I visited Disney a few years ago, and I’m almost positive the hotel I stayed in warned us at check in to stay away from the lake, and to swim only in the pool. I think their words were that gators were unlikely but possible.

She really did have an amazing voice.

It’s not just white people. It’s anyone with money. The Obama family did not send their daughters to Chicago Public Schools when they lived in Hyde Park - they attended the University of Chicago Laboratory School.

No, I definitely get that a lot of people equate minorities with”bad” when it comes to public schools. But in this particular case it was things like my neighbor having to pull her seven year old out of school, quit her job and homeschool her, at considerable cost to the family’s financial security, because the seven…

Ah. Where I grew up, alternative schools were not run by the district, and sending kids there cost a lot of money, so it was an absolute last resort.

As a last resort, public schools can kick kids out. They then have to pay (usually at some expense) for the kid to attend alternate schools. The school district is still legally on the hook to provide for the child’s education until they formally drop out.

From my two years sending my kid to a Catholic school, the main difference I saw was the ability to kick a kid out if they were truly unwilling to behave in school. Public schools can’t do that.

Most DODDS schools were turned over to the local public districts since you were a kid, though. The only real DODDS schools that remain are at our overseas bases, like in Japan and Germany. If you go to, say, Fort Campbell, the on-base schools now fall under control of the local Kentucky public school district.

I’m not going to put my child’s physical safety at risk. That’s basically my one hard condition for schools. I’ve chosen to enroll my child in local public schools over whiter, richer charter and magnet schools where test scores were higher in the past because it was a better fit for our family at the time, and she…

The public school we attend now is a diverse school, full of poor and minority students. The difference? First graders at this school don’t come home beat up, with the school refusing to address the violence. That’s why I felt comfortable at one diverse public school but not the other.

We’re in the Army and usually do the local public schools, but we did do a Catholic school for two years at one particular base because the local public schools had such a terrible, violent reputation, even at the elementary school level. I had to do a lot of soul searching about that, as my mom was a public school…

In my heart, I wish private schools were illegal and that we followed the Finnish model of education. But when it comes down to it? I will give my kids whatever advantage I can afford to give them in this flawed system of ours. If that means applying to charter or magnet schools with better test scores, so be it.

Many Afghan people have blue eyes, so honestly who knows? http://www.burqasandbeer.com/but-you-dont-l…

Agreed. There’s something really offensive about insisting Persians and Afghans aren’t white when many people of Persian and Afghan descent self-identify as white. It feels a little Klan of us?

I finally did Ferber method with my son at 11 1/2 months (his twin sister pretty much sleep trained herself, but kept getting woken up by her brother). It was a rough four days, and he was pretty stressed out for about two-three hours each night, I’m not going to lie. But after that? He was a MUCH happier baby. A good…

It sounds like they basically removed the “if the elephant died of natural causes” clause. Ivory trade has mostly been illegal. I remember we had an old piano when I was a kid that had ivory keys, and it was basically impossible to find replacement keys for it. We had a piano tuner who gave us a replacement key from…

I could hate fuck Dan, but Jonah is beyond me.

I mean, yes, the Saudi government is terrible, but I kind of wonder why the specific anger towards Uber over all the other Western companies that also do business there?

Oh man. Kids, please don’t post on social media about your school’s lock down procedures and how you’re following them during an active shooter situation.

The fuck? I couldn’t even get an aspirin out my school nurse’s office in high school. High school clinics can give prescriptions now?