Cracked's "The 6 dumbest things schools are doing in the name of safety"

http://www.cracked.com/article_19339_the-6-dumbest-things-schools-are-doing-in-name-safety.html


Cracked has written an article about some of the trends we've been seeing in the past decade to repress children's freedom in and out of the classroom. Here are the topics, click the link to read more.

#6. Forcing Students to Wear Electronic Tracking Devices

#5. Banning All Photography

#4. Absolutely NO Touching!

#3. Banning All Outside Food

#2. Forcing Students to Wear Prison Jumpsuits For Dress Code Violations

#1. Deterring Bad Behaviour By Issuing Stiff Fines

Student Expulsion Overturned

Orland Press Register, January 22 2010

Gary Tudesko can go back to Willows High School Monday.

The Glenn County Board of Education overturned the high school junior's expulsion for having shotguns and ammunition in his pickup truck on a street next to, but not on, the high school campus.

The board held the appeal hearing on Tuesday. It announced its decision Friday morning.

"I'm excited. I want to go back to school as soon as I can. I can't wait for the first day to be right back in there," Tudesko said.

In addition to reversing the Willows Unified School District board's decision, the county trustees ordered Tudesko's expulsion be removed from the school record.

It also ordered "any costs incurred by the pupil or his parents be reimbursed by the district.

The county board ruled the district had "acted in excess of its jurisdiction" because the act "did not occur on school grounds or at a school activity."

Furthermore, the county board stated that Tudesko did not have an opportunity for a "fair hearing" before the district board, because he "was not provided timely written notice of all evidence...."

The board also found "prejudicial abuse of discretion by the district" because it failed to show how other discipline choices were not feasible, or that Tudesko was a "continuing danger to the physical safety of the student and others."

The final finding stated that the board "need not reach a determination" about whether relevant and material evidence existed or "was improperly excluded at the hearing before the district governing board."

GCOE board president Judy Holzapfel reported that the trustees had met for about three hours between sessions on Thursday night and Friday morning.

"We felt it extremely important to get this correct and in the proper order," she said to a room filled with Willows Unified school administrators and Tudesko supporters, including several NRA representatives, at least one from Washington, D.C.

Willows High Principal Mort Geivett's reaction to the reversal was disappointment.

"I'm disappointed, but not surprised, due to the political climate we have here and the fact we have school board members who are going up for re-election and a superintendent who might be running for re-election," he said.

"And, the fact they had to face folks who are avid hunters. In this community, you have to dig down deep to stand up and do the right thing," he added.

Of greater concern, Geivett said, is "the decision clearly compromises the safety and security of kids and staff members on my campus and this clearly goes beyond Willows High."

Willows Unified Superintending Steve Olmos' response was one of confusion.

The decision "has left me dumbfounded, almost speechless," he said.

The county board "is undermining our authority. They are definitely saying we don't have jurisdiction off campus," he complained.

"We are even responsible for monitoring students in cyber space," he said, noting that school are expected to keep an eye out for cyber bullying, which does not have to happen on school grounds.

Still, the overriding concern among school administrators is safety.

Olmos said the county board said in its ruling that Tudesko "can park in that spot with guns in his truck and, my concern, is that other people will know or believe he has guns near school. And you never know what other people may do."

He also noted that two city streets go through campus, which means students have to cross city streets to go from class to class.

He questioned whether the Board of Education's ruling means the school does not have jurisdiction when students are on those streets.

Tudesko's mother, Susan Parisio, said "I'm so relieved. It's been such a long, long battle."

It was a battle Tudesko has said he did not want to pursue, but his mother thought it was important.

And apparently, gun rights adovates agreed.

Tudesko's appeal, presented by Long Beach attorneys C.K. "Chuck" Michel and Hillary Green, was funded in part by the National Rifle Association's and the California Rifle and Pistol Association Foundation's combined Legal Action Project.

Michel and Assoc. specializes in firearms, environmental, land use and employment law.

