A middle-school counselor in Tennessee is being called a hero after talking a teenager into handing over a loaded handgun. Media outlets report that a 14-year-old boy went to Sycamore Middle School Wednesday asking to speak with counselor Molly Hudgens. Authorities say he told her he was having problems and was going to kill teachers and a police officer, but no students; he told her she was the only one who could talk him out of it. And so she did.

Some parents are outraged after they said a school's theme day pushed the envelope a little too far in their eyes. Homecoming week was supposed to be full of fun, but not everyone is laughing after pictures of some pretty inappropriate villains hit social media. Wednesday started as Villain Day at Bartlett High, and for some things quickly turned as dark as the day’s theme.

Exclusive investigation reveals serious concerns about how children taught at Accelerated Christian Education in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s were treated, as ex-pupils claim exorcisms were performed on children, pupils were beaten in religious ceremonies and girls were ‘groomed’ for marriage to older men.

Protest at Worcester, Mass., school was one of several on the high school level over the weekend.

With the new school year underway, California is cracking down on parents who refuse to vaccinate their children. Since a new law took effect in July, no longer will a child be able to attend class unimmunized on the basis of a parent’s objections. In the past, parents could sidestep vaccine mandates by declaring that the injections were contrary to their religious or personal beliefs. This occurred despite overwhelming evidence from doctors and public health officials that they are safe and effective in preventing infectious diseases.

Vandals set three saltwater crocodiles loose in an Australian school office on Sunday. CCTV footage shows the crocodiles being pushed through a broken window at Taminmin College, located in the Northern Territory town of Humpty Doo. A gang of masked intruders then vandalises the office. Wildlife rangers who captured the reptiles said they were in poor health and had their mouths taped up. The largest crocodile was 2m long. It is not known why they were let loose in the school.

Anton Oberländer is a persuasive speaker. Last year, when he and a group of friends were short of cash for a camping trip to Cornwall, he managed to talk Germany’s national rail operator into handing them some free tickets. So impressed was the management with his chutzpah that they invited him back to give a motivational speech to 200 of their employees. Anton, it should be pointed out, is 14 years old.

Several schools across the US have either discovered or acted upon evidence of high levels of lead in their drinking water in the wake of the crisis in Flint, Michigan, with one leading expert warning the cases could mark “the tip of the iceberg”. Yanna Lambrinidou, who is an affiliate faculty member in science, technology and society at Virginia Tech, the university that helped uncover the extremely elevated levels of lead in Flint...

A former Yahoo executive turned Florida lawmaker is proposing allowing students to take computer science courses as an alternative to two required foreign language classes. But the proposal has been controversial with legislators and advocates for coding, who say foreign languages remain valuable.

At least two people were killed after a shooting Friday afternoon at a rural Canadian school.