Parents

Germ-spreading schoolchildren are expected to be the focus of a massive U.S. vaccination campaign against the novel H1N1 flu. But if their parents are hearing the rallying cry to have their kids vaccinated, they're not buying it, says a new national survey. In a poll of 1,678 U.S. parents conducted by the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, 40% said they would get their children immunized against the H1N1 virus -- even as 54% indicated they will get their kids vaccinated against regular seasonal flu. Among those who said they do not intend to have their kids vaccinated against H1N1, almost half -- 46% -- indicated they're not worried about their children becoming ill with the pandemic virus.

Expectant parents must make several important medical decisions. Among them: whether to have prenatal genetic testing, request pain medication during labor, strive for a natural birth or circumcise a male baby? Perhaps one of the most overlooked parts of childbirth preparation is whether to save or donate the infant's umbilical cord blood. Umbilical cords are usually discarded as medical waste.

Risk-taking charter school operator Steve Barr is launching an effort through which parents would wrest political control of the L.A. school system from unions, school bureaucrats and other entrenched interests. The plan is for parents to form chapters all over town and improve schools, one by one, using the growing leverage of the charter school movement.

Today, two gripes for the price of one. First, a bureaucratic nightmare involving an award-winning Los Angeles teacher who wants to teach FOR FREE. Naturally, he can't get the go-ahead, even though the district is strapped for cash. And then I've got the case of a terminally ill woman who has been locked up 27 years for the murder of her violently abusive boyfriend, even though the key witness against her was a liar, the district attorney's office agreed four years ago that it was time to let her go and a state parole board has recommended her release.

Washington state investigators say five children 7 to 16 years old have been found dead in a Graham-area home and they may have been killed by their father. Pierce County sheriff's investigators told the News Tribune that the children apparently were homicide victims. Spokesman Ed Troyer said the father, 35, was discovered dead Saturday afternoon in neighboring King County. Deputies were called to check on the welfare of the children at a mobile home park after the father's body was found.

The grief-numbed parents of Hermosillo buried their babies and waited for answers. When none came, they marched. When they got desperate, they traveled the thousand miles to Mexico City and marched some more. They carried banners with photos of their children -- 48 in all -- killed when fire tore through a crowded day-care center named ABC. More than a month after the June 5 blaze in the northern state of Sonora, satisfying answers are in short supply.

As many as 13% of children receive sexual solicitations online, but very few are from adults over age 21, according to a report released Tuesday by a Harvard University task force. The findings led the task force to conclude that parents may worry too much about their children's exposure to adult sexual predators, and too little about how to teach kids to resist advances from other kids or the type of seductions that could lead to statutory rape.

The son of poor laborers in rural Mexico, Ocario Gonzalez doesn't remember his parents ever helping with his schoolwork. After struggling with his studies for a few years, Gonzalez left school at 12. Now the 42-year-old South Los Angeles factory worker is trying to break that cycle with his daughter, Carolina. When she entered Lillian Elementary School last year, 6-year-old Carolina was ill prepared, Gonzalez said.

As a young woman living in Southern California, Kelly Boss never thought much about boarding schools. They were a mystery or at most a cinematic fancy embodied by Brookfield of "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" or the Welton Academy of "Dead Poets Society." That changed when her daughter Mackenzie learned about the Thacher School in Ojai and its horse and outdoor program. Although she would never have imagined her daughter there, the Bosses came to view it as the perfect fit.

The e-mail first appeared on a USC fan-site message board last week, then quickly circulated across the Internet. "What is being done to ensure that my son is being cared for in a proper manner???" Dexter Hazelton, father of Trojans receiver Vidal Hazelton, sent a six-paragraph e-mail to Coach Pete Carroll in September criticizing the football team's handling of his son's ankle injury.