents dresses to clients for formal occasions and donates those, as well.

Charles says she got involved with Operation Prom so she could reach out to young women in the community and use her talent in the fashion industry to help people.

As a business owner and a "promologist," Charles is one of many chapter directors making a difference for Operation Prom.

Formed in New York in 2005, Operation Prom was born when founder Noel D'Allacco saw a need in her own community in Yonkers.

"I was an event planner and I was meeting with brides and bridesmaids who had these gorgeous bridesmaid dresses that they spent a lot of money on that they were never going to wear again," D'Allacco says.

This discovery inspired her to start collecting those unused dresses and donating them her alma mater, Saunders High School.

Now Operation Prom has several chapters across the country, each one with their own "promologist," a term D'Allacco says she came up with to describe the chapter directors because "they know everything there is to know about prom."

And Operation Prom's reach goes far beyond just dresses. This year they paired with the Men's Wearhouse to offer free tuxedo rentals for guys.

It's just another way D'Allacco and her promologists try to think of every angle that may be an added expense for teens.

"We want them to have the entire prom experience so it's not just the tuxedo, it's not just the dress. If we can purchase their ticket for them, we'll do that as well," D'Allacco says. "If they need transportation we'll try to seek out local limousine companies or taxi services."

Everything that Operation Prom gives to students is free, but it does come at a price. Operation Prom requires that teens who receive their services fill out an application showing that they're in good academic standing and are eligible to graduate.

D'Allacco adds that the organization does require that students demonstrate financial need, but she says she also realizes that with today's economy, many families are facing tough times.

"As long as they complete an application they can come to one of the dress giveaway events," D'Allacco says.

Preparing thousands of dresses across the country is a tall order for Operation Prom, so they hold fundraisers, work with retailers and rely on personal donations and a huge army of volunteers to keep afloat.

A night of glitz and glamour isn't reserved just for students struggling financially. Operation Prom also reaches out to a hospital in the Bronx, where each year they transform the cafeteria in to a dance hall. They give the 13- to 18-year-olds patients the total prom experience for one night including, dresses, tuxes, hair, makeup and dancing.

"Some of the patients there have told their nurses that they completely forgot they were in the hospital, completely forgot they were sick for that night they had so much fun."

D'Allacco says her all her chapters also work with their local Departments of Social Services. Through the social workers, Operation Prom is paired with students who are in foster care or are wards of the state to provide them with formal wear, as well.

Beyond just dresses and tuxedos for a high school rite of passage, D'Allacco says Operation Prom has always been meant for much more. When she created the organization, she decided PROM would stand for Providing Resources, Opportunity and Mentoring. To fulfill that goal, Operation Prom grants one $1,000 leadership scholarship per year and also holds school-supply drives.

For Zyna Williams and Keren Charles, the simple thrill of matching the right dress with the right girl is something they both leave feeling good about.

"It definitely made me feel really good because this is what our mission is," says Charles. "We want to make young ladies have a dream prom."

Grading essays: Human vs. machine

Sat, 12 May 2012 19:25:10 GMT

No one thinks twice about using machines to grade multiple-choice tests. For decades, teachers -- and students -- have trusted technology to accurately decipher which bubble was filled in on a Scantron form.

But can a machine take on the task of evaluating the written word?

A recent study conducted by the College of Education at the University of Akron collected 16,000 middle and high school test essays from six states that had been previously graded by humans. The essays were then fed into a computer scoring program.

According to the researchers, the robo-graders "achieved virtually identical levels of accuracy, with the software in some cases proving to be more reliable."

So the simple answer to whether machines can grade essays would appear to be yes. However, the situation is anything but simple.

The grading software looks for elements of good writing, such as strong vocabulary and good grammar.

What it isn't able to do is distinguish nuance, or even truth.

Les Perelman, a director of writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a critic of these robo-graders. He's had a chance to study how some of the programs work, and says they can be gamed if you can determine the preferences set by the scoring algorithms.

For example, Perelman said in a New York Times article that the machines focus on composition, but have no concern with accuracy. According to Perelman, "any fact will do as long as it is incorporated into a well-structured sentence."

