Opinions - Education types and all

[minimetoo26]

Stephen got called out of class because some handles were removed from a boy's bathroom and he was seen in there about the time the vandalism was discovered. He was asked who else was there at the time, and he mentioned the kid who had seen him there.

Stephen is an award-winning honor student and the other kid draws swastikas on his hands. It turns out that NEITHER had done it, and Stephen remembers a third boy coming in, but he did not know who the kid was, so he went through the yearbook until he saw a similar face and passed that info on to the headmaster.

It's possible your son truly had no idea who was talking, especially if he was behind them and couldn't see faces.

The questioning was way out of line.

[VAdame]

Bathroom vandalism? Was it this guy?



We luv ya, Jeff, but that was stoopid

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29200101/

[MarleysGh0st]

Stephen is an award-winning honor student and the other kid draws swastikas on his hands.

They do this to him in a private school?

Is there a story behind this?

[Sisyphean Fan]

Stephen is an award-winning honor student and the other kid draws swastikas on his hands.

They do this to him in a private school?

Is there a story behind this?

I took this to mean that the kid draws on his own hands.

But I've taken things wrong before.... (maybe even what I just replied to, ha!)

[MarleysGh0st]

Stephen is an award-winning honor student and the other kid draws swastikas on his hands.

They do this to him in a private school?

Is there a story behind this?

I took this to mean that the kid draws on his own hands.

But I've taken things wrong before.... (maybe even what I just replied to, ha!)

D'oh!

Your translation make much more sense, in context, than mine.

Nevermind.

[DevilKitty100]

Wow. Just Wow. Of course I did ask for input and all of it helps me see things better, even if I may disagree.

FTR, no he did not make any of this up. While we can debate forever what should be done if you hear a conversation with the keyword "gun" in it, he did nothing because he really didn't give it much credit. Had he heard someone say that they were going to bring a gun to school I have no doubt that MBee would have told someone. But this "someone heard that someone said that somebody else heard" thing just didn't register as a threat to him. As it was he only mentioned it to his friend while playing an on-line game later that evening. He didn't mention it to anyone else.

The school has about 1,000 students and unlike his older brother (who knows just about everyone) MBee has a small group of friends. That group and his classmates are the people tht he knows.

As to lessons learned - his friend (the guy that did talk to a teacher about all this) was also detained, searched and questioned at length like my son was. Since very few things remain secrets in High School, I have no doubt that what happened Friday is already well known. So, if a student who has never been in trouble at school - ever, gets this treatment for talking to a teacher about a situation like this - then what do you think the kid who got busted last year for smoking, or doing donuts in the school parking lot etc. is going to expect will happen to him? If the school wants students to talk about any "gun" events but than imposes a mandatory punishment for doing the right thing only an idiot would not think twice about saying something. It seems to me that this little non-event could make our school less safe, not more.

So my gripe remains that I feel that the school overreacted. My son told them everything that he knew about this event in the first minute or two. Everything beyond that was uncalled for. I don't want to sue anybody or beat them to a pulp. I just want them to acknowledge to my son that they mishandled this situation.

Now you're just sounding like a hysterical woman. Your kid should have said something. Period. End of story. He didn't. The admins had (by your count) had 1,000 students to consider. They did. I applaud them.

You still haven't answered me about how you would have felt if some other kid had actually managed to get guns into the school and killed your son. I agree it wasn't pleasant and I also agree (once again) that you should have been called early, early on. But those teachers did what they felt they had to do to protect all the students. I admire their diligence.

And I couldn't disagree more with the statement that he told them everything he knew within a minute or two so they should have just dropped it there. My own parental experience taught me that I learned E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G that my son did for which he held culpability came to to me via incremental layers. Everything. Some of the real truths of some incidents I learned well after he was in adulthood when he knew I could no longer abort him. I wouldn't expect any responsible adult to immediately accept the word of a 15 year old when there were retributions to be expected. Maybe you have perfect kids, I didn't.

And lastly, I hope you aren't you holding your breath when you go in to "accept nothing less" than an apology. I also don't know, but suspect, an open outrage to the admins will cause more embarrassment for your son than the initial incident did.

[dimmzy]

If anything, what your son likely learned (or should have learned) from this incident is that he should report rumors to the school authorities.

This was the rationale behind imprisoning--and killing--millions of innocent people in the 1930s Soviet Union, 1960s Red China, North Korea, Cuba ... Children were honored by governments for reporting their parents.

Now what was that famous Pogo?

-- dimmzy, who nonetheless acknowledges the complexity of the issue

[mrkelley23]

Jaybee,

You know how you felt when you first read DevilKitty and Pea's first messages?

That's how the principals would have felt if you went in with both guns blazing.

If you go back and read my first message, then juxtapose it with theirs, you will find that we really are saying essentially the same things.

[jaybee]

Wow. Just Wow. Of course I did ask for input and all of it helps me see things better, even if I may disagree.

FTR, no he did not make any of this up. While we can debate forever what should be done if you hear a conversation with the keyword "gun" in it, he did nothing because he really didn't give it much credit. Had he heard someone say that they were going to bring a gun to school I have no doubt that MBee would have told someone. But this "someone heard that someone said that somebody else heard" thing just didn't register as a threat to him. As it was he only mentioned it to his friend while playing an on-line game later that evening. He didn't mention it to anyone else.

The school has about 1,000 students and unlike his older brother (who knows just about everyone) MBee has a small group of friends. That group and his classmates are the people tht he knows.

