Disgusting, yes. Criminal, no.
Teen charged after vomiting on teacher
Updated 28 July 2005: Vomiting student sentenced. Details at bottom of post.
Officials at Olathe Northwest High School (Olathe Unified School District) have brought criminal battery charges against a 17 year-old student. His crime? Vomiting on a teacher.
A high school student who vomited on his Spanish teacher has been charged with battery against a school official. The misdemeanor charge was filed Monday against the Olathe Northwest High School student.
The 17-year-old boy was charged as a juvenile and his name was not released.
Vomiting on somebody is disgusting but is it a crime? How do you prove “intent to vomit”?
The boy says he was overstressed from exams. The teacher said he did it intentionally. If convicted he could be imprisoned for up to five years but would most likely be given probation.
In addition to a criminal sentence the prosecutors also want an apology. This is the only reasonable item in this story. Of course the boy should apologize. He should have apologized as soon as he stopped heaving.
But why in the world would they pursue a criminal battery charge against this student? Can’t they overreact in the normal scholastic fashion? Oh, wait. They did that too.
The father said the district expelled his son and recommended he enroll in an alternative school in the fall.
Contact information:
Principal Dr. Gwen Poss
Board of Education President Dr. Debora Daniels
Board of Education Vice President Dr. Bob Drummond
Board of Education member Kevin P. Gilmore
Board of Education member Rick Marriott
Board of Education member Harlan Parker
Board of Education member Linda Wilhelm
(Tip credit to Amy, BAlferow, Audrey, Bob, Shreela, and Opinion Journal)
UPDATE 28 July 2005
Teen Who Threw Up on Teacher Sentenced
The student who vomited on his teacher has been sentenced to four months of cleaning vomit out of police cars. I wonder just how this will work. Will he be “on call” whenever a vomit strewn patrol car is returned to the garage? How many vomitized police cars do they get in a four month period?
Johnson County Magistrate Judge Michael Farley said during the sentencing Tuesday that he considered the boy’s actions “an assault upon the dignity of all teachers.”
No, it was an action that involved a single student and a single teacher. Judge Farley seems to have been putting on airs. I hope his grandioise vision of universal teacher disrespect wasn’t reflected in the sentence.
Although the student testified that he was stressed and ill from final exams two fellow students testified that he had told them of a plan to vomit on the teacher beforehand. The teacher himself had a different perspective.
[Teacher David] Young said the student, who was failing his class, made no effort to avoid throwing up on him. “I was just sort of stunned,” he said.
I myself wouldn’t equate “made no effort to avoid” with “did this intentionally”. I guess in Johnson County “failure to avoid” is a genuine crime.
(Tip credit to David Ferrell, Shadowe, Orac, Brian Wagner)
I agree with James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal, who wrote: “the oddest thing about this story is that prosecutors are ’seeking an apology.’ An immediate and profuse apology would have been in order had the vomiting been accidental, and if the youngster hasn’t yet said he’s sorry, perhaps that contributes to the view that he’s guilty.”
I tend to go that way myself. But even if it was intentional, is this something that a school should be filing criminal charges over in addition to expelling the student?
The school’s reaction is moronic! Like Jim asked: “How do you prove ‘intent to vomit’?”
But even more disturbing is the fact that “Rick Guinn, an assistant district attorney” even allowed the charges to go through in the first place, even if there was a witness claiming the boy vomited on purpose.
What were the witness’s statements regarding how they ‘knew’ the boy vomited on purpose?
- Did he stick his fingers down his throat, then aim at the teacher?
- Did he make try to produce phlegm in the hopes it would make him nauseated.
- Did the witness see that the boy snuck in a Skiving Snackbox from the Weasley Twins’ gag shop?
I think both the assistant DA, the DA now that they’ve allowed this to continue, and the school officials are totally insane.
heh, I added the DA after I had typed in ‘BOTH’
lol
**IF** he did it on purpose, then the charges are appropriate. So it comes down to a question of fact - did he do it on purpose? That’s what a trial is supposed to discover.
On the other hand, he’s innocent until proven guilty, and the expulsion violates due process.
An eye for an eye… an expulsion for an expulsion. That’s bad enough, but criminal charges? Wow. I hope they have a re-enactment in the trial. Let the prosecutor get his “come-uppance.”
Is it really so much harder to prove “intent to vomit” than intent in any other crime? How about he said something to another student before hand that he was going to do it–that would be a start–or afterwards he admitted something against his interests when he got toted to the principal’s office.
What amazes me is the world-wide media interest in a little bit of vomit.