At a press conference following the Board of Education's ruling, Michel said he was pleased with the decision.

"We want to keep kids safe," but he said school administrators "need to know the difference between a good kid and a bad kid."

Referring to the 340 school-related shootings since 1994, Michel said, arguing there is a big difference between those shooters and young hunters.

Tudesko and a friend had been duck hunting prior to the start of school on the day two shotguns were discovered in his truck by detection dogs.

"We don't want anymore tragedies on campuses. But we have to have common sense," Michel said.

Olmos could not say whether the district will take the ruling to court. He and the school board will have weigh the options before deciding what to do next.

"If they'll stay out of court, we'll stay out of court," Michel countered.

County Superintendent of Schools Arturo Barerra did not participate in the board's closed sessions,

At Tuesday's appeal hearing, Willows Unified attorney Matt Juhl-Darlington, who did not attend Friday's meeting, had asked the board to exclude the Barerra because of previous issues between he and Olmos.

The board denied that request.

Still, Olmos thought the board made a political decision.

"Unfortunately I think it did," Olmos said.

The county board members declined to comment on their decision.

Thankfully, sanity does prevail! The county board's decision is a stern reprimand of the school's almost totalitarian attitude regarding its students. It's hardly surprising to hear the superintendent whining about how they don't have jurisdiction off campus; whoever these people are, they seem to like running their little empire. They're also in flat denial that they even DO have limits to their authority; they complain that this decision was politically motivated.

It's good to see that justice can be served, but from the school board's attitude nothing is going to change. This sort of thing should never have had to go to court in the first place.

Student charged despite lack of evidence

The Register-Herald, October 3 2007

A Woodrow Wilson High School student was arrested Wednesday and charged with bringing a weapon to school, Beckley police said.

The 17-year-old boy from the Beckley area was charged with bringing a dangerous weapon into an educational facility, Cpl. Sam McClure said. Police will obtain juvenile petitions against the boy. He was released to a guardian’s custody.

Wednesday morning, school officials told police a student reportedly had a handgun in his possession, McClure said. The campus was placed under lockdown and searched by K-9 units. No weapon was found.

However, police obtained witness statements at the scene, McClure said. Based on information gathered in the investigation, police charged the boy, believing he had brought a weapon to school at some other point.

Woodrow Principal Bob Maynard said the lockdown began around 8:45 a.m. and ended around 10:15 a.m. During a lockdown, all students are kept inside classrooms and no one is allowed in the hallways.

Maynard said Beckley police officers and their K-9 units would have been at the school Wednesday anyway for a random search. During that time, school personnel received the gun report.

“They were there for a random search, and they happened to be there when the report of the weapon was made,” Maynard said.

“(The K-9s) are very useful and prevalent. They are a good tool to have to help schools out. We have a good working relationship with the Beckley Police Department.”

Personnel at Woodrow will always work to ensure the school is a safe environment for all students, Maynard said.

Witness statements are cause for investigation, but to return no evidence and yet still arrest the accused on the same charges is a heinous presumption of guilt. In our justice system, the enforcers first must prove that a crime was committed; then the judicial system determines whether the crime was committed by the accused. The crime is based on possession of a weapon, and if none can be found then the accusations are nothing but hearsay. I hope the family's lawyer rips apart the police's procedures at the hearing.

"The arrest was based on witness reports that led police to believe the boy had brought a gun to school at some point." How much more uncertain and ambiguous can we get? How can we tolerate this kind of attack on our freedom? And how ironic that it is all in the name of safety; where anyone can be accused, arrested, and charged for vaguely defined crimes in the past or present, and have their lives ruined without a shred of evidence, then NOBODY is safe.

We need to be reminded that "Freedom" and "Liberty" are not merely words or mottoes or political tokens, they are genuine ideas that need our support. If you want to argue that 'freedom is not free' then I challenge you to dismiss charges against this student and have the school formally apologize to him. Freedom means freedom from fear, from oppression, from tyranny and from persecution, and this student--like all Americans--has a right to be free.

