Are Teachers Treated Poorly In This Country?

The Young Turks

Annika McKenzie, 34, is charged with second-degree assault and strangulation for physically attacking a teacher, according to ABC 7.  Her 14-year-old niece is facing second-degree assault charges as a juvenile.

McKenzie allegedly became enraged because she believed that a math teacher at Alverta B. Gray Schultz Middle School in Hempstead, Long Island “put her hands on” her 12-year-old daughter, the New York Daily News reports.

The teacher, Catherine Engelhardt, was outside her classroom at around 2 p.m. when, cops said, McKenzie attacked her. Engelhardt is a 22-year veteran of the Hempstead School District.  McKenzie allegedly knocked the teacher to the ground, then put her in a chokehold until she lost consciousness, according to Pix 11.

The niece allegedly joined in the attack by punching the teacher in the head, Hempstead Police Chief Michael McGowan told Newsday.

(Updated report)

Mother And Daughter Found Hanged In Massachusetts

A Massachusetts woman and her 9-year-old daughter were found hanged Friday in the basement of their home by police officers who later discovered what authorities called “written information” that’s being reviewed to see it if sheds light on what happened.

The bodies of Ariana Rosa-Soares, 32, and her daughter, Marley Soares, were found shortly before 10 a.m. in their home in Brockton, Massachusetts about 25 miles south of Boston, after a concerned family friend called police asking for assistance at the house, Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz said.

Cruz didn’t disclose the contents of the written information found at the scene and said it was too early to say whether the deaths were murders or a murder-suicide. He said the girl’s father was interviewed by state police.

A homicide investigation is under way, according to Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz, but officials had not confirmed by Friday evening how the mother and daughter died.

Rosa-Soares recently divorced Marley’s father, Octavio Soares, according to friends and family members. The couple shared custody and Rosa-Soares worked two jobs – as a certified nursing assistant and a personal care assistant – “just to maintain food in the house,” said a friend of the family.

http://www.enterprisenews.com/article/20150206/NEWS/150207614#sthash.XmHsVYSg.dpuf

Student Sues Her Divorced Parents For Tuition, Wins

On Monday, a Superior Court judge in Camden, NJ ordered the parents of 21-year-old Temple University student Caitlyn Ricci to pay $906 of her tuition from Gloucester County College (now known as Rowan College at Gloucester County). She has been in a legal battle with her parents, Maura McGarvey and Michael Ricci, for more than a year.

The decision follows a ruling from this fall that bound her parents to pay $16,000 toward her tuition at Temple. The two have appealed that ruling.

Ricci sued her parents last spring, and reports say the woman has not seen her parents outside of court appearances in about two years. Her grandparents are paying her legal fees

Ricci’s legal victory has a legal precedent in Newburgh v. Arrigo, 88 N.J. 529 (1982). In that case, a judge ruled that divorced parents were legally responsible for paying for their children’s higher education.

In November, the parents told Chris J. Brown, a New Jersey assemblyman working to create legislation blocking adult children from suing their parents for tuition, that while they are divorced, they have jointly made decisions about raising their daughter.