Dr. Mark Shermis, dean of Akron's College of Education and one of the authors of the study, acknowledges that "automatic grading doesn't do well on very creative kinds of writing. But this technology works well for about 95 percent of all the writing that's out there."

Another point in the machine's favor: speed. The New York Times article points out that human graders working as quickly as possible are expected to grade up to 30 essays in an hour.

In contrast, some robo-graders can score 16,000 essays in 20 seconds.

That disparity would seem to support Shermis' view that robotic graders can serve "as a supplement for overworked" entry-level writing instructors. But he warns that his findings shouldn't be used as a justification to replace writing instructors with robots.

What these robo-graders can do, Shermis says, is "provide unlimited feedback to how you can improve what you have generated, 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

Making $300K and getting financial aid

Thu, 10 May 2012 17:22:50 GMT

Private schools are getting flooded with financial aid applications, and a growing number of the parents seeking help are earning $150,000 or more a year.

Overall, the average cost of tuition at private schools across all grades is nearly $22,000 a year, up 4 percent from a year ago and 26 percent higher than it was in the 2006-07 academic year, according to the National Association of Independent Schools.

And more students than ever are asking for need-based financial aid.

In the 2010-11 academic year, about 20 percent of families that filed for financial aid for private school earned $150,000 or more a year, up from just 6 percent in 2002-03.

Many parents have been hit hard by the recession and declining home values and can no longer afford an expensive private school education. But it's one expense they aren't willing to give up.

"There's this pressure to give your kids what you think is the best," said Robin Aronow, a school admissions consultant in New York.

At Tabor Academy, a private high school in Marion, Mass., there's been a spike in families with household incomes as high as $350,000 applying for assistance.

"Five years ago, they were full-pay families and they're not anymore. They just don't have the liquid assets," said Eric Long, Tabor's director of financial aid.

Annual tuition at Tabor is just shy of $50,000 for boarding students and $35,400 for day students -- and it keeps on rising.

"We're going up 5 percent a year and they're making 3 percent more each year, the difference keeps compounding," said Long.

The same holds true at Sewickley Academy in Pittsburgh, where tuition averages about $20,000 a year for grades kindergarten through 12.

As a result of the recession, "we saw some families take a serious hit to their income and we were committed to keeping those families here at school," said Brendan Schneider, Sewickley's director of admission and financial aid.

As a growing number of wealthy families seek financial assistance, there is less aid available for lower-income families who most need the aid.

"A greater part of the school's community is demonstrating need and that makes us less able to afford a very significant financial aid package for low-income students," said Todd Ormiston, assistant head of enrollment management at Gould Academy in Maine.

"Every year we see families with more means outpacing the families with less means," said Chantal Stevens, national director of programs at A Better Chance, a nonprofit that helps minority children get access to private school. "It's not a pretty trend."

Unlike the protocol for colleges, need-based awards are almost entirely up to the school, said Victoria Goldman, author of Manhattan Guide to Private Schools, and "private schools can do whatever they want."

Depending on the school's endowment and financial aid budgets, awards can vary wildly from school to school, explained Brian Fisher, partner at AdmissionsQuest, a private school consulting firm.

And while household income, net worth and disposable income still play a role in determining aid eligibility, schools are increasingly looking at a family's ability to pay a portion of the cost themselves.

"The more you can pay, the better your chances are of being funded," Long said. "We're still looking for socio-economic diversity but our budget can absorb far fewer of those families that can only pay $500 to $1,000 a year."

Those making between $150,000 and $350,000 a year who can pay at least 50 percent of the bill have become ideal candidates for aid.

At Gould, tuition is close to $50,000 a year and about 40 percent of the student body receives financial aid. But who gets what is something few people talk about -- particularly those in the highest income bracket.

"They don't want to advertise that they are applying for financial aid. Most are very discrete and they give up this kind of information very reluctantly," said Fisher.

"It's almost like they are whispering into the phone," said Long of the more affluent families from towns like Newton, Mass. and Greenwich, Conn. who request aid to attend Tabor Academy. But, "I don't know how anyone can be embarrassed to ask for help when high school costs over $200,000."