Texas Pledge Inserts 'Under God'

Houston Chronicle, August 2 2007

Texas students will have four more words to remember when they head back to class this month and begin reciting the state's pledge of allegiance.

This year's Legislature added the phrase "one state under God" to the pledge, which is part of a required morning ritual in Texas public schools along with the pledge to the U.S. flag and a moment of silence.

State Rep. Debbie Riddle, who sponsored the bill, said it had always bothered her that God was omitted in the state's pledge.

"Personally, I felt like the Texas pledge had a big old hole in it, and it occurred to me, 'You know what? We need to fix that,' " said Riddle, R-Tomball. "Our Texas pledge is perfectly OK like it is with the exception of acknowledging that just as we are one nation under God, we are one state under God as well."

By law, students who object to saying the pledge or making the reference to God can bring a written note from home excusing them from participating.

But adding that phrase has drawn criticism from some who say it's unnecessary and potentially harmful to children who don't share the same religious beliefs. "Most Texans do not need to say this new version of the pledge in order to be either patriotic or religious," said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. "This is the kind of politicking of religion that disturbs many Americans, including those who are deeply religious."

The revised wording in the Texas pledge took effect on June 15, and the Texas Education Agency sent an e-mail reminding school districts about the change earlier this week.

Officials with Houston-area districts say they will notify schools and parents about the new requirement.

Rebecca Suarez, spokeswoman for the Houston Independent School District, said a letter about the change will be sent home to parents when their children return to school. And a flier with the pledge's revised wording will be sent to each campus before classes start.

Texas has had a pledge of allegiance since 1933. In 2003, the Legislature required all schools to pledge allegiance to the U.S. and Texas flags and observe a moment of silence every morning at the beginning of classes.

Texas isn't the only state that has its own pledge of allegiance. Other states include Michigan, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Kentucky.

Mississippi and Louisiana mention God in their pledges. And Kentucky lays claim to being blessed with "grace from on High."

It saddens me to see that, far from removing the phrase 'under God' from the national Pledge of Allegiance, there are legislatures now actively ADDING these words into state pledges.

Regardless of your own theistic or atheistic leanings, there is absolutely no reason to edit this phrase into a mandatory pledge except as a means of asserting or ascribing superiority of a political entity (the state) to a specific religious one (God.)

The original phrase "under God" was added to the Pledge in 1954, at the height of the Cold War and at a time when American life was dominated by conflict with the Soviet Union. Like Rep. Riddle, President Eisenhower saw 'a gap' in the pledge. After hearing a sermon, Eisenhower initiated a bill to change the pledge:

"Last Sunday, the President of the United States and his family occupied the pew where Abraham Lincoln worshipped. The pastor, the Reverend George M. Docherty, suggested the change in our Pledge of Allegiance that I have offered [as a bill]. Dr. Docherty delivered a wise sermon. He said that as a native of Scotland come to these shores he could appreciate the pledge as something more than a hollow verse taught to children for memory. I would like to quote from his words. He said, 'there was something missing in the pledge, and that which was missing was the characteristic and definitive factor in the American way of life.' Mr. Speaker, I think Mr. Docherty hit the nail square on the head."

Unfortunately the politicians of the era had misinterpreted history. "The characteristic and definitive factor in the American way of life" was not belief in God, but rather the freedom to believe in God. What set America apart from the Soviets was not that we had religion and they did not, but that we had a freedom to choose our religion and they did not. And freedom of choice, of course, means freedom to worship Elohim, Yahweh, Allah, Brahman, the Goddess, Apollo or the Flying Spaghetti Monster--or none at all. Ascribing America's position as a superpower to the Abrahamic God is not only historically incorrect but insensitive and unconstitutional. For political reasons, however, the phrase was included in the daily pledge recited by millions of schoolchildren every day.

