Choice words lead to expulsions in Michigan
Board expels Heritage High student
What would an appropriate punishment be for a student who cursed at a teacher? Detention? Maybe suspension? In the Saginaw Township School District they go for an expulsion of a minimum of 180 days. They just did this to a Heritage High School student who used “profane and abusive” language.
School board members voted 5-2 to expel the student, with Frank Borja and Judith Lincoln dissenting.
“It’s so easy to write off kids,” Borja said in explaining his vote. “But more often than not, we hold our kids to a higher standard than adults.”
At least they are consistent. They expelled another student last month for cursing at an assistant principal.
Contact Information:
Heritage High Principal Michael Newman
Superintendent Dr. Jerry Seese
Boardmember Marianne Bird
Boardmember Francisco Borja
Boardmember Nancy Cotcamp
Boardmember Lisa Hall
Boardmember Donald McAnelly
Boardmember Judith Lincoln
Boardmember Barbara Russell
180 days is not forever, so this would more accurately be termed a suspension rather than an expulsion. But I’d be interested to see verified transcripts of the young man’s words, which are apparently of superior wit, incredible obscenity or both.
The definition of expulsion has changed. Back in the day when you were expelled you were out of the school. Period. Forever.
Court cases and laws have changed this. Now there is no option for permanent expulsion. “Expelled” is now essentially a long term suspension. The major difference, besides the duration, is that an expelled student is entitled to alternative education.
This is ridiculous. I went to a Catholic High School. The priests there were strict and didn’t put up with any crap. No one ever got expelled for using profane language, even at a priest. They might get detention for a month, but they wouldn’t be expelled.’
Damn. It’s from my home state, too…
It is strange indeed that we fill the minds of our youth with �Words that are profane and abusive� on the majority of TV programs, then expel them from school when they use them.
I do not condone foul language; but, if one of my students had used such language in my presence, I would have gotten one witness and paddled the student. Remember, I taught school “back in the dark ages.”
It worked back then, so why not now? O, I forgot, Dr. Spock�s rules now reign. In my time, Solomon�s rules reigned.
I rememember the high school coaches cussing in the history classes they would teach when I was a student. I’ve heard them yelling certain words during practice as well.
The first day I taught high school a 16 yo went off on me during class which included a litany of obscenities. I chose to handle it a way other than writing him up I never had any other problems with him the rest of the year. I can think of particular passive aggressive teen behavior that is by far more disruptive in the long run than a teen that impulsively curses.
One way you could deal with a verbally abusive kid is to find ways to engage them. Find out who they are angry at and treat them as individuals. If we took all the money that goes into prisons and programs of straight-jacket control; maybe politician couldn’t use them to target kids they didn’t like and make their numbers look good. We could take all the money that get’s wasted on these programs and give these kids the hope of making a living wage where their every move wasn’t evaluated.
I’m so glad I was homeschooled from seventh grade and up. In the junior high I was attending the teachers would cuss at the students, and even books and videos we watched on some subjects were full of obscenities.When my mother asked the assistant principle why she was allowing such vulgar language in her school she said “That’s the only way to get kids to listen these days. You have to talk tough to them.” Yeah and if us students used that kind of language we got detention. Finally my family pulled me out and started homeschooling as the teachers wouldn’t stop cussing at me as they knew I would cry ( I was brought up not to cuss at adults and couldn’t understand why I was getting cussed at as I never made trouble). Just a few years ago I found out from some junior high students that the teachers still cuss at students after all these years.
Here is Parents Against Bad Books in Schools, a website that criticizes the books that are present in the Fairfax County, VA, school libraries — many of which are in the middle schools. Most of them contain obscene language and situations.
http://www.pabbis.com/news.htm
Perhaps the above situation is just a question of “garbage in, garbage out.” If students are required to read garbage, don’t expect them not to talk trash, even to their teachers.
Banning books in highschool? I will never get it. Tom saywer, one flew over, Grapes of wrath, COunt of monty cristo (Great sandwich too) of mice and men, Diary of samuel peyps, These are good reads and educational at the same time. yet I have known parents who have gone Crazy when they found out that their children could read them or had a report due on them.
It is thinking like that has gotten us here.
Im sorry you didnt like the Adventures of Huck Fin, maybe your child will, let them find out. some of the books on that list seemed really bad, but some body must have read the books to decide they were bad, they obviously didnt like it, But dont rob others of the opertunity to read it. And if they didnt read the book well then there opinion of it dont mean a thing.
How do you know I didn’t like Huck Finn? Do you know me? Sure, let kids read the trash they are assigned, just don’t be surprised when they act it out in school, that’s all. Not a Great Books curriculum by a long shot.
I’m not talking about high school. Many of these books are in the middle school. Gang-banging, rapes, gang activity, sex, drugs, homosexuality, bestiality.
Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer — are you kidding? Who reads them anymore?
What I meant about educational materials with bad language I didn’t mean classic literature like Huck Finn I mean stuff such as anti drug and “science” books and videos. In one of the anti drug tapes a guy, who was a stunt man for the show ‘Berretta’, was talking about his addiction to an audience of Los Angeles high schoolers. All he did was cuss at the kids when they didn’t pay attention, and when talking about other celebrities on drugs he called them every word in the book. As the teacher said to my mother about this video “You have to talk tough to kids these days or they won’t listen.” Then in some “science” video these guys were hunting great white sharks and kept on calling the sharks every word you can imagine. They also used a lot of obscenities from Britain as the guys were a team of Australians and one or two British guys. I was wondering how swearing at sharks would get anything done and almost fell asleep through the dumb video. On top of that the video had much erroneous information about sharks and attacks on human beings.
When I was homeschooled I had fun reading books that were usually banned in public schools, but there was nothing to be learned from the materials the teachers used as they talked down to us rather than educating us.
AB - Look at the PABBIS site that someone linked to a few posts up. THAT’s where Huck Finn is coming from.
Could someone please tell me what was wrong with Superfudge? The Bridge to Terabithia? Ender’s Game (one of my all-time favorites)? The Face on the Milk Carton? The Whipping Boy?
I don’t get what it is that people object to in most of the books on the list that I recognize. A few I do understand why people might object to them. Most of them, I haven’t a clue.
Sorry bettina,
I was addressing you specificly, It was kind of a broad ranting statement. I have a few friends that think that there chidren shouldnt read books like tom and huck because of the way they address black people. they didnt like it.
Me and another groupe of freinds have been talking about starting a reading group in witch we would be reading books banned by schools and discussing the book amongst our selves. We thought about starting with Charlolets Web. Which is on a few of the lists they dug up.
Sorry for making the statement seem an attack it wasnt meant to be directed at any one in particular.
Correction,
Please read
“I was addressing you specificly,”
As
“I was NOT addressing you Specificly,”
I agree that a majority of those books on that site have some rather heavy stuff for young children to be reading, but there are books that are being banned though they have much literary value.There’s a difference between books that challenge the mind with new ideas and ones that talk down to young people. Some of my favorites as a kid were Bridge to Teribethia and A Wrinkle in Time, two great classics with valuable lessons to be learned. The only problem is before I was pulled out of seventh grade all us students had to read from the library were either boring books about kids dying of cancer, elementary school level stories( as many of my peers were almost illiterate), or books with a lot of “tough talk” that the teachers thought were going to educate us.