Unless the school can prove that this young man intended to deliberately vomit on the teacher, they have no business filing criminal charges OR expelling the student. He’s being treated at the same level as a student who has brought a weapon to school. When my sister was in high school, she used to throw up whenever she was stressed out over an exam, but, thankfully, teachers were more human and more understanding of what stress can do to a person. While she never vomited on a teacher, she threw up in the classroom on occasion and a janitor was summoned, the mess cleaned up, and life went on. Maybe the adminstration should apologize to this young man for the disgraceful and shabby treatment they dished out, but we all know that it will be a “cold day in Hell” before ANY school adminstration admits they were wrong and that they acted badly!
“Unless the school can prove that this young man intended to deliberately vomit on the teacher, they have no business filing criminal charges”
Incorrect. FILING charges is not handing down a sentence. There is a little detail called a trial first.
“OR expelling the student”
Here you are correct. This IS a sentence being handed down, WITHOUT due process.
The difference is of critical importance, and ignoring it damages the credibility of all zero tolerance opponents.
In your rush to bash the school, many of you are forgetting one thing: The school can’t bring criminal charges against the student. That would be the district attorney’s office who is taking him to court. The school may have recommended prosecution, but they aren’t prosecutors.
How do you know that the student didn’t receive full ‘due process’ from the school before being expelled? The school isn’t required to wait for a criminal conviction before taking action. How do you know that they didn’t follow all of their procedures regarding hearings and whatnot? Just because this brief article doesn’t discuss any of that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
All we know is that a student vomited on a teacher. The prosecutors believe it was intentional (and claim to have witnesses to back up that contention). The boy’s father says it was unintentional. Guess what? A jury trial sounds like a good way to resolve this.
I just hope that the jurors wait to hear a little more evidence than some of you before rushing to a decision.
I have a few things to say…
As a student at Olathe Northwest, I am deeply offended at all of this publicity saying that the district and the school is wrong in its accusations and in its’ judgement. I believe in freedom of speech but when it is supposed to be believed as the whole truth, intentionally, this is where people, such as yourself, are twisted, vicious, profane, and deliberatly malapropos and erroneous. The indecency of such a situation portrayed in this manner is strictly a persecution of the “good guy” here. Senior Young is a very passionate man, especially when it comes to teaching, and here you are trying to tell me that the teacher I know, is the “bad guy”? You are telling me that the teacher who was humiliated and embarassed in front of the class, and now the whole world, is the “bad guy”? Now, if I remember correctly, the “bad guy” is the one who is the antagonist or adversary, the one who is dominatly the obstacle and causes most of the drama surrounding a conflict. And if this is understood, then why are you implying that Senior Young is the villan? A teacher with a heart as big as an ox and the drive to educate students in such a way that only a person who has been taught by such a wonderful teacher could appreciate, deserves this slap in the face and this animosity? Now, is it just me, or is this sounding a little one sided? Am I leaving the “vomiting student” out? Well, as a proud and involved student of Olathe Northwest High School, I can say that the student who pulled this stunt was not nor ever “uncontrollably ill”. In fact, it had been heard for quite some time, that this crude act would commence during the last days of the year, also known as finals week. Now, everyone can agree that finals are the most nerve racking days and tests that a struggling student, or any student for that matter, can undergo but, that is no excuse to become “uncontrollably ill” for that one class and for that one teacher and at such a convienent time, especially when you have peers and cameras watching you. Makes you think…Can 11 pizzas consumed in roughly 30 minutes make you throw up?…We all saw him…We all saw him chow down those pizzas as if it were his last day on Earth…We all viewed the disgusting spectacle that we knew would lead upto something else…Something we all had heard about for the past semester…A kid who eats a porportioned meal does not just go out on a limb one day and eat a whole pizza, not to mention whole pizzas!? I saw him, my friends saw him, and even some of the teachers saw him, and to the students that were familiar with the language department rumors, we knew something was up…And then the situation occurred, and within the last hour of that disgraceful day, the whole student body knew, along with the district and administrators. For crying out loud, the kid ate and ate and ate, and would not stop until he was assured that he could bring himself to the point of deliberate regurgitation. It may sound a little too far out there to you, but people can physically and mentally make themselves ruminate. It is possible. The student is a jerk, I know from interaction. He had planned all of this from the getgo, it is just that he did not reckon it would and could go this far. He has never shown any true remorse for anything in times that remorse is demanded or at least appropriate, and I back my school and school district 100% with their actions of prosecution and expulsion. This type of deliquency has been stated in the school hand book since day one, along with the consequences