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The infamous school year stress has already begun by the first day of school. On day one of our 180 day school year, book projects are due, and tests are waiting to be taken. Let the all-nighters and the pressure to not fail begin. Is this any comparison to the serenity of being on a beach? . . . Nowhere close.

INDIANA - A high school violated the First Amendment when it punished members of its volleyball team for posting pictures of penis-shaped lollipops on the Internet, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. The decision came two years after two 10th-grade girls at Churubusco High School in Northeast Indiana were suspended from the volleyball team and other extracurricular activities. The students were punished after they posted photos of themselves with "phallic-shaped rainbow colored lollipops." The photos were taken at a slumber party and, according to court documents, showed the girls simulating sex acts. The judge's decision found that both the behavior shown in the photos and the images themselves are protected by the First Amendment. The judge also struck down part of the school's conduct code that allows students to be punished for acting "in a manner in school or out of school that brings discredit or dishonor upon yourself or your school."

Schools across the country commonly block access to YouTube, shielding students from the irresistible distractions of, say, the cat in a T-shirt playing a piano, or worse. So in December, Google started YouTube for Schools, offering schools the ability to pluck only the videos they want, scrubbed of all comments and linked only to other related educational videos. The program gives schools the ability to allow access to the YouTube EDU educational library, and to specific videos within its own network - while blocking the general site.

"A northern New Jersey school district's code of conduct that extended to off-campus behavior was struck down today by an appeals court that said the policy exceeded the authority given to local districts by the state. The case stemmed from a policy instituted in 2009 by the Ramapo Indian Hills School District in Bergen County. It sought to ban students from extracurricular activities if they were charged with illegal activities, regardless of whether the alleged behavior occurred on school grounds."

"School dress codes are nothing new, but from school to school, district to district, state to state, the guidelines are different, and changing. As students head back to school this fall, there will be the latest crop of students -- and parents -- challenging the rulebook."

ALLENDALE - The Northern Highlands Regional High School Board of Education is expected to vote tonight on a revised policy governing student publications. The changes to the policy come in response to an incident in the spring in which a story written for the student newspaper, The Highland Fling, was censored by administrators. "I think we saw there were concerns last year," Board of Education President Barbara Garand said, adding that the policy has previously been revised a "couple of times." Among those concerns, she said, were the use of anonymous sources, which students would need to divulge to their adviser under the new policy. The school board approved a revised version of the censored story, written by Adelina Colaku, that was published in June after a three-month fight. The story detailed an ongoing dispute between former Superintendent John Keenan and nine tenured administrators and supervisors. The original version raised concerns over the use of anonymous sources. Michael Rightmire, whose job as director of technology had been eliminated in May and was a source in the article, agreed to go on the record for the revised version of Colaku's story. John Woodnick, the newspaper's faculty adviser for 10 years, stepped down from the Fling, but continues to teach English. Colaku said she is particularly concerned with the change in policy regarding anonymous sources. "The law says if an adviser knows who anonymous sources are and the administration wants to know, they can ask and the adviser is obligated to tell them," she said. "That would have been a great impediment on the procession of my story," Colaku said. Gina Palermo, editor in chief of the Fling in 2012-13, said she is concerned with the regulation that says school-sponsored publications should "foster a wholesome school spirit and support the best traditions of the school." Instead, she said student newspapers should be held to the same standards as professional media. "In a professiona

"Professor Robson suggests that schools ought to consider what issues they are really trying to address with these codes and critically examine whether or not policing attire will realistically accomplish those goals. "If teen pregnancy is the problem that you want to solve there are other ways to address that," she says. Many schools say that their policies have been constructed to promote respect and minimize disruption in the school environment. Robson would like to see schools focus more on discussion of respectful actions than spendi"

"Parents at a high school in California have complained that articles in Mountain View High School's The Oracle were inappropriate and obscene. One of the articles in question was an inforgraphic titled "What they teach you in health, and what you really need to know" that dispelled myths about sexual activity and gave information about safe sex. The topic came up at a school board meeting earlier this week, where once again parents expressed concern over the newspaper's content and asked the school district to assume greater control over the content in the paper."

Click on the link and the infographic. Do you think this is inappropriate content for a high school newspaper? Should the school board assume greater control (prior review) over the content of the paper? Click on the comment link above to reply.

What happened at the Supreme Court 20 years ago tomorrow has been long forgotten by most Americans -- if they ever heard about it at all. Unlike the better-known decisions of the last century, the ruling handed down on Jan. 13, 1988, had nothing to do with race or abortion rights. It didn't become fodder for presidential candidates and hasn't galvanized voters on either the left or right. Yet over the past two decades, the court's ruling in Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, which concerned high school newspapers, has had far-reaching consequences. Not only has it changed the way journalism is taught at many schools, it has made it more difficult for high school students to learn the important lessons about democracy that come from publishing -- or simply reading -- serious newspapers.

School districts around the state are considering disciplining students for their off-campus transgressions, even though such a policy may spark lawsuits from parents and free-speech advocates. A similar off-campus policy at a Bergen County school is being debated in the New Jersey courts. High schools around the country have had to deal with these incidents for decades, but social network sites are making it easier for school officials to nab teenage culprits.

An op-ed that argues that schools should be able to discipline students for school related online speech. "The Supreme Court must abandon the Tinker standard in these cases of off-campus school-related speech and create a new standard that restores dignity and respect for school officials."

