Parenting

UPDATE: He returned home.

Boston Police report Shaydon Tucker, 12, left his Norfolk Street home for school around 6:50 yesterday morning and hasn't been seen since.

He's black, about 4'11" with a medium build and was wearing a Red Sox hat, a green jacket, a black zip-up hoodie, a white short-sleeve polo shirt, black pants and white and black Fubu sneakers, and was carrying a blueish backpack.

The School Committee this week approved school reorganization plan that closes fewer schools than originally proposed by Superintendent Carole Johnson, but which opens some new programs but no single-sex school. Details.

On Nov. 19, the committee is scheduled to vote on making the Haley School in Roslindale a pilot school, turning the Mary Lyon School in Brighton into a K-12 school and letting the Boston Teachers Union open a K-8 pilot school in Jamaica Plain. The committee will also discussion Johnson's proposal to close the Dickerman, Stone and P.A. Shaw elementary schools in Dorchester, the Boston International High School building in Jamaica Plain, Hamilton Elementary School in Brighton and Higginson Elementary School in Roxbury.

There's just one thing wrong with School Superintendent Carol Johnson's plan to create single-sex schools: The Globe reports it's illegal under state law: "Public schools cannot deny a student admission based on gender under state law."

Johnson, who came to Boston last year from Tennessee last year, told the paper: "I wasn't familiar with Massachusetts law at the time."

WBZ reports Bruce Wall wants to ban on-street trick or treating this Halloween, saying Boston streets have become too dangerous for kids.

He cites the recent shooting of three kids playing at the Academy Homes project in Roxbury last week (allegedly by a thug from the Bromley-Heath project).

Instead, Wall would have the streets lined with volunteers to guard the kids as they go to indoor events.

Wall is also demanding that elected officials join this patrol:

We will no longer allow elected officials to come see us on Sunday morning in our churches to ask for our vote but then are not there when the families of our city needs them. It is time for our politicians to put their bodies where their campaign promises said that they will be.

Paulie on the MBTA:

... So we decided to make our own fanatical YouTube video. We pulled the T map offline and mapped our course last weekend. Then we taped our little public transit party, leaping from line to line, inbound and outbound.

When we began our journey on the Commuter Rail, a mother was on the platform with her twin boys, also 4 (also mad T-Foamers). She said she was just riding into South Station and then turning around and riding back because it's the only way the boys wanted to spend the afternoon. I told her of my plan and about the YouTube videos already out there. She then confessed that she and her boys have spent hours behind the Home Depot in Quincy watching the trains roll by. ...

Jeff Cutler reports on the phenomenon of new mothers leashing their dogs to their baby's strollers, at least as observed on Newbury Street:

... I'm pretty certain if a life-size Chuck Wagon truck or a wild deer dashed through downtown, these dogs would be galloping across busy streets dragging mothers, infants and strollers through traffic to certain doom.

And if not doom, definitely destruction.

Where did common sense go off the rails? The likelihood of the Chuck Wagon or the deer showing up on Newbury Street in Boston is a fantasy. But a pickup truck with dogs in the back could happen. And the reality of nearly identical mommy/stroller/puppy combos on the other side of the street is common. ...

Boston School Superintendent Carol Johnson today unveiled her reorganization plan for Boston public schools that shuts some schools, expands others, and increases the percentage of "walk zone" students in elementary schools fm 50 to 60%. Read more

Nancy Pearl Wannabe discusses some fundraising effort at her school that involves kids winning "scurvy Weepuls."

Child, nine months old, dead. Happened around 10 a.m. on Cunard Street in Roxbury.

The Boston Police homicide unit and the Suffolk County DA's office are investigating the death.

More from Channel 5.

Boston Police report a Good Samaritan picked the boy up when he spotted him toddling down Meridian Street at White Street shortly after 4 this morning:

... Officers observed a small, possibly Hispanic male child between 1-1/2 to 2 years old, 2-1/2 feet tall, dark curly brown hair, big brown eyes, wearing a light blue pajama top w/ dog prints, blue jean shorts, black/blue sneakers, and white socks, who appeared to be in good health. The child's legs felt cool to the touch so officers placed the child in their marked cruiser for warmth. ...