they may bring. If you let one person get by with something, then everybody else is going to think that they can get by with it, so just nip it in the bud, and that is what Dr.Poss and OSD233 and OSD is trying to do, but with people who do not, cannot, and will not try to understand the situation, it just makes it harder, not only on the position, but also on the students, especially the ones who try and always represent Olathe Northwest in a positive light during the darkest of times. Thanks to all of you who think and say that we, as a unified district, are doing something immoral and wrong. Thanks for making it harder than it would be. Thanks for making the problem even more twisted and corrupt with your version of how this scene played out. Thanks for being cruel and misleading. Your wrongdoing is just as bad as his. A law broken is a law broken, and if you cannot live with the penalty then maybe you should not have had done the crime. An infraction of a law is an infraction of a law, and what does an infraction mean? An infraction means a MISDEMEANOR and that is also known as a CRIME. Remember the saying, “If you can’t do the time, then don’t do the crime.”? Senior Young has every right as a teacher, as a man, as a human being, and I am behind him completely. This contravention cannot go by unseen; times have changed since Columbine, since integration, since depressions; times have changed since you went to school; times have changed and are continuing to do so. You cannot compare your childhood and education to mine or his. BOTTOMLINE:: IT WAS INTENTIONAL AND AN ABOMBINATION…picture yourself in Senior’s shoes, replaying that awful situation, what would you do? What would you do, you cowards? Especially if you knew the kid like Senior and knew what this student was capable of and still tried to help as much as he had tried to help this student. You all are scum to believe a low-life jerk like this student, rather than finding out the whole truth. You have no right to misrepresent my school, my district, my adminstration, or my teacher this way. Senior Young has done nothing but help the students yet he gets treated like this. Do you realize that ambiguous, evasive, and deceptive accusations inwhich you are so boldly implying, can lead to an even more harsh reality, where sucide and thoughts relating to, are contemplated? This may seem dramatic, but it is true. Belive it or not, you all are tormenting a great man and puting him through so much, that he may end up being the “bad guy” you all seem to be calling him. I guess Fitzgerald was right, society is corrupt and good cannot always defeat evil in the eyes of the world.
Respectfully,
Lesley
Proud Olathe Northwest Student : Class of ‘06
PS. Yes, I am a high school student, but that does not mean I am any higher or lower than you. If you feel I have offended you in any way, then you can fight me on this but just be prepared to lose, because you cannot fight the truth.
Well, I suppose that answers the “can you vomit on purpose?” question. I hope Lesley can understand our previous incredulity, as 11 pizzas in 30 minutes is something even my craziest acquaintances would never try, and so it never occurred to me, at least, as a way to purposely vomit. As the case turns on whether the vomiting was purposeful, I hope that Lesley, having understood our previous incredulity, understands our vitriol against the school, which, if the vomiting had indeed been accidental, would have been perfectly justified. (Also, the article contained no reference to this plan of the student’s, at which, now that I know of its existence, I am surprised–it seems just the thing an article ought to include).
Wow, Leslie, your 1200-word tirade (with several typos) really leads me to believe that you are ONE ANGRY PERSON! Did school do this to you? Did your school teach you to hurl insults at people who have opinions based on the information that they were presented? Or was that your parents?
“You have no right to misrepresent my school, my district, my adminstration, or my teacher this way” - guess what? You’re wrong. Sweetie, it’s called the First Amendment - we DO have the RIGHT to voice our opinion in a public place. Your school is probably making sure that you dont KNOW your rights, based on what you said.
If you have a problem with what is being said about your school and favorite teachers, and want to do something about it, you have two choices: Don’t listen to/read it, or take your gripes to the media that are reporting what you view to be inaccurate information. Your tirade isn’t going to do anything here on this board, except perhaps make you feel (temporarily) better. Use your anger and your energy to direct it at the right people. But I suggest you don’t hurl insults at the reporters and call them “scum” like you did the posters on this board, or you will continue to get nowhere, and continue your vicious frustrated/angry cycle.
Lesley: The article we relied on did not mention many of the things you did. I would not have imagined in a million years that someone would plan and eat eleven pizzas to purposely vomit on someone, but based on your statements, I now think differently.
As far as schools being judged: There are so many bad judgement calls by school officials these last few years, browse through this site and see if you’re as enraged as you are about your school and teacher being misunderstood, that it’s very easy to believe that your school was just another school over-reacting.
I applaud your loyalty, and hope you learn forgiveness of those that react to what they believe is a harsh punishment for what appeared to be a minor infraction (based off of the originating news report).
Leslie: Did any of your teachers ever mention something called a “paragraph”?
11 pizzas? That’s flatly impossible. Gastrophiles in competition can’t consume a fraction of that. It’s a simple measure of volume.
