Today's top news stories for parents

Among the most-read topics on thestar.com right now is single-sex classrooms. Toronto District School Board education director Chris Spence said earlier this week his new academic plan will include a raft of initiatives aimed at addressing the unique learning needs of boys, including more single-sex classrooms.

There's been strong reaction to this notion, both for and against. If you want to read what people are saying, check out the comments on School plan calls for boys-only classes and Boys-only school 'issue of choice,' not segregation, director says.

I'm pretty new to being a school parent, so I'm not quite sure where I stand on this. But I've been raising my two boys long enough to get the idea. There is a unique exuberance in boys. Many are not big on sitting still. Based on the number of times I say, "Two bum cheeks on your chair," or "Belly button facing the table," over the course of dinner, I can appreciate the job it is to get a dozen or more boys to sit at desks completing worksheets for long stretches. For her latest story in this series, Louis Brown takes us into a school with sex-segregated classes to see how it works. What do you think?

Here are the other major stories you're going to want to read today:

Students to protest police role in schools  A student's arrest at Toronto's Northern Secondary School, which made the rounds on YouTube, has become a point of controversy between those for and against having police and students under the same roof.

A hospital clerk has been fired after turning away a mother and her 7-year-old son The Mexican refugee family was refused help at Humber River Regional Hospital even though the boy had suffered a head injury.

The new bill to protect nannies includes jail time. Legislation introduced yesterday, following a Star investigation, includes a maximum fine of $50,000 and a year in jail for those caught charging a fee for work in Ontario.

Some fun stuff not to miss:

Michelle Obama performed 142 swivels of a hula-hoop at a healthy kids fair yesterday. How many can you do? Vegetable gardening...hula hooping...how are we ever going to keep up?

Love Joe Fresh? Here's some budget fashion inspiration. A photo gallery of Joe Fresh spring 2010 fashion from Toronto Fashion Week.

Ann Douglas's round-up of baby naming tools and advice on naming your baby Check it out, and make sure you subscribe to the RSS feed for The Mother of All Parenting Blogs while you're at it.

How to stylishly declutter your kids' art There's some good advice here on sorting the masterpieces from the, um, non-keepers.

The pop culture influences on this year's Halloween costumes. Learn about this year's best-selling costumes, and find all kinds of other tools on our Halloween Guide.