Teachers

It's easy to imagine the sprawling 19th-century brick mill on South Kensington's Howard Street as just another high-end apartment complex for twentysomething professionals, the newest outpost on Philadelphia's ever-advancing frontier of gentrification. Situated a few blocks north of Fishtown's hipster bars and BYOB food shrines, Oxford Mills preserves the kind of authentic architectural details that make young, and not-so-young, renters swoon: high ceilings, huge windows, thick wooden beams.

ALBANY, N.Y. - A high school English teacher faces disciplinary action for giving a writing assignment that asked students to make a persuasive argument blaming Jews for the problems of Nazi Germany, Albany school district officials said Friday. Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard said administrators were discussing what official action the unidentified 10th-grade teacher at Albany High School will face for the assignment given to students on Monday. It could range from a letter of counsel to dismissal.

STATE COLLEGE - A few quick hits on John Urschel's resume: All-Big Ten football player, 4.0 grade-point average at graduation, math teacher at Penn State. Talk about a student-athlete. Urschel, a rising senior guard graduate student, is managing the responsibilities of teaching a MATH 041 class (trigonometry and analytic geometry) on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 9:05 a.m. with spring practice and preparation to be one of the team's leaders. But he has not been fazed.

WE'VE CERTAINLY made progress. Used to be, some kids cheated on their tests. Now it's the teachers and principals who cheat. Last week, Philly took a back seat to Atlanta, where a grand jury indicted an ex-superintendent and nearly three dozen former administrators, teachers and principals. Seems when students took tests and got answers wrong, teachers gathered in covens, pulled out their erasers and - presto, change-o - turned them into correct answers. The district "earned" more than $500,000 for the improved scores.

Sister Theresa O'Donnell, 84, who taught school in the Philadelphia area and elsewhere, died of heart failure at Holy Child Center in Rosemont on Easter, March 31. Born in Philadelphia, Sister Theresa graduated from West Philadelphia Catholic Girls High School in 1946. She earned a bachelor's degree in history from Immaculate Heart University. In 1947, Sister Theresa entered the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. She professed her first vows in 1950 and her final vows in 1955. Sister Theresa specialized in elementary education, particularly first grade.

"She said what!?" The two students used to be friends until one of them started flirting with the other's boyfriend on Twitter. The next day, the fight spilled over from social media into the classroom, leaving one of the two pepper-sprayed and beaten up. Because of the sensitivity of the incident, names have been withheld, but the teacher who intervened was shocked because the students had been best friends. While fighting in school is nothing new, technology and social media have changed the nature of conflict - freeing students to make comments to each other that they'd unlikely say face to face.

A Delaware County teacher has been charged with furnishing alcohol to two of her students. State Police arrested Katherine Leigh Preusser, 33, an English teacher at Ridley High School, on March 23, after a car in which she was a passenger was pulled over and open beer cans were found inside. Two students also were in the car at the time, one of them driving, officials said. Preusser was charged with corruption of minors, furnishing alcohol to minors, drug possession, and other related crimes.

A Delaware County teacher has been charged with furnishing alcohol to two of her students. State Police arrested Katherine Leigh Preusser, 33, an English teacher at Ridley High School, on March 23, after a car in which she was a passenger was pulled over and open beer cans were found inside. Two students were in the car at the time, one of them driving, officials said. Preusser was charged with corruption of minors, furnishing alcohol to minors, drug possession, and other related crimes.

The Washington Township school board and teachers' union are mired in a nearly three-year-long contract dispute, with no signs of reconciliation. The teachers, represented by the 850-member Washington Township Education Association, say the Board of Education is sitting on a pool of untapped money accrued through reduced payroll and budget surpluses, even as their paychecks have shrunk because they are contributing more to their health insurance plans. But the board says that money must be budgeted for programs like Advanced Placement classes and state-mandated programs.

ERLENE BASS NELSON taught kindergarten in the Philadelphia School District for 51 years, and there was no doubt that she enjoyed every minute of it for one, simple reason: She loved the children. Children, she once said, "are spontaneous, they're loving, they're forgiving - and every day I had an injection of pure love into my soul and into my heart. " Spending all that time in a school district that was often short of money and afflicted with labor problems, violence and other woes.