Police say around 6:30, officers spotted a "frantic" woman looking for her son:

... The mother stated that she put her kids to bed at around midnight and upon waking up at approximately 6:00 a.m. noticed that her son was missing. Officers observed the house to be in order and the children to be clean. The mother was transported to the hospital where she was reunited with her son. ...

Steve Nadis explains why he spent part of last evening walking around his neighborhood with a box full of snails.

It doesn't just happen in movies. It happens in Newton Lower Falls.

On Tell Him Fred, "Jimmy Hoffa" discusses teens begging for money in traffic - and no, not those Charger kids, either:

... This last Saturday the East Boston High football squad was out at the busy intersection near our apartment, looking all thuggy and hassling people in their cars for change. How is this even REMOTELY ok with parents and teachers? Do they know about it? I imagine that there's some liability involved for the administratrion with having the kids fundraising for a school activity in fucking traffic.

Andy has a unique way to wish his daughter a happy 16th birthday.

Rich People Reporter Sarah Schweitzer is back with a report on the latest Hot Thing: Rich pregnant women who hire "baby planners" to stock their nurseries because they are terrified of all the tough decisions they'd have to make by themselves at Babies R Us.

None of the planners she interviewed have actually had babies themselves, but that's OK, because they get kickbacks referral fees from companies whose products no doubt are the absolute best ever made.

Dr. T describes.

Toddler found wandering on VFW Parkway. 2 years old, this morning, hopefully in the median strip or on a sidewalk here.

Meredith O'Brien posts the list of school supplies one of her fourth grader's teachers is requiring her to show up at school with - rivaling the amount of supplies Magellan brought on his voyage - including:

Nine twin pocket folders, one of each color, no clasps inside: tan, yellow, light blue, dark blue, orange, green, red, purple, white. (NOTE: Has anyone seen a tan pocket folder? I'm afraid this is going to be difficult to locate.)

Boston Police report the pair was found today in Baltimore. She's on her way back to her mother; he's in a jail cell awaiting a Monday court hearing on being extradited to Massachusetts.

Investigators determined that Clark Rockefeller and Reigh were staying in an apartment on Ploy Street in close proximity to a facility, known as Anchorage Marina, where Clark was docking his 26ft. unnamed catamaran. Investigators used this information to create a ruse to lure Clark from the apartment to the marina by placing a call to him with information that his boat was taking on water.

Clark while enroute to the marina was placed under arrest by FBI agents. Simultaneously agents made their way to the apartment to find Reigh. At approximately 3:29pm, Reigh was found alone in the apartment where she was reportedly excited to see law enforcement. Her appearance had not been altered. Reigh appeared to be unharmed.

An East Boston woman was arrested on drug and abuse charges today after she allegedly dropped her infant niece - who suffered no apparent injuries in the fall.

Caitlin Powers, 21, of East Boston, was to be arraigned this morning in Chelsea District Court, according to the Suffolk County DA's office. The infant's mother, Alicia Powers, 28, of Revere, is not being charged in the incident.

Innocent, etc.

Beacon Street Girls (although who knew there was an apartment atop that movie theater on Harvard Street?).

The company behind the site (and the books from which it comes) says it is aimed at "quality parent-approved literature, media, and gifts for preteen girls who are between toys and boys TM."

Update, Monday morning: Amber Alert canceled, not because Reigh has been found, but because police believe she and her father are now in New York.

[img]http://www.bostoncrimewatch.com/Reigh%20Rockefeller.jpg[/img]

At approximately 12:44PM this afternoon, officers from District D-4 responded to the intersection of Arlington and Marlborough Streets for a custodial kidnapping. Read more

The Urban Public Safety Coaliltion is sponsoring car-seat inspections this Saturday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Roslindale - in the parking lot of the F.J. Higgins Funeral Home, 4236 Washington St. More details.