Not only has this phrase not been excised, but religious groups--including former president G.H.W. Bush!--have used it to persecute atheists, polytheists, pluralists and other assorted non-Christians by claiming that "This is one nation, Under God" and so members of the aforementioned groups are unpatriotic or not considered citizens. This is clearly in conflict with the concept of religious freedom established in the Constitution, which every politician is sworn to uphold.

Recent challenges to the mandatory Pledge recitation have met with success, though efforts to remove the phrase entirely have made little progress... and given the direction this country's governing bodies are moving in, will likely remain in place for some time. Students are no longer required to pledge, nor do they need a note from home. However those who object to the Pledge itself, or its content, are made conspicuous as dissenters which probably has a chilling effect upon their decision.

Rep. Riddle, and the rest of the Texas legislature, seem totally oblivious to all this history. The new law not only requires the mandatory pledge of both National and State pledges, but puts additional emphasis on the phrase "Under God" and requires notes for those who wish to opt out. All three are unconstitutional, all three are infringing upon students' rights, and all three serve more to bring us closer to our enemies' states of mind than they do to distance us from their ideology. Americans everywhere should regard the flippant consideration given this bill and the ease at which it passed into law as deeply disturbing.

Student banned for game map of school

Fort Bend Now, April 30 2007

Members of the area Chinese community have rallied behind a Clements High School senior who was removed from the campus and sent to M.R. Wood Alternative Education Center after parents complained he’d created a computer game map of Clements.

About 70 people attended the Fort Bend Independent School District’s April 23 meeting to show support for the Clements senior and his mother, Jean Lin, who spoke to FBISD Board trustees in a closed session.

While an agenda document does not specify details, the board is holding a special meeting tonight to address the boy’s actions and the discipline that was meted out as a result, sources close to the matter say. The boy’s name was not identified last week, and the district has declined to discuss his case.

Richard Chen, president of the Fort Bend Chinese-American Voters League and a acquaintance of the boy’s family, said he is a talented student who enjoys computer games and learned how to create maps (also sometimes known as “mods”), which provide new environments in which games may be played.

The map the boy designed mimicked Clements High School. And, sources said, it was uploaded either to the boy’s home computer or to a computer server where he and his friends could access and play on it. Two parents apparently learned from their children about the existence of the game, and complained to FBISD administrators, who investigated.

“They arrested him,” Chen said of FBISD police, “and also went to the house to search.” The Lin family consented to the search, and a hammer was found in the boy’s room, which he used to fix his bed, because it wasn’t in good shape, Chen said. He indicated police seized the hammer as a potential weapon.

“They decided he was a terroristic threat,” said one source close to the district’s investigation.

Sources said that although no charges were filed against the boy, he was removed from Clements, sent to the district’s alternate education school and won’t be allowed to participate in graduation ceremonies with classmates.

“All he did was create a map and put it on a web site to allow students to play,” Chen said. “The mother thinks this is too harsh.”

FBISD officials declined to comment on the matter Monday. “Our challenge is, people in the community have freedom of speech and can say what they want, but we have laws” covering privacy issues, especially involving minors, that the district has to respect, said spokeswoman Nancy Porter.

Speakers at the FBISD Board’s April 23 meeting alluded to the Clements senior’s punishment, and drew a connection to the April 16 shootings at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, in which a Korean student shot and killed 32 people.

The Asian community “faces new pressures” as a result of the shootings, William Sun told board members. “We urge the school and community not to label our Asian students as terrorists.”

“We should teach our children not to judge others harshly” and not to target people as being a threat because of their race, said Peter Woo, adding that the school district should lead the way in such efforts.

But Chen said Monday he and other community members don’t consider FBISD’s actions in the case to be racially motivated, and don’t think they blew the incident out of proportion.

“They all think the principal has to do something – but how much? We do understand with the Virginia Tech incident…something has to be done,” Chen said. “Someone just made a mistake, and we think the principal should understand that.”