Perhaps you meant slices? Or 11 of those rectangular pieces of cardboard with spaghetti sauce and cheese that the school lunchrooms insist on calling pizza?
But that’s really irrelevant. Filing criminal charges for a scholastic behavior issue is ridiculous. Say he did vomit intentionally on the teacher. Isn’t the expulsion that was already handed down a sufficient punishment?
This school system has the hallmarks of picking and choosing their rights and responsibilities per in locis parenti, ignoring it when convenient or when they are offended by the children in their charge.
Lesley-we based our comments solely on the article and NO WHERE does it state that this student gorged himself on a bunch of pizza beforehand. If that’s true, then I believe it was probably intentional, but how do you expect us to react without all the facts? Did you actually read the article we were basing our comments on or just decide to go off on a tangent on your own? I think the latter was probably what happened because if you had read the article then you would have been aware that we were not told anything about the alledged pizza eating. You’re just as guilty of jumping to conclusions as we are.
The record for pizza eating owned by Sonya Thomas is 6 1/2 “SLICES” of 24″ cheese pizza in 15 minutes and You want us to beleive that this Kid at 11 full pizzas in less than 45 minutes. where did he get all the Pizza. Look Lesley Im not saying that he didnt do on purpose, He mvery well may have. I Have met people that can vomit almost at will. any way you cut it, expulson AND criminal charges seem to me to be an overreaction. I dont think, and I could be wrong, that vomiting is considered fighting in your schools code of conduct.
Leslie, I think you’re overreacting.
First of all, it’s impossible to eat 11 pizzas. The point that is being driven here was that the school completely took things out of proportion by filing criminal charges against the student. Expulsion I can understand if he did it on purpose. That much is feasable.
However, look at it in this light - if we are to believe you, you are making me doubt personally, since you state that the guy is a jerk. The way you talk about him and the way you seem to praise your teacher is showing an overwhelming amount of bias here. Again, you bring this talk about 11 pizzas? Wow, where’s guiness? This kid definately needs to go on record.
Also, thank you for calling us all scum. If you took some time to get off your pedestal, you’d see that we are questioning some of it, such as his act being on purpose or purely caused by stress and not being able to help it.
Also note: we’re not necesarily calling your AWESOME teacher “evil”. We’re saying people overreacted. We’re saying the policy is f’ed up. Be proud of your school, but be careful where that pride gets you.
Also: learn how to break paragraphs down. Hot damn.
That whole post reeks of Too Much Effort. Look into it and i’ll bet that it was made by the school and not a student.
Shadowe, I considered that too. Too many big words for a Junior in government high school.
Will you guys give Leslie a break? You get on this board and slam everyone from teachers, to administrators to the highest government officials you can think of, and now you are trying to slam a STUDENT who is trying to express her views and opinions of this situation; a situation, by-the-way, that she appears to have more insight and exposure to than anyone else here. Now last time I checked this site was about protecting the RIGHTS of STUDENTS. But from the reaction to this young lady I guess I’m going to have to modify that to “protecting the rights of students as long as they are being expelled, handcuffed, or otherwise mistreated and are just as bitter and pissed off about everything as we are.”
If you want students to be free to have as many rights and as much of an opinion as the supposed adults in this country then you need to be prepared to have young people who’s ideas clash with yours.
If you really have a problem with what this girl is saying then sit down and talk about it in a rational manner. Don’t complain about paragraph breaks and spelling. Especially don’t complain about how poorly the post was written, which “obviously” means that the student is of a sub-par intellect, while saying that there are too many big words, so it couldn’t have been written by a student anyway. I’m sure everyone here was an intellectual giant at 17, but let’s cut the rest of the population some slack, k?
If you really want to help shape the future of America’s youth, don’t start with calling for widespread education reform and mass firings of conservative educators, start with setting a good example with your thoughts and actions for today’s youth. If the youth of today see that we can have a world in which everyone has their own opinion, and that those opinions are respected, then just maybe they will grow up to be the educators and reformers that we need for tomorrow.
Show respect = Earn respect, it’s that simple.
p.s. If someone had called me “sweetie” in such a nasty and disrespectful tone, even when I was 17, they would have received at least a slap to the face, if not some pepper spray and a few well placed kicks. Even us intellectual giants have our moments.
Jessica, you’re missing the entire point here.
It’s not that we just mindlessly slam people - we often question some articles ourselves, and, let’s not kid ourselves here, ZT was written and enforced by extremists, and the administration is more than happy to take it into their schools to relieve them of *some* pressure. We’re pissed off at such ludicrous things.