School misspells its name -- Caught 9 years later

Thu, 10 May 2012 14:35:55 GMT

An elementary school in Fort Worth, Texas, issued the mother of all mea culpas this week when it corrected a misspelling in its name that wasn't noticed for nine years.

Sunrise Elementary School added "McMillan" to its name in the 2003-2004 school year to honor its very first teacher, Mary McMillan, who eventually became its principal, KXAS-TV reported.

However, a relative of McMillan recently contacted the school district to point out that the school had added an extra "'I" in its spelling of her name and that the incorrect spelling of "Sunrise-McMillian" was being used in lettering on the building, printed signs, vinyl congratulatory signs, logos and on Facebook.

"Oh, I was kind of shocked," Ernie Johnson, who waters the grass on school grounds, told the TV station. "I hadn't paid it any mind."

According to KXAS, the lettering on the building was corrected this week, but the school district is still scrambling to fix the typo on business cards, visitor passes, certificates and digital signatures embedded in email.

Principal Marion Mouton said despite their best efforts, he and his staff keep finding the misspellings.

"Our day-to-day things that we just take for granted now and, as we're coming up with it, we're seeing 'OK, that's something else we need to fix,'" he said.

There's no word on what the final cost will be to correct the mistake.

To read the original story, click here.

What happened to modest prom dresses?

Wed, 09 May 2012 14:15:49 GMT

The sparkly, sequined prom gowns that many of us remember from the 90s -- like the Glamour Shots that sometimes accompanied them -- might not have been the prettiest. But most were pretty modest compared to what some young promgoers have been squeezing themselves into this year.

At David's Bridal, there's a prom dress line categorized as "Sexy," and it's accounting for about 35 percent of the retail chain's sales, according to the Wall Street Journal. Low-cut backs, high-cut hemlines, and skin-showing cutouts define the style.

Clothing retailer AMIClubwear, self-described as "the positive place for girls," has options that would positively trouble more conservative fathers. The company throws revealing and tight styles into its mix of party dresses. Factor in the racier options at other retailers like promgirl.com and Jovani, and you have a veritable runway of the risqué.

There's no doubt that the dresses offered have broad appeal to some of today's high school students; after all, demand drives the market. But their schools are implementing dress codes to ensure certain garments aren't worn.

For example, anything that shows off the midriff, is too low-cut (in either the front or the back), or is see-through will not been seen through the doors at Milford High School in Massachusetts. The line is drawn at the bust line at Alabama's Opelika High School: "If flesh touches flesh" below that point, the prom dress code says, "the dress is inappropriate." It also forbids midriffs as well as slits that rise more than three inches above the knee.

Women aren't singled out in this, either. Some dress codes mandate dress shoes on young men's feet, so forget about funning up a tux with Chuck Taylors. And dress shirts are also required to be worn at all times during some dances, which could seriously disappoint our male fans of Jersey Shore.

But the blame extends well beyond Pauly D and JWOWW. Everything from "The Real Housewives" to "Desperate Housewives" -- from Lindsay Lohan to Lady Gaga -- is having an influence.

"This whole idea of the red-carpet obsession and getting dressed up is at the forefront of our culture," says Catherine Moellering, who tracks prom trends and is the executive vice president of ToBe Report. And when Jennifer Lopez strides the red carpet with a neckline that reaches the top of her stomach, admiring viewers of all ages are going to notice, and some are going to try to copy the look.

There are alternatives for today's students, of course. Rather than looking to the present, there's always the notion of nodding to the romantic past. Practically every tuxedo set does this in some way. And there are a number of retail locations that sell vintage or vintage-inspired dresses that can be every bit the show-stopper as something with less coverage.

While 90s fashions may best be left where they are, 50s glamour holds great allure for students like high school junior Erica Beebe, who praises the modest elegance of icons like Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn: "Grace and Audrey always left something to the imagination," Beebe writes at postbulletin.com.

"I believe it is that sense of modesty that my generation is often missing, and I know I am one of the offenders. In an age where even the most intimate aspects of life are posted on social networking sites, privacy has no value." Beebe goes on to blame the absence of modesty and an unquenchable thirst for attention as the driving forces behind scandalous prom dresses.

