The Post-Dispatch was not the only publishing institution in Missouri to have a bad week. Yesterday morning, Tim Wolfe, the president of the University of Missouri system, announced plans to shut down the University of Missouri Press.

The news came as a complete surprise to the ten-member staff, editor in chief Clair Wilcox told the Columbia Daily Tribune.

It was true the press, which was partially funded by a $400,000 annual subsidy from the university system, had continued to operate with a deficit even after seven employees had been laid off three years ago, but who expects a university press to be a major money-making operation?

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Fox 2 St. Louis is reporting that an eight-year-old boy brought a gun to school today at the Confluence Academy's South City campus (3112 Meramec Street). School officials became aware of the possibility that he had a gun with him, and searched his bag. They found a loaded gun and called police. The child is now in the custody of juvenile authorities.

In the fall semester of 2010, Henry Lyons, an adjunct professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, gave four failing grades in his Career and Life Development class. Unfortunately, one of those happened to go to a student-athlete. The athlete appealed the grade. Mysteriously, the F was replaced with a passing grade.

Now, after a few semesters of bureaucracy and the university poking into his teaching and grading methods, not to mention a recent discovery that his class does not appear on UMKC's course schedule for this coming fall, Lyons is mad as hell and isn't going to take it anymore. He's demanded an investigation of the matter by the NCAA.

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MO school buses will remain pristine, just as their inventor Melinda Schoolbus, intended.

Representative Mike Kelley's (R-Lamar) bill that would create and regulate a system for school districts to place advertising on school buses has stalled out in the senate. The language of HB1273 prohibited ads of a sexual, drug related or age-inappropriate nature, which caused some concern for Senator Kurt Schaefer (R-Columbia). Sen. Schaefer worried that these prohibitions would lead to lawsuits about free speech being repressed.  More >>

The most current panty raid image that could be found.

Mizzou's Maneater newspaper reports that an actual college panty raider has been arrested for the theft of an estimated 200 women's panties from the Hatch residence hall. The suspected culprit, Freshman Kevin Waida, 19, was turned in by his roommate after female residents of Hatch had complained that someone was stealing their underwear from the dryer. Waida was arrested on charges of stalking and stealing and has been released on a $1,500 bond.
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Still here, still lousy, and, yes, if you live within the attendance district, you still have to go.

The law, when it was first enacted, seemed pretty unassuming: If you were a student in an unaccredited school district, you (and your parents) had the right to transfer to an accredited school, and your home district would pay for your transportation and tuition. It was intended mainly for kids in rural areas who lived in school districts without high schools.

But then in 2007, St. Louis public schools lost their accreditation. In other words, they failed to meet the basic educational standards set up by the state legislature. In further words, they were shitty. A few enterprising parents living within the St. Louis public school district, including Jane Turner and Gina Breitenfeld, got wind of the transfer law and decided to send their kids to school in Clayton.

In 2010, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that Turner and Breitenfeld could continue to send their kids to the Clayton schools and told the St. Louis County court to figure it out how the law should be enforced should other parents want to take advantage of it.

Yesterday the court came through with a ruling: The parents may have been acting within the law, but the law is unconstitutional. Back to the lousy St. Louis Public Schools with you!

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The gays! They're stealing our children!

A week after Republicans sponsors in the Missouri House referred it to committee, a bill that would severely restrict conversations about sexual orientation in public schools is under attack from a growing number of detractors including educators, doctors and fellow politicians.

HB 2051 would permit sexual orientation to be discussed only in "scientific instruction concerning human reproduction." School-sponsored clubs such as "gay-straight alliances" that deal with bullying and LGBT issues would be forbidden under the proposed law. So, too, would be conversations about homosexuality when discussing history, the arts, etc.

This week the Missouri National Educators Association, the state's largest teachers organization, blasted the bill, stating: "[L]egislation like the "Don't Say Gay" bill, proposed by Representative Steve Cookson shackles educator's efforts to prevent bullying in our public schools."
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The Maneater, the student-run newspaper of the University of Missouri-Columbia, puts together an April Fool's Day issue every year that attempts to skewer the pompous and poke fun at the too-serious people and institutions on campus. This year's issue, titled "The Carpeteater," has been roundly denounced for the sexism of its fake title, the misogyny implied in its fake bylines (many of them incorporating some pun on "cunt," "slut" or "whore") and a general air of casual cruelty rather than that of rough 'n' ready humor.

Two elements of this tale of woe seem noteworthy.
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Anton DiSclafani

This is how your life changes, if you happen to be Anton DiSclafani.

It's a Wednesday morning in early February. You're still in your pajamas, thinking about how you should be preparing for the workshop in historical fiction you'll be teaching later this afternoon at Washington University. You get an e-mail from your agent, Dorian Karchmar. Karchmar had just submitted the manuscript of your first novel, The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls, to several publishers the afternoon before. Karchmar's e-mail says you need to call her.

Over the phone, your agent tells you that several publishers are interested in the book. It's then that you know the book is going to sell.

And somehow, that's even more extraordinary than the news the following Tuesday, after the manuscript goes to auction, that Riverhead, a division of Penguin, has bought it for a seven-figure sum. (Neither DiSclafani nor anyone at Penguin will name the exact figure.) Stuff like that hardly ever happens -- especially not for a first novel.

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Investigation into cheating at Herzog Elementary is in the "final stages"

​Daily RFT has learned that officials with St. Louis Public Schools will soon conclude a year-long investigation into whether faculty at Herzog Elementary School organized cheating on last year's statewide student assessment tests.

Patrick Wallace, district spokesman, confirms that the probe at the North St. Louis school has reached the "final stages."

One of the three faculty members under scrutiny remains in her leadership role at Herzog, according to sources familiar with the investigation -- even as the next round of Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) tests is set to begin in just a few weeks.  

An internal report obtained by Daily RFT reveals that "severe allegations" were brought to superintendent Dr. Kelvin Adams in April of last year. The names of the accused have been redacted. The allegations are that:
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