Parchment News

The Parchment Concerned Parents Committee has only a month to collect 752 signatures in their effort to recall Parchment school trustees Deb Coates and Joel Shaffer over the controversy involving John Thompson, a Parchment School District administrator charged with drunken driving and fleeing police.

This is the contract signed by the young woman and Parchment High School counselor Becky Edds two years ago.

Paw Paw is the host of the Division 3 District Soccer Tournament, but Dowagiac will open play at home Tuesday against Wolverine Conference foe Comstock.

The story is all too achingly familiar. A girl grows up with single mom who can't hold a job, has several children by different men, prefers partying to child-rearing, puts her boyfriend of the moment before her kids.

Republicans won a 10-7 majority on the Kalamazoo County Commission in 2010. Redistricting will shrink the commission to 11 seats, changing the district boundaries.

At an emotional meeting Monday, residents of the Parchment School District offered criticism and support for the Board of Education for their actions following the April 4 arrest of administrator John Thompson on charges of drunken driving and fleeing police.

AdvancED accredits schools in 30 states, and was formed in 2006 through a merger of the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement and the National Study of School Evaluation.

WOOD TV 8 is reporting that Parchment athletic director John Thompson had a 2007 driving under the influence charge dismissed.

Puppy mill sentencing: The couple behind the Allegan puppy mill was sentenced to 60 days in jail Thursday.

The language to be used in the petition to recall Parchment school board members was approved by the Kalamazoo County Election Commission on Thursday morning.

There are two issues in the Parchment schools controversy : One, the fate of a popular administrator, who has been charged with drunken driven and fleeing and eluding the police, and two, the responsiveness and openness of the Board of Education and other administrators in dealing with this matter.

A sign popping up around Parchment in reaction to the April 4 arrest of John Thompson, Parchment Middle School assistant principal, who has been charged with drunken driving and fleeing police.

Michael O'Neal Allman , 34, of Monroe Avenue, was sentenced to 60 days in jail, two years of probation, victim restitution and state fees for possession of methamphetamine in November in Comstock Township.

After a three-year downward trend for serious crimes, the number reported in Kalamazoo Township rose slightly last year, according to the township's annual police report.

An evidentiary hearing for John D. Thompson, the Parchment High School athletic director accused of drunken driving and fleeing police , was adjourned Tuesday, a Kalamazoo County District Court official said.

"It's like trying to run with weights tied to your feet," he said. "We want to do things, but we're always fighting the money issue." While most Michigan school districts are experiencing fiscal headaches -- thanks to state cuts that have left the current per-pupil foundation grant below 2005-06 funding level -- Comstock has an even more ... (more)

Plans for stadium lighting for Kalamazoo College's soccer and football fields, which are under renovation, has drawn opposition from West Main Hill neighbors.

Parchment school board members are targets of a recall campaign being launched by a group of parents upset over the district's handling of an administrator involved in a high-profile drunken-driving case.

John Thompson, athletic director for Parchment High School and the Parchment Middle School assistant principal, has been placed on unpaid leave as a result of an April 4 incident during which Thompson was arrested for allegedly driving while intoxicated and leading police on a high-speed chase along Gull Road.