Now about Leslie? Like hell I’ll give her a break. She called us scum, evil, and tried her best to make us all seem like we’re retarded. We can’t “sit down and have a rational talk” - screw that. she’s obviously set in her ways. The paragraphs not being broken was annoying as hell, she should know better.
Her bias was pretty obvious. She has the right to voice her opinions, and if she just said “well, he’s just a jerk and I believe he was planning it from the onset, the teacher is a good person.” then that would’ve been fine. Everyone’s reaction to it would’ve been different.
Otherwise, she just seemed to be up in a golden pedestal here, looking down on us all, “sweetie”.
Tori,
You make a wrong assumption when you say “Too many big words for a Junior in government high school.” The same wrong assumption that many of my daughter’s teachers made when she was in school. You remind me of the many teachers that she had that accused her of not writing her own papers. Sorry to go off subject, it just irritates me as I have seen this assumption made alot on this website when “students” write comments. It always angered me when I had to go to school and explain that yes she did write her own papers. I never amended my speech with “baby words” when she was growing up and she has always had an excellent vocabulary. Maybe you should give these students some benefit of the doubt.
Gina, you could be right. I had a large vocabulary in high school myself. I ended up becoming a writer. That said, I have seen school staffers mentioned in original articles posted on this board enter the comments area and try and come off as one of the students. It’s pathetic. I guess it was my way of trying to flush yet another one out. I’ll use a different tactic next time.
Jessica, all I can say is “Wow!” Your rant was almost as long as Lesley’s. You sound like you are as angry of a person as she is, too. ” If someone had called me “sweetie” in such a nasty and disrespectful tone, even when I was 17, they would have received at least a slap to the face, if not some pepper spray and a few well placed kicks.” You really do need to get off of your high horse. Part of problem with written communication is that it can be taken in different ways. Calling her sweetie may have been condescending, but wasn’t meant to be nasty. But to state that you would be violent because somebody calls you “Sweetie”? I’m almost speechless. Now you may take this any way you want: Are you practicing to become one of those feminazi chicks who cries sexual harassment if somebody looks at you wrong? Calling somebody sweetie should NOT be a cause for even a call for violence. I have to wonder where you learned that was okay. School or parents?
Tori, whoever said that violence is never the answer is living in a dream world. If you insult someone to their face then you should be prepared for their reaction. (And yes, insulting someone is “nasty”. I’m assuming you thought I was talking about the sexual connotations of the word “nasty”, but no Ms. Jackson, I was talking about the malicious and offensive undertones of the act.)
If someone is horrible enough to insult another person, then what makes you think that they posses the sensitivity to actually care when they say something like “You hurt my feelings, you are not a nice person,” to them? They already know they aren’t a nice person, you aren’t telling them something new. They don’t care. Now if you insult someone and they slap you, you’re likely to care enough (even if it is about your own face) to think twice before insulting them again.
To answer your question; no, I am not “practicing to become one of those feminazi chicks who cries sexual harassment if somebody looks at you wrong?” I’m actually a rather accomplished workplace flirt. I am a regularly published satirical columnist and the only female in my office. I think that women (and men for that matter) that can’t take a joke or distinguish between threatening advances and playful ones need to get a grip. Of course this didn’t stop me from “spilling” my cosmopolitan on the creep who wouldn’t leave me alone at a recent industry function. I actually received applause for that.
I don’t think anyone taught me to react when insulted; it must just be one of those areas I am naturally gifted in.That’s not to say I’m going to go around beating up everyone that hurts my feelings, but there are some instances where it is completely justified. Honestly, everyone should have enough sense to know what an appropriate reaction to others boorishness is and when it would be better just to ignore the person.
“Honestly, everyone should have enough sense to know what an appropriate reaction to others boorishness is and when it would be better just to ignore the person.”
Violence to being called sweetie is definitely boorishness. And that, Jessica, is why I will, from this point forward, ignore you.
Jessica,
I’ve got to agree with Tori here. Your expectation of violence to a simple insult is evidence of a serious lack of maturity. Have you no other means to display your contempt for others?
Many women believe that it’s acceptable to hit a man if he upsets her, but that it’s not acceptable for him to hit her if she hits him first. I don’t know if you fall into that group or not, but it sounds to me as if you do. Following your logic, since your position upsets me, I should be able to hit you in the face and be perfectly justified.
Please re-think (or think for the first time on…) your position. It could save you a lot of trouble, and…if the situation is handled properly, jail time.
For the rest…Leslie completely lacks credibility…as reported above and linked below:
http://sonyatheblackwidow.com/_wsn/page2.html
- June 19, 2004, Chicago, Illinois, Bacci World Pizza-Eating Championship: 6 1/2 extra large “slices” of 24″ Cheese Pizza in 15 minutes.
