Jeanette White

The appliance arts 1. Kristen "Lexie" Collins, left, and Drew Blincow, center, dismantle a TV with help from Karyn Beiber during a science unit at the Discovery School. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review 2. Gayle Peterson works on a song with her music students.

Teachers took lessons from veteran cops Friday on how to keep violence from erupting in their classrooms. Never tell an angry student to calm down. Don't turn your back. If all else fails, ask about his dachshund.

1. Chelsea Muto's introduction to middle school was a series of painful misadventures, an experience shared by many teens at a time of major transition. 2. The object of this voice exercise in music class is to look a partner in the eye while singing a certain note. It isn't always easy to find a partner in the crowded classroom. Photos by Liz Kishimoto/The Spokesman-Review 3. Together and alone: Eric Thurman, 15, relaxes in a sunny window at right while a group of girls sit and chat during lunch at Salk Middle School. 4. Chelsea Muto, top left, was so overwhelmed by middle school that she could barely walk into the cafeteria. But as an eighth-grader she enjoys lunch with her friends at Salk.

Roosevelt sixth-grader Catherine Kardong shows Jayce Keeling her hieroglyphic composition during a Tessera program class at the Libby Center. Photo by Sandra Bancroft-Billings/The Spokesman-Review

Jeremy Knudson expects fraternity life at Washington State University to change when booze is banned from fraternity parties next year. His Alpha Kappa Lambda brothers will host fewer parties. They'll get more attention for charity work.

About 90 students at Spokane Community College are being tested for tuberculosis after a classmate was diagnosed with the contagious disease. Tuberculosis can be deadly, but it's also readily cured with proper medical treatment, said Renee Valley, tuberculosis coordinator for the Spokane Regional Health District.

A lesson in free speech. Tearing up an anti-abortion flier, Rogers High School student Rebecca Johnson gives demonstrators a piece of her mind Monday. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review <

1. School spirit. Dana Zrba of Addy, Wash., cheers last week in Olympia during a rally seeking to repeal various education reforms. Photo by Dick Mulligan/Special to The Spokesman-Review < 2. Jeanette Faulkner of Spokane testifies before the Senate Education Committee in favor of a bill that would force the state to refuse federal education funds. She also spoke of collusion between the Farm Workers Union and the Washington Education Association. Photo by Dick Mulligan/Special to The Spokesman-Review

Ninety-nine marijuana plants - from tiny sprouts to full-grown stalks - were found growing at the home of a drug counselor for Spokane public schools, authorities said. Detectives seized bright lights, fertilizer and a thriving crop of cannabis in a cellar and bedroom at Randall and Janet Price's south Spokane rancher.

Spokane school officials are investigating complaints a teacher wrecked her car while taking students to her house to bake Valentine's cookies. A 13-year-old girl ended up with whiplash, say her parents, who are outraged because Sacajawea Middle School officials didn't immediately notify them or seek medical care.

Spokane educators are closely tracking a measure that would stop public schoolteachers from presenting homosexuality as positive or normal. Such a law would pave the way for harassment that clashes with Spokane School District 81's new $200,000 equity program, administrators say.

(From For the Record, February 12, 1997): Washington state law forbids anyone under age 18 to obtain tobacco products. A front page article in Saturday's newspaper gave the incorrect age. Smokers gather outside Mead High School before classes. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

Gentry

The Davenport School District, hit with a $3.85 million judgment in a lawsuit by a former student, earlier refused a settlement for much less. Attorney Dick Eymann says he offered to accept about $1 million on behalf of Heather Giles, who claimed she wasn't protected from a school counselor who raped and exploited her.

Heather Giles earned a few hundred dollars starring in pornographic videos for her high school guidance counselor. She was awarded $3.5 million Monday night in U.S. District Court by jurors who believed Davenport, Wash., school administrators should have protected her from sexual exploitation.

She doesn't remember if the bedroom had windows. She doesn't know what was on the walls. She thinks she saw a dresser - maybe. "When you're being raped, you don't look at that kind of stuff," Heather Giles told an attorney trying to punch holes in her claim that her high school counselor assaulted her.

Heather Giles thought her high school guidance counselor wanted to help her launch a career in fashion modeling. Instead Charles Jungblom lured her into a secretive world of pornography, raped her repeatedly, and threatened to show classmates a videotape of her stripping if she turned him in, she tearfully told a U.S. District Court jury Friday in Spokane.

New statistics on how children die in Spokane County show a sharp rise in the number of preventable deaths. Deaths of 35 children could have been prevented in 1995 - many by simple measures such as smoke detectors or seat belts - compared with 10 in 1994, according to the Spokane County Child Death Review Committee.

It's not often Spokane School Board meetings bring people to tears. But that happened to Pam Austin on Wednesday night, when the Native American educator discovered her longtime wish will come true.

Families with children in Spokane public schools may have to change spring travel plans to make up days missed during November's ice storm. District 81 school board members voted Wednesday night for a make-up schedule that scatters the three days children were kept home because of dark, cold schools and downed power lines.

Spokane educators watch the statistics with alarm. Native American students drop out of school at two to three times the rate of other Spokane School District 81 students.

Ivan Bush is the head of District 81's equity program. He uses Styrofoam bricks, left, and real bricks during his programs. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

Andrea McGee, 12, and her mother, Joey McGee, are at war with the school district over the required uniforms for Chase Middle School PE classes. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review

Classes for home-schoolers. Daniel Hester, 10, helps his classmate's mother, Nancy Floyd, during a computer class for home-schooled children at the Libby Center. Photo by Sandra Bancroft-Billings/The Spokesman-Review <