The Pundit of Parker Street has noticed the employment policies of the Pasco County school district, and he is not amused. Thursday, he seized on the storied dismissal of Jim Piculas, a substitute teacher with a talent for minor prestidigitation, and pinned it to the cover of the Metro section as a prime example of how civilization is replaced by foamy-mouthed superstition at the northern edge of County Line Road. ...more

May 18, 2008

A Seven Oaks Elementary paraprofessional who was investigated after a parent complained she taped students' mouths shut has resigned, a Pasco County School District official said Wednesday. ...more

May 8, 2008

WESLEY CHAPEL - A Seven Oaks Elementary paraprofessional who was investigated after a parent complained she taped students' mouths shut has resigned, a Pasco County School District official said today. That puts an end to the case because the sheriff's office already determined no crime was committed and the paraprofessional held no certification that state officials would need to review, Assistant Superintendent Renalia DuBose said. ...more

May 7, 2008

LAND O' LAKES - The telephone call that spelled the end of Jim Piculas' career as a substitute teacher in Pasco County came on a January day about a week after he performed the disappearing-toothpick trick for a group of rapt middle school students. ...more

May 6, 2008

LAND O' LAKES - The telephone call that spelled the end of Jim Piculas' career as a substitute teacher in Pasco came on a January day about a week after he performed the disappearing-toothpick trick for a group of rapt middle school students. ...more

May 5, 2008

Two male teachers were removed from Hillsborough County classrooms this week amid unrelated allegations of inappropriate conduct with female students. ...more

January 31, 2008

Dumbing Down When I was in high school in the late 1960s, schools graduated students who could read and write at a 12th-grade level. They could also make change for a dollar. ...more

January 27, 2008

Arthur Brokop, a young substitute teacher, shut the windowless door of the first-grade classroom he'd been called in to oversee. ...more

December 30, 2007

LAND O' LAKES - The Pasco County School Board has announced principals for two new schools that will open in August. ...more

December 19, 2007

SEBRING — Around the holidays and on Fridays, there's a greater chance students will be facing a substitute teacher in their classroom. With so many teachers taking off the Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving, on a "proposed" calendar for the 2007-08 school year there is no school for the entire week. The school districts in Polk and Hardee counties, and some others in the state, take the week off, Deputy Superintendent Rodney Hollinger told the school board Tuesday. It should be considered for Highlands County because of the large number of substitutes who work on the Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week, he said. ...more

November 26, 2007