We need to start questioning student's motives and intentions before taking disciplinary action against them. A student mapping out their school in Counter-Strike is no more of a threat to the student who maps out their home in The Sims. Many students have done things like this; last year, a student who had modeled and textured a map of our campus for a Computer Science assignment converted it into a Battlefield 1942 map for himself and his friends. It was distributed on campus and received a positive write-up in the student newspaper. That student is no more likely to actually drive a tank into our student center than this student is to run around the halls with a machine gun, or for Sims players to lock the bathroom door and watch houseguests starve to death. Hell, I know people who replicated their hometowns in SimCity 2000 ten years ago and wiped out their schools with tornadoes. Why are there any adults in existence who would consider these things threatening, let alone in places of power?

It's called fantasy, and it's everyday part of human life. Administrators and officials need to exercise some common sense and judgment in determining what is harmless fantasy and what is legally threatening. People create with what they're familiar with; ever wonder why Stephen King writes so much about Maine? Representing familiar environments in interactive virtual worlds is actually an area of sophisticated research in universities today, looking for the next level of human interaction with their environments and recognizing the inherent differences therein.

There is a distinction to be made in how we exercise our First Amendment rights, at what point we cross the line from expressing an opinion (a basic right) and inciting panic and fear of violence (not protected speech.) Since the infamous Jack Thompson has made this the subject of his latest case against posters on a message board making disparaging comments against him, it's probably a good idea to present some examples:

"Jack Thompson deserves to be stabbed."
"Jack Thompson ought to be stabbed."
"Somebody should stab Jack Thompson."
"I should stab Jack Thompson."
"I am going to stab Jack Thompson."

Now at what point does this cross the line from hyperbole to threat? And even in the latter case, any prosecutor in a court of law would have to provide more than verbal evidence to prove intent to commit a crime. In the absence of any specific people, methods or means, this student hasn't done anything even remotely threatening. Although we may consider his act to be in poor taste it's certainly not criminal.

Meanwhile, it's apparently legal for the police to search your property if a 3D map of your school for a video game is attributed to you.

The fact that police seized a hammer--not a hobby knife, not a BB gun, not a model rocket engine, but a hammer--as a potential weapon and labeled him a 'terrorist threat' is deeply troubling. It reeks of totalitarianism, to be able to arrest an American citizen who had committed no crimes and legally be able to ship them off to a military prison without the right to defend themselves, thanks to the suspension of Habeus Corpus for 'enemy combatants' labeled as Terrorists by the government, even within our own country. And lest you have faith in our government and are of the attitude that only criminals and undesirables will be affected by these procedures, keep in mind that the government will be making that distinction, NOT YOU.
In the oft-quoted words of Martin Niemoller:

First they came for the Socialists, and I didn’t speak up,

because I wasn’t a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I didn’t speak up,

because I wasn’t a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up,

because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me, and there was no one left

to speak up for me.

We as a society need to fight for the rights of minorities, because the smallest minority of all is YOU--the individual. Maintain awareness of these events and call out those responsible.

Honor Student Wrongly Punished For Bomb Threat

CBS, April 4 2007

A teenager in Westmoreland County who spent 12 days in a juvenile detention facility when he was wrongly accused of making a bomb threat says he doesn't want to go back to the school and he wants an apology from administrators.

Police arrested Hempfield Area High School sophomore Cody Webb, 15, last month after school administrators claimed he called in the threat 3:17am on March 12th.

But officials now concede that the call didn't come from Webb and the misunderstanding stemmed from Daylight Saving Time.

Webb, an honor student who never even had a detention, admits that he called the school's hotline that morning – an hour earlier.

The district, however, never changes its clocks – and insisted that Webb made the threat.

After his attorney finally convinced the school what really happened, Webb was finally released and all charges were dropped.

Now the school wants Webb to come back to class, but the teen says he was humiliated by the principal and doesn't want to return to the district.

He and his family are considering their next course of action.