"Even in New York, the media capital, only 1 in 8 public high schools have a student newspaper, The New York Times reported in May, and many publish only a few times a year. Nationally, about two-thirds of public high schools have newspapers, according to a 2011 media study by the Center for Scholastic Journalism at Kent State University. But whether on paper or online, student newspapers tend to be absent from lower-income schools and lower-income students. That's sad because, as Robert Fulghum titled his best-seller, "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten," I often feel as though I learned all I really needed to know about journalism in high school. Newspapers of all sorts have been battered for decades by television and widespread illiteracy. With the explosion of Internet traffic, too few youngsters are learning good news literacy. As Mrs. Kindell taught, you need to be a good reporter before you start giving your opinion. Today's world of blogging and tweeting encourages the opposite. Too bad we don't have more Mrs. Kindells to go around."

Across the country, many school districts that provide laptops to students rejected the technology after seeing potential problems - ones that did not deter Lower Merion education officials. Other districts chose to keep computers in the schools, and some are now reexamining security and privacy guidelines to prevent abuses of those laptops that do go home. In Lower Merion, school-issued laptops contain cameras that the school can trigger remotely, then retrieve the photos taken. The district has said cameras were part of its security precautions and were activated only to track lost or missing computers.

After a Pennsylvania middle school made a failed attempt at banning apparel emblazoned with the "I (Heart) Boobies" breast cancer awareness slogan, Sauk Prairie Middle School in Wisconsin is attempting to do the same. Now a student at the school has filed a lawsuit alleging the ban violates her First Amendment rights.

The Student Press Law Center voiced concern Monday that the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling denying the First Amendment claims of a high school blogger is a setback for the rights of student journalists everywhere. The New York appeals court ruled 3-0 that school administrators did not violate "clearly established" First Amendment precedent, either when they disciplined Avery Doninger for her off-campus blog or when they punished her and her classmates for wearing "Team Avery" T-shirts at a school "The ruling is worrisome in several respects. What Avery Doninger was doing was not terribly different from what an editorial commentator might do - trying to arouse the public to call and email the school to express an opinion about a disputed policy decision. It's troubling that the Second Circuit is willing to entertain the possibility that inciting citizens to contact their public officials is unprotected by the First Amendment if the issue is so controversial that people feel strongly about it, which is the takeaway from this decision," LoMonte said. "The circuit has indicated, in essence, that it's safe for students to engage in discussion about issues that nobody cares about, but if the issues raise strong emotions, then the students' involvement might be considered 'disruptive.'"  "It's clear that the federal courts have abdicated their responsibility to protect the basic human rights of vulnerable young people, and so young people are going to have to organize and mobilize like never before to petition their legislators and members of Congress for better statutory protection," LoMonte said. "This ruling is a wake-up call to every student in America that their rights are in peril and that they cannot depend on the federal courts to police even the clearest disciplinary overreactions."

Each year on Constitution Day, students and teachers celebrate the most fundamental laws of our republic. On this Constitution Day, they should also celebrate Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and other social media. Why? Because it turns out that social media are good for the Constitution. Specifically, they're good for the First Amendment. Fully 91 percent of students who use social networking to get news and information daily believe people should be allowed to express unpopular opinions, compared with 77 percent of those who never use social networks to get news. Not all the news is good this year. While more students understand that government can't censor the media in this country, nearly 40 percent still don't. While more students say they think about the First Amendment, most still don't. Even so, when the numbers start to move in the right direction, it's cause for celebration. Do we have teachers to thank for recent improvements in First Amendment attitudes? Not really. Fewer students say they get First Amendment instruction in school than in our last survey. And only 30 percent of teachers say they are teaching the subject. I'm afraid many teachers are a drag on First Amendment learning. The survey says most don't support free expression rights in a school context. They don't think school papers should print controversial articles. They don't think students should post about school on Facebook. And they mostly think social media hurt teaching.

"After-school activities and athletics have been canceled today at all five high schools in the Hunterdon County, in addition to the Flemington-Raritan Regional school district, because of threatening weather."

"A new conservative school board majority here in the Denver suburbs recently proposed a curriculum-review committee to promote patriotism, respect for authority and free enterprise and to guard against educational materials that "encourage or condone civil disorder." In response, hundreds of students, teachers and parents gave the board their own lesson in civil disobedience. On Tuesday, hundreds of students from high schools across the Jefferson County school district, the second largest in Colorado, streamed out of school and along busy thoroughfares, waving signs and championing the value of learning about the fractious and tumultuous chapters of American history."

Already, 21 states allow early graduation, according to the Education Commission of the States. And among the other 29, it's not entirely clear whether state law actually prohibits it. Thirty-five states allow students to finish high school based on mastering proficiency standards in state tests rather than satisfying course credit requirements or years spent in school. By the fall of 2011, a small group of high schools in eight states will take part in a new initiative, announced last week, that will allow high school sophomores who pass a series of "board exams" to graduate two years early and move directly to a two- or four-year college.

"This past school year, prestigious public school Stuyvesant HS conjured up a controversial new dress code that some thought amounted to: "Stop Dressing Like Sluts, Girls." Students said the code was arbitrary and affected female students more than males. And the student body became particularly upset when school security started hassling them even when they were dressed in accordance with the policy. Yesterday, fed up students staged a "Slutty Wednesday" protest. "They're, like, sexualizing our outfits by telling us what to wear. And like, I don't know, I guess it's just more important to learn in school rather than be like persecuted for your dress," one student told NY1."