It sounds as if she has an agendum against this student. If she’s willing to lie about the pizza, who knows what else she’s willing to lie about.
Sub
Have you ever seen what passes for a “pizza” in schools? They are little rectangles about the size of a DVD case. You can also buy them by the box at certain stores. How do I know this you might ask? After seeing so many adults call a harmless high school student a liar without so much as batting an eye, I decided to conduct my own little experiment. I went to the local shopping club establishment and bought a box of pepperoni “school pizzas.*” Could it be done? Could one person really eat 11 of these pizzas in 30 minutes? I was about to find out.
I then did what every woman who says she never feels loved or appreciated should do at least once in her life; I walked into a houseful of guys with a box of pizza and a smile. I told my fiancée that I had a challenge for him and I started to warm up the oven. Once I had told him the back story he told me to put the squares in the microwave instead. The pizza at his school would never have been baked before serving. We zapped all 16 pizzas and I got the kitchen timer. 21 minutes and 9 pizzas later my fiancée stopped because he did in fact feel like he was going to throw-up, and given that the intent of the experiment was only to see if the pizzas could reasonably be eaten in 30 minutes, I didn’t object. Of course 10-minutes later he was coming back for more food.
Based on this experiment I can tell you that it does seem pretty reasonable that this kid ate 11 pizzas in 30 minutes. Especially if he had an underhanded reason to be eating like that and needed to get as much pizza down before lunch was over as he possibly could.
What this kid did is not only disgusting, but in most states considered assault. If someone got mad at you and went and took a crap on your car, I’m willing to bet you would be calling the police. Why should this teacher not be able to seek justice? I recall a couple of years back a case where inmates in a jail urinated into cups and threw them at guards when the entered their cell-block. These men were charged with assault and rightfully so. I say take little Johnny to court, even if it is just to make him apologize to the teacher. Kids that abuse the education system and what sounds like a great teacher need to learn that they aren’t always going to be protected by “he’s just a kid.” It’s time to grow up.
*[If you all decide to up and call me a liar because you’ve never heard of such a thing then let me tell you the specifics; the brand is Mama Rosa’s, there are about 16 of these pizzas in the box (a whopping 4 1/2 lbs of pizza) and they cost $4.99 but include a $1.00 coupon.]
It sounds like your husband should be on the food eating compeition circit. I am not going to call you a liar your husband may have acomplished the feat if he did congrats.
Did he have to return to the line for more pizza and wait for every one else. And what about the kids who helped him, at my school you could by up to three lunches, but you only got on piece of pizza per trip or one burger or lasagna ect.
so at least from what I know he would have had to get others in on it to bring him their food.
While it is a remote possibility the kid managed to do it it is far more likly Lesley, is drasticly exagerating the truth or flat out lying.
I dont know if the boy did it intentionaly or not, I dont really care, pressing charges is overboard it should be handled as a disiplinary matter at worst. The charges are as petty as the act(If it was intentional). And if it was intentional removal from the class and perhaps a loss of grade would be more than suffiant.
Some observations:
-Nowhere does Lesley specify the diameter of the pizzas. I could easily consume 11 4″ personal pizzas of the type often offered by concessions.
Also, regarding that record “Sonya Thomas is 6 1/2 “SLICES” of 24″ cheese pizza in 15 minutes”
I could easily exceed that at one continuous binge, although maybe not in 15 minutes. I’ve eaten 10 slices of a 18″ pizza, with sausage, and had room for more, and that was 16 hours before running my first marathon. The time period Lesley stated was 30 minutes. Thus,
there’s no strict gastronomic principle standing in the way of Lesley’s credibility.
-Numerous lawsuits have effectively blown away the contention that the school’s own expulsion process meets any constitutional standard for due process - in the case of criminal action, where the student disputes the actual facts of the offense, a criminal trial is the only meaningful benchmark.
-Jim, if he did indeed intentionally vomit on another person, criminal charges are absolutely appropriate. He doused another person with a biohazardous material. Certain punk rock stars used to intentionally vomit in public, but never on another person, and if they had, they’d have been charged with assault as well.
-A high school student who knows how to use such vocabulary would also know about paragraphs, proper sentence structure, and punctuation, so some people’s suspicions are not ill-founded.
- I can vomit on queue, with both hands behind my back (mother always said it’s nice to have a skill.)