As to lessons learned - his friend (the guy that did talk to a teacher about all this) was also detained, searched and questioned at length like my son was. Since very few things remain secrets in High School, I have no doubt that what happened Friday is already well known. So, if a student who has never been in trouble at school - ever, gets this treatment for talking to a teacher about a situation like this - then what do you think the kid who got busted last year for smoking, or doing donuts in the school parking lot etc. is going to expect will happen to him? If the school wants students to talk about any "gun" events but than imposes a mandatory punishment for doing the right thing only an idiot would not think twice about saying something. It seems to me that this little non-event could make our school less safe, not more.

So my gripe remains that I feel that the school overreacted. My son told them everything that he knew about this event in the first minute or two. Everything beyond that was uncalled for. I don't want to sue anybody or beat them to a pulp. I just want them to acknowledge to my son that they mishandled this situation.

Answering DK and MRK in the same post. Sort of.

Now you're just sounding like a hysterical woman. Your kid should have said something. Period. End of story. He didn't. The admins had (by your count) had 1,000 students to consider. They did. I applaud them.

In this case, it certainly would have been the wiser choice if MBee had imediately gone to someone about what he heard. But I can also understand why he didn't. Hearing someone voice a threat is cause for much concern. Hearing this "someone said that someone said that they heard" thing puts what he heard in the area of something that happens all the time. Make no mistake, I too am in the camp that that a violent threat is important enough to report but I also realize the reality that if every distant rumor resulted in a school lockdown then not only would our kids be quite safe but they would also be quite uneducated.

You still haven't answered me about how you would have felt if some other kid had actually managed to get guns into the school and killed your son. I agree it wasn't pleasant and I also agree (once again) that you should have been called early, early on. But those teachers did what they felt they had to do to protect all the students. I admire their diligence.

Well, duh! Let's ask a question with an obvious answer. Last fall, in our town (but in a different school than ours), about six or seven miles from where I live, a student who had an argument with another student brought a gun to school and killed the other student. About two years ago, in a town a few miles north of here, a student brought a gun to school and killed one principal, wounding another. I am well aware of the potential danger in our schools and how difficult it is to prevent this form of violence from happening. So to answer <sigh> Of course I would be devistated if my child was murdered. And yes, there would be a lot of anger if I learned that someone could have prevented that from happening. I'd be amazed if anyone reading these words would feel any differently. At least we agree in that we should have been notified early on, as that is one of my major gripes with this whole incident.

And I couldn't disagree more with the statement that he told them everything he knew within a minute or two so they should have just dropped it there. My own parental experience taught me that I learned E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G that my son did for which he held culpability came to to me via incremental layers. Everything. Some of the real truths of some incidents I learned well after he was in adulthood when he knew I could no longer abort him. I wouldn't expect any responsible adult to immediately accept the word of a 15 year old when there were retributions to be expected. Maybe you have perfect kids, I didn't.

Well, since MBee's entire knowledge of this event consisted of hearing a few seconds of a partial conversation, then yes - it would only take a very short time for him to tell everything that he knew. Perhaps it is difficult to convey this via typing vs speaking but that's all there is to his involvment. MBee wasn't involved in any plot to bring a gun to school. He wasn't playing some form of game to spread a rumor about guns in the school. Had he not been in that hallway at that exact point in time, there never would have been any kind of gun incident involving him. However, some of the responses help me to understand how some in the school could react the way they did. I do not have perfect kids. They're good kids and we've been blessed with very few problems but as every parent here knows - teenagers can be a real pain sometimes too - even the 'good' ones.

And it turns out that I conveyed some details incorrectly. I misunderstood things as told to me by my wife. MBee was not asked right away about what he had heard. Instead, when MBee was brought to the office, he was immediately confronted with the gun, drugs, smoking, video game violence etc. questions. Not asked once, but over and over. Only after an hour of this type of grilling and being searched did the school listen to his account of what happened and what he heard.

And lastly, I hope you aren't you holding your breath when you go in to "accept nothing less" than an apology. I also don't know, but suspect, an open outrage to the admins will cause more embarrassment for your son than the initial incident did.

I think we are all in agreement that it is important to prevent violence in our schools. As parents ( and even non-parents) we can do no less. And as a parent, I believe that it is my responsibility to stand up for my child when they have been wronged - especially in the case of an adult or authority figure who may be misusing their position. We have arranged a meeting with the school next week and our basic complaint is very simple: We understand and agree that our school can question our children to maintain the safety of the school and it's students. However, if the school felt that our son was involved in a plot as serious as bringing a gun to school, we should have been notified immediately. Since there was a plan of action put into place first thing Friday morning, it's pretty obvious that the school decided to take action upon hearing from MBee's friend Thursday afternoon. Considering the safety of those other 1,000 students - Wouldn't it have been far safer if we had been contacted Thurdsay afternoon/evening and asked to accompany our son to school the following day to sort out a potentially serious problem? Added to that, when one of the vice-principles did call us after the fact, he downplayed the entire incident, saying that they had just called MBee to the office to ask him a few questions. The school has a policy and guidelines for these kind of issues - they did not follow it.

I would like for my son's 'lesson' to be that the school acknowledges that they did not treat him properly in their zeal to prevent a serious issue. In turn, he should learn that these serious problems do exist and even a hint of one is worth reporting - if not to the school than at least to his parents. It could turn out that his 'lesson' is that sometimes life is just not fair. In any event, any embarressment will be far better than sheeplishly doing nothing - that would be a lesson in iteslf - and not a good one.

I don't think even the 60 or so BB's here who have met me in person know me all that well, but rest assured that I'm not the type to go storming into our school demanding my pound of flesh and threatening lawsuits. If someone does their job well, I give praise. If someone doesn't, I complain. I'm about as opposite a 'hot head' as one can get - truth be known, I'm pretty boring. Obviously, both my wife and myself are not happy with how this incedent was handled. Our choices are to to something or do nothing. Part of my doing something has been to ask for input from this bored.