10 day suspension, upcoming expulsion hearing for 8th grade hit man
Student Suspended Over ‘Hit List’
An 8th grade student at Clay Middle School got angry after being caught passing notes in class. He wrote the names of eight students and an administrator in his notebook and titled the page Hit List.
[Kent DeKoninck, school principal] says he really had no choice but to suspend the eighth grader after a teacher found the student with a hit list.
…
DeKoninck says the student on Thursday morning admitted to being angry and writing the list. Students were sent home with copies of this letter explaining the incident to parents. It also says the student could be expelled.
This ties into the fear culture I wrote about a few days ago. A thirteen year-old has a bad day and deals with his anger and frustration in a non-violent and non-confrontational manner. He is immediately suspended for 10 days, the entire school body as well as all parents are notified of his actions and he faces expulsion.
This was all done before any sort of investigation to determine if the 8th grader was actually a threat to anybody.
“I think it sets an example for other kids to discourage them from doing anything like that,� said Laury Karwoski, a parent.
It teaches them that their privacy is suspect and that they are assumed guilty immediately and without real cause. It also removes a viable method of dealing with anger and frustration without harming others.
“If there’s a child that has some kind of problems with the students and the teachers, they need to take some kind of action. Obviously, that child needs some extra help,� said Teresa Murphy, another parent.
That is a nice sentiment but that is not what is happening here. In this case the child is getting suspended and possibly expelled instead of receiving any sort of help.
“I think they should check into it, but do a lot of research before they talk about expulsion…� said Lori McCann.
We can only hope so. Unfortunately this is something that isn’t required when implementing reactive policies. Child did any item in class “A”, we do “B”. End of story.
The Student Handbook deals fairly extensively with threatening but does not have anything that applies to an uncommunicated threat.
Columbine changed everything. Those guys had a hit list. Any teacher who finds one would be a fool not to turn the kid in. Imagine how any of us would feel if we said “That’s OK, he’s such a nice kid — I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it” and then he shows up at school with an AK-47 and blows away 10 kids and teachers. What Columbine showed us is that we really don’t know any of our students very well. Are there guns in the home? If so, he could come to school with one. We don’t know that. Nor do we know just how sick this kid could be.
So, up to the punishment I support the school. Even the 10 day suspension is reasonable. But at this point the kid needs counseling. We need to know more about him, his home, his background and his mental state. He might need help or it might be just a bad day for him. But I will say I have never thought of writing a hit list, nor have I ever seen any kid write one that I knew of, even when they were pretty violent kids. This is serious.
Expulsion may be necessary, or alternative placement. That hasn’t been decided. At least that is good.
But once again the thing that links all of us on this board — the evil “zero tolerance” rule jumps out at me. Why do administrators have to rely upon that explanation to comment on punishments. My guess is stupidity. I haven’t met very many intelligent administrators, to be honest and this one fits right in. It would have been so much better to say “we have suspended Johnnie during the investigation of this disturbing incident. Further study is needed before we can determine what we will need to do to help Johnnie and protect the other children and staff.”
barry
Another child used as a example to others. A note home to Parents, before this is fully investigated. The schools liability issues cause them to keep the Fear Culture going.
The ten days, will only allow this child, to fall behind in school. They miss Teacher, instuction. That is the reality.
Reality is the cops, missed stopping Columbine.
This issue, should have been resolved with the Parents and child, and Administrator. Not the student body. At least so far it is just a 10 day suspension.
I am beginning to think, schools like the media attention. In order to prevent another Columbine. The Administrators have to reach out to kids. The one size fits all approach of zero-tolerance does not do that. It simply makes kids more angry. That also is reality.
The schools liability issues cause them to keep the Fear Culture going.
I think there is a great deal of training invested in the orchestrated and uniformed behavior of administrators. I guess it’s just not that hard to collect people who behave like this and put them in positions of authority. Wasn’t that the theme of “In Search of Excellence”, one of the most influencial books of the 20th century. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist”, to follow a procedure that produces a positive dehumanized numbers.
Cottage industry certainly benefits. This site has the cure for everything from violence to NCLB
http://www.camerawatch.net/
Sure Columbine changed us…so did 9/11, the Iraqi war, the Viet Nam war, WW2. The nugget of wisdom in Barry’s comments circles around the fact that we don’t know our kids any more…the question that needs answering is, “why not”?
In a few years from now, some young kid is going to look up admiringly at their grandpa and ask, “Grandpa…where did the TPD (Thought Police Department) come from?”
I can’t help but wonder what other problems are created by having a private thought, regardless of how ridiculous it might be, the subject of analysis and conjecture by the public and the government???
Is it possible that a naughty fantasy about a movie star might become “Pre-Sexual Assault”?
The solution to these types of problems does not reside in more school/state/government sponsored process/analytics/testing…these types of problems exist because of a deminished value system at home/community/culture coupled with a “fix-it-all with one magic pill” mentality.