We don’t think that the post was fake because of her vocabulary. That would be stupid. What isn’t stupid is thinking that the post might not be a student at all because of several factors. The vocab alone could possibly be a student, but notice how she seems to “slip” now and then and suddenly sounds much older. Also the lack of paragraphs but abundance of proper capitalization. It’s harder to upcap something than it is to smack the enter key. Then theres the terrible insults. Any real student that pissed would know how to swear properly and fork over REAL insults. Overall ithe post seems like something written by someone who is very familiar with the concept but has never really understood it.
And has anyone gotten back with a traceroute yet?
Here’s the gig…I don’t see a single slice of school pizza and call it a pizza. I call it a slice of pizza.
A pizza is an entire pie, from baked edge to baked edge. It is not a piece cut from that. I worked for a pizza place for four and a half years - trust me, slice != pie.
If someone ate five slices of pie, would you say they ate five pies? What if those slices came in individually wrapped containers?
No…they’re still slices.
So…at the very least, she was being…perhaps inaccurate. At the most, she was flat out lying to make her point.
Ultimately though, it still stinks like…stuff.
Sub
Sub, school pizzas don’t come in slices, they come in little rectangles and are called “pizzas” not “pizza slices.” Check your grocer’s freezer and look for the little rectangle or square pizzas. On the back the nutritional information will be labeled “per pizza” not “per pizza slice.” At your school you may have had actual sliced pizza, but for many people this wasn’t the case. At my school we didn’t have pizza, sliced or otherwise. Does that mean that I’m going to go around accusing everyone that talks about pizza a liar? Well no, that would just be silly.
Shadowe, heaven forbid someone should try to write a post that sounds mature and does it without hurling words that would make a sailor or your mama blush. To me the post sounded exactly what a post written by an intelligent, albeit young, person who is angry yet still trying to hang onto some level of respectability should sound like. My mother has taught for years at private schools and in reading compositions by high-schoolers I’ve come across a lot of the same toggling back and forth between an underdeveloped writing style and well composed and well thought out phrasing. How many of these letters do you suppose Lesley has written in her life? In my undergrad days I took several creative non-fiction writing classes. Our very first assignment in one of them was to write a letter of complaint expressing how angry we were over something (a product, a service, etc.) and then justifying our anger. There were many people in the class that just couldn’t do it because they had never written anything of the sort in their lives. Just because someone isn’t swearing to high heaven and isn’t behaving the exact way the stereotypes say they should doesn’t mean they are being untruthful.
Travis, he’s my fiancé, not my husband. Hence he lives at a different house with roommates and I had to go visit him to bring him pizza. And I don’t really find it that amazing that he could eat that much in one sitting. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure I can find guys in our circle of friends that could eat much more. I’m not sure how old you are or what your situation is, but if you ever get the chance to go hang out with a bunch of mid-twenties, graduate students or postgraduates then you should. I guarantee the experience would be enlightening. These guys are in a perpetual state of starvation… except for when they’ve eaten something their moms cook. It’s a phenomenon I’ve yet to explain.
Sub, one of the largest pizza companies in the world, Pizza Hut, has, as one of their best selling products, a “Personal Pan Pizza.” It is a round, baked edge to baked edge, SINGLE SERVING pizza.
Notice that the other day, a rather small woman consumed 49 Nathan’s hot dogs in 12.5 minutes to win their annual contest, and she kept it down.
Clearly, some people here have unrealistically low estimates of what can be consumed at a single sitting.
I go to Olathe Northwest, and was in the class where the student vomited on the teacher. First of all we do have REAL NORMAL SIZED PIZZA slices from Papa John’s Pizza. Secondly, this kid braged about his ability to vomit on command and about vomiting on the teacher at the end of the year. He then did it, and yes it was gross. Afterwords he endulged in telling his friends about the event and this is when he was arrested and charged. He deserves what he is getting, and if a teacher hated me enough to vomit on me as a studnet they should be charged with assualt and fired. I have no pitty for this kid, and he is getting exactly what he deserves.
—p.s. If someone had called me “sweetie” in such a nasty and disrespectful tone, even when I was 17, they would have received at least a slap to the face, if not some pepper spray and a few well placed kicks. Even us intellectual giants have our moments.—-
As a feminist, the proper term for a woman who says such things is ‘bitch’.
The kid may have been a jerk, and deserve to be knocked down a peg.
But that’s no reason to punish him twice. Isn’t double jeopardy against the law anyway?
It looks like the punishment is fitting in this case. He was sentenced to cleaning up police cars that people have vomitted in, according to msnbc.com.
As is almost always the case on this board, a case is presented without all the information needed to make an informed decision about the punishment.
