In Huntsville schools getting into a brawl is the same as getting beat up
Student’s Questionable Costume Raises Tempers
Last week a Grissom High School student found himself without a costume for dress-up day. He was also apparently without a brain because he solved his problem by making a white cone, writing “KKK” on it and wearing it as a Klan hood. A school security guard made him remove it. The trouble started the next day when some other students confronted him about it. The three got into a fight and were all suspended.
Nothing really wrong there, right? A Klan headdress is certainly offensive and the guard was correct to make him remove it. Students in a fistfight must be disciplined and suspension for fighting is certainly understandable. My problem is with the statement from Huntsville City Schools spokesman Keith Ward:
“Huntsville City Schools’ has a zero tolerance- automatic suspension -for anyone caught fighting. Even if he hadn’t thrown a punch - the kid who initially wore the head cone would have been placed on in-house suspension anyway.”
So if the kid had just stood there and played punching bag he would have been suspended for fighting. Automatic suspension for crimes like getting thrown into a locker, tripped down the stairs or being beaten to a pulp, no matter what you do or don’t do.
What exactly are they teaching the kids there? And what sort of a deterrent from fighting is it when you will be suspended whether or not you defend yourself?
Definitely training for life in Police State Amerika.
I once asked a teacher who had a policy such as this one in his school what would happen if a girl was being raped in a stairwell and she fought back. He said that she most likely would be in trouble too, and there have been cases of girls being assaulted and fighting back and being suspended.
Parents don’t really realize how dangerous public schools are for their children, and these policies only victimize them twice.
This is one very good reason why parents should not send their children to schools with zero-tolerance policies, and that means the majority of public schools in America. School officials couldn’t care less just as long as they don’t have to try and figure out who started the fight and why. They just sweep it under the rug. Many times, the police also charge the victim with assault.
I hope this school noted this fight so it can be incorporated into the “Persistently Dangerous Schools” section under NCLB
How many of you have been an adult supervising students in schools? Do you think when there is a fight that the one who actually started the fight — who actually threw punches is going to say “Yeah…. I started it. He is innocent — never threw a punch — I just wanted to pick on him because (fill in the blank with hateful comment here).” Of course not! With a ratio (which is climbing higher again) of 25 kids to every staff member and students who are street savvy enough not to start a fight when an adult is around, how exactly do you expect school districts to decide who is at fault? If you knew adolescents at all you would know that witnesses are almost always unwilling to “rat out” other students. That is why the zero tolerance rules (which I also think are just plain stupid) have gotten started in our schools.
I take issue with the comments about school staff members. Most of them are very conscientious. They want to do what is right and fair, but so often their hands are tied both by zero tolerance rules and by the courts and other outsider interference. The administrators usually are not witnesses to the fight.
I also take issue with the rape comment. That comment is really stupid! Rape is a major crime and the girl can identify who did it. She would not be suspended nor disciplined in anyway in any school I have been in or heard of. Of course she has to identify her assailant, who will go out in handcuffs. Even adolescents will rat out a rapist!
Finally, lets think real world. If you are involved in a public fistfight you will be taken to jail. In school we have traditionally protected young students from police interference. In our district in Champaign, IL one of our principals was sent back to Texas before the end of the year because he didn’t file police reports on assaults on teachers and students. In the real world, you always have the right to defend yourself with minimal force. But you do not have the right to “kick his ass”. If you respond with “kick his ass” force, you too will be charged. Our students need to understand that so that on the street they don’t get arrested or killed.
barry
The problem isn’t with the discipline meted out in the actual happenings here, Barry. It’s the policy that would punish a student for getting jumped and having the crap beaten out of him.
Call the rape comment stupid then. I did ask that teacher and that was his comment. And there have been incidents of girls being sexually assaulted (recently in the Camden, NJ, school system) and the principal did nothing except have the girl brought up on truancy charges when she refused to go back to that particular school. The principal wouldn’t let her transfer out. The school district is being sued and the group of boys are being charged criminally, but no thanks to the immoral slob school principal running that gulag. The girl is now going to a parochial school.
There have also been cases of students being assaulted in unprovoked attacks and putting their arms up to defend themselves (not punching out the attacker, but merely putting their hands up to protect their faces, a human reaction)and getting brought up on disciplinary charges and criminal charges.
You basically just admitted that schools are unsafe (too many kids in a class, supervision problems, unfair zero tolerance policies that even upset teachers). Why would school authorities expect students to attend these schools then? Is it worth the risk to a student who may be attacked in an unprovoked assault (such as the student in the article) or a sexual assault? Sorry, I don’t think so.
Sounds familiar. In middle school (sixth grade, to be exact), I was in-home suspended during the last week of school for getting beat up by 3 guys inside a classroom, while backed up against a wall.
Let me repeat that.
I was in-home suspended for getting beat up by 3 guys.
Where was the supervision? Why were you alone in a classroom with three thugs?
May I ask you a question? When you marry and have children (if that’s what you are planning on doing), will this incident affect where you send them to school, or if you send them to school at all (homeschool)?
I think think that huntsville city schools have the worse teaching education ever. They don’t help the kids try to learn what they need to to get to the next grade level instead they expect them to do it there selves.