The school's conclusion must have seemed accurate; a time stamp and a bomb threat. But would it have killed them to actually listen to the Honor student's explanation and do some investigation first? They locked the teen up in prison for twelve days before his attorney could talk some sense into them. Given the student's track record, the school should have given him the benefit of the doubt and looked into his claims instead of throwing the book at him and ending up with this mess.
Schools have historically defended their positions with the legal notion of In loco parentis, that is, that the school is taking the place of the parent while the child is in their custody and therefore the school has absolute legal right to decide how to treat its students. School officials are granted the autonomy of a governmental institution and have absolute control over their students; potential for abuse is rife.
Perhaps there should exist a resource for the students to keep the school's authority in check, and defend the students against unreasonable and (anywhere else) illegal violations of civil rights. I have had a handful of amazing and subversive teachers that could be counted on to stand up for their students, who began with the presumption of innocence and had enough common sense to plead a student's case for them. Currently such defense only seems to fall to the family attorney after the fact.
Even kids who have taken Honors-level Civics classes are too inexperienced and too naive to present a credible case, and in any case, they have already been accused, condemned and punished before any response can be made. An inordinate amount of control one institution has over its subjects is always subject to abuse.

Thankfully, the legal system still works in the Real World and these victims can be compensated. But their rights never should have been violated to begin with, and not every family can afford to make the commitment Cody Webb's parents made for their son.

Boy turns in knife, may still be expelled

Indianapolis Star, April 3, 2006

An Indiana couple are stunned that a principal suspended their son and recommended his expulsion for possession of a pocketknife even though he turned the knife in to the office as soon as he arrived at school. After turning in the knife, the eighth-grader was suspended from Stonybrook Middle School for 10 days and may be expelled. Elizabeth Voge-Wehrheim and Frank Wehrheim, the boy's mother and stepfather, have hired attorney Lawrence T. Newman to represent them.

"This young man made the most responsible choice under any policy possible," Newman said of the boy, Elliot Voge. "They are treating him as the most irresponsible student under the circumstances." Elliot, 14, said he was walking to the school entrance in the brisk weather March 3 and had placed his hands in his coat pocket when he felt the Swiss Army pocketknife in the pocket. "I went straight to the office right inside (the front door)," he said. He said he handed the knife to the school's treasurer,and told her he had brought it to school by mistake. As a result of Elliot's actions, the school's principal, Jimmy Meadows, suspended Elliot for the maximum 10 school days as allowed by law and recommended Elliot be expelled.

The family's attorney said school officials' actions send students the wrong message. "Their message is to be dishonest, take more chances," Newman said. Elliot "didn't want to keep it (the knife) on his person," Newman said. "The school is saying, 'Don't make this responsible choice.' "

I don't think anyone can argue that students should be able to take weapons to school, any more than you or I can take weapons to the office, into a theatre, or on an airplane. But the people in charge here should be able to discern between a tool, brought in error, and surrendered immediately and voluntarily, and a loaded firearm brought intentionally and concealed.

The family attorney has the right idea here. Under the circumstances, what choice did the kid have? Other sources say that Elliot was using the knife over the weekend to whittle some wood, which is how it ended up in his pocket in the first place, and that he only noticed its presence after his parent had dropped him off outside the school and classes were to begin soon. Elliot had been a model student, recommended for AP courses the following year with no disciplinary record. His friends urged him to hide it but no, he made the honest and responsible choice. Would that more adults followed his example.

Zero tolerance means zero thought. It's also another violation of the constitutional rights guaranteed to all citizens; the Fifth Amendment right to due process of law. Automatic expulsion of students for an infraction, no matter what the circumstances or the severity, denies the students their right to defend themselves against the accusation.

Follow-up: Due to widespread outrage and media attention, the following week the principal reversed his decision and opted not to punish the student. This was a highly publicised case that resulted in a victory for the teen in question, but is still symptomatic of the larger problems. How many of these kinds of cases go by without the media frenzy? We as a society need to address the root cause of this knee-jerk reaction, and not just focus on the extremes.