Others blame a shift in parenting values -- the notion that our parents wouldn't have let us go out in certain outfits, but it's all right if our kids do. That's part of the reason why Houston Chronicle blogger Mary Jo Rapini posted a list of tips to help parents guide their teenagers' choices. Her advice includes explaining why a dress may be inappropriate, encouraging teenagers to make different choices, allowing them time to mull it over and vent to friends ... and possibly being prepared to put your foot down if all else fails.

It's understandable why promgoers want to have the final say in what they wear, whether that's altered by a parent, a friend, a rule or a tailor. At the end of the complex debate, though, is actually a very simple choice. It's between the elegant and the suggestive, as the two don't often coincide.

Teen expelled for using stun gun against bullies

Wed, 09 May 2012 01:22:09 GMT

A gay teenager who pulled a stun gun on students he said bullied him has been expelled from his Indianapolis high school until January.

"While the district does not condone bullying, it also does not allow weapons to be brought on our school campuses for any reason," a spokeswoman for Indianapolis Public Schools said Tuesday. "Students who violate this rule will be held accountable."

Darnell "Dynasty" Young's mother sent her 17-year-old son to school with a stun gun because, she said, administrators didn't do enough to stop the bullying against him.

Students take part in anti-bullying programs from kindergarten through 12th grade, district spokeswoman Mary Louise Bewley said. The district also offers Gay Straight Alliance groups on multiple campuses, including Arsenal Technical High School, where Young attended, Bewley said.

"The district does not condone bullying," she said. "Students who violate the rights of others through bullying behaviors are held accountable."

The school district held an expulsion hearing last week and the decision was announced Tuesday.

"The Indianapolis Public Schools has affirmed the decision of the expulsion hearing examiner to expel Darnell Young from Arsenal Technical High School for the remainder of this school year through the first semester of the 2012-13 school year," it said. "He may return to school in IPS on Jan. 7, 2013."

His mother, Chelisa Grimes, sent her son to school with the stun gun after he said he was taunted and bullied for months.

Grimes told CNN's Don Lemon on Sunday that she would do it again, despite the threat of expulsion.

"I do not promote violence -- not at all -- but what is a parent to do when she has done everything that she felt she was supposed to do ... at the school?" Grimes said. "I did feel like there was nothing else left for me to do but protect my child."

"I brought the stun gun 'cause I wasn't safe," the teen said.

After six other students surrounded him at school on April 16, calling him names and threatening to beat him up, Young pulled the stun gun from his backpack. He raised it in the air, setting off an electric charge, and sending the group scurrying, Young said.

Unlike a Taser, which fires barbs attached to long wires at a target, a stun gun must be near or pressed against a person to shock him.

"I got kicked out of school for me bringing the weapon to school, but I honestly don't think that that was fair," Young said. "I didn't use it on nobody ... all I did was raise it up in the air and went back to my class."

School police officers arrested him a short time later and took him away in handcuffs, The Indianapolis Star reported. School officials are investigating the incident, but none of the students who allegedly surrounded Young have been positively identified.

Young is known as a flamboyant dresser and Larry Yarrell, the Tech principal, said school staff had been trying to get him to "tone down" his accessories.

"If you wear female apparel, then kids are kids and they're going to say whatever it is that they want to say," Yarrell told The Star. "Because you want to be different and because you choose to wear female apparel, it may happen. In the idealistic society, it shouldn't matter. People should be able to wear what they want to wear."

Grimes contends that school officials haven't done enough to protect all students on campus.

"I think that the self-protection device is what's making the news, but the big picture is that my child is not the only one who does not feel safe at our school," she said.

It is a common complaint among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students.

A 2009 survey of 7,261 middle and high school students found that nearly nine out of 10 LGBT students had experienced harassment at school over the previous year and nearly two-thirds felt unsafe because of their sexual orientation.

Young said rumors around campus suggested he was "doing nasty stuff" with teachers. The rumors took their toll.

"I was at my wit's end. I didn't know what to do and I thought about suicide," Young said. "I hate saying that word because God blessed me with this life. I love life. I love my education. I would never ... but this bullying got so bad that I thought about that."

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