Administrators

Federal officials announced Friday that a settlement had been reached with a Central California school district where a 13-year-old gay student committed suicide after being subjected to persistent harassment from his classmates. Seth Walsh, a middle-school student in the Tehachapi Unified School District, was said to be the victim of merciless harassment from classmates because most of his friends were girls and he had dressed and acted in an effeminate way, investigators found.

Like almost every teacher at this Hawaiian Gardens middle school, science instructor John Laird posts his students' standardized test results in the back of his classroom. But right next to them, Laird also put up his own evaluation. "This is my report card. Read the principal's comments," he wrote next to it. Laird also invited comments from the class, and several students did comment; they asked him to post grades faster and be more interactive. "I decided if I'm going to hold them accountable, I should be held accountable too," Laird said.

ALLENTOWN, Pa. - The charges filed last week accusing three former Penn State administrators of engaging in a "conspiracy of silence" to cover up child sexual abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky raise questions about whether legendary football Coach Joe Paterno could have been charged if he were still living. Former university President Graham Spanier and the others face charges including perjury and endangering the welfare of children. "To be fair and consistent, you have to read this as a posthumous indictment of Joe Paterno," said law professor Wes Oliver of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.

The Los Angeles Unified School District has instituted a pay incentive program for high-level administrators, a move that is largely symbolic now but that some officials and board members hope will pave the way for more merit-based compensation in the future. "I don't believe everyone is the same and I do believe there are individual skills and they should be rewarded," said Supt. Ramon C. Cortines. "I would hope some of the bargaining units would pick this up on their own." Cortines informed the Board of Education of his plan in a closed-session meeting Tuesday.

Behind a locked classroom door, a Los Angeles third-grade teacher purportedly committed lewd acts against students. The charges spurred demands for classrooms to remain open during the school day. But after the shooting deaths of 20 first-graders in Connecticut last month, calls were made to keep classrooms locked. The intent of both efforts is to keep students safe. But as school districts nationwide examine their security measures following the Newtown, Conn., massacre, the question of locked versus unlocked classroom doors is in debate.

Unfortunately your browser does not support IFrames. On Monday night, officials at one Texas high school are meeting to discuss changing a rule that would allow male administrators to spank female students. That's right, spank. Nineteen states reportedly allow corporal punishment in schools, according to the Center for Effective Discipline, and Springtown High School is in one of those states. Further, at the school near Fort Worth, administrators are considering loosening their spanking rules because they believe the current rules have created a problem.

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Jerry Brown will push this year to upend the way schools are funded in California, hoping to shift more money to poorer districts and end requirements that billions of dollars be spent on particular programs. Brown said he wants more of the state's dollars to benefit low-income and non-English-speaking students, who typically are more expensive to educate. "The reality is, in some places students don't enjoy the same opportunities that people have in other places," the governor said in an interview.

The shantytown erected at Occidental College in protest of the school's investments in businesses that operate in South Africa remained standing during Saturday's graduation exercises, against the wishes of administrators. College officials had threatened to suspend members of the Anti-Apartheid Coalition if they did not remove the display before the ceremonies. But the administrators invoked no suspensions and the coalition dismantled the shantytown Monday.

Two of the top three administrators in the West Covina Unified School District have been temporarily relieved of their duties after disclosures that the district is expected to end the school year at least $2.7 million in debt. "I feel betrayed by the administration," said Elba Comeau, a board member since 1983. "All I keep saying is why? Why didn't they come to us and say, 'We're in dire straits'?" Last week, the board put Jimmie L.