But that doesn’t keep you anti-public school, anti-teacher, anti-administration types from getting all angry at how awful the perpetrator of the action was treated. The way you treated the student who wrote the long reply was also awful.
Perhaps before you jump on stupid administration (and I also believe that much administrative action is stupid) you will at least make an effort to find out what actually happened before taking, very predictably, a side. You should. Much of what we need to know about these incidents we will never know because by law student records are (and should remain) private.
The only way we can know for sure what happened is if someone who was actually there tells us and even then it may not be correct. In this case you pirhanas kept biting even after the court information was given that 2 students testified in court that the vomitting was planned ahead of time and the “perp” admitted that to friends both before and after the fact.
The kid needs help. The teacher shouldn’t have to put up with that humiliating experience. The students who have written to this board have shown much more understanding and sympathy to another human being than you guys have.
barry
BArry you sound like a broken record. I think it became prefectly clear that many people on this sight had different oppinions on what eating eleven pizzas meant. Little school lunch pizzas may very well be do able. It is my belief the school should have kept the law out of it.
But Barry really you should take a look in the mirror we are not all that different. Yes we may ignorantly jump the gun but that is part about what is great about this system. You too Blindly ignorantly and for the most part always side with the admin, thats fine thats your right. power to you. And you are more than welcome to fault us just as I fault you.
I am not anti Public school, I think they are great Idea. We just need to find a system that is going to every child the best chance of success, the system we have is a failure, for many reasons. Personaly I think one of the biggest problems is teachers like you with superiority complexes, and respect for the students in your class.
Granted that is an opinion I formed with out ever meeting and based only on what I have read on this site. The fact that you disagree with us is great it gives us another view. even if it is as prejudical if not more that our view.
As a rule, I’m opposed to criminalizing (meaning - filing criminal charges) misbehavior in schools, unless it’s of a truly serious nature(bringing a gun to school, beating the crap out of a teacher, etc).
That being said, I believe that the sentence given to the kid was an appropriate one, assuming that the act was truly premeditated. At least the judge had the presence of mind to give a creative punishment that fit the crime, rather than ruin the rest of his life with a criminal record.
It may be difficult to determine if such an act was premeditated, but if the kid did indeed brag about it later, he didn’t win himself any points in front of the court. Sounds to me like he probably hung himself.
The school where I used to teach sold individual pizzas to students. They came in separate boxes of individual servings. It’s not unreasonable to assume that this school serves the same sort of pizza.
I’ve known plenty of people who can vomit on command without gorging themselves beforehand. Some use thier fingers, some didn’t have to.
What’s more, there may be addition information about this kid that we don’t know and have know right to know, but could play a role in a criminal charge for vomit on someone. Vomit is a body fluid. Body fluids can carry diseases — often serious diseases. If someone who carries the AIDs virus, or a strain of hepatitus vomited on me, I’d consider assault.
Having been in a town excoriated in the media (and by people on this site) because the full story wasn’t out there and even remotely fair partial story came weeks after the article that caused a media frenzy, now I’m doubly skeptical when I read a lot of this type of information. I can’t help but feel that something’s been left out — either by purpose, neglect, or the fact that the information is within an individual’s expectation of privacy (especially for things related to minors). I used to work in the media but found the ethics of a large majority of my colleagues falling rapidly — not in order to “get the story” but in order to make the biggest bang. Now I’m a teacher — it’s given me a whole new perspective. I don’t agree with many of the zero tolerance rules (I worry when my kids bring in Star Wars light saber toys to use as swords when they act out Romeo and Juliet because I’m afraid some fool will flip out over “weapons”. Zero Tolerance has reached ridiculous stages.) Still, teaching has given me a very different perspective. And unfortunately, I find less and less to trust about the media.
“I think one of the biggest problems is teachers like you with …respect for the students in your class.”
Care to clarify why a teacher with *gasp* respect for his students is a problem?
Sorry It should with no respect for Bla bla bla. wow I really should have proof read that before I posted it.
Tori, Travis, and Sub…
hmm…where do I begin?…
-”Wow, Leslie, your 1200-word tirade (with several typos)…” -Tori
- First of all, it’s Lesley…and second of all, you are one of the last people to complain about typos…
-”Shadowe, I considered that too. Too many big words for a Junior in government high school.”
- Was that some ploy to insult me in some way? If it was, sorry, it didn’t work out that way…It basically just told me that you were the imprudent one and possibly a Maoist. (Sorry, that might have been too big of a word and may have sounded too intelligent for a high school student…)
-I said,… “You all are scum to believe a low-life jerk like this student, rather than finding out the whole truth…” You replied,”…But I suggest you don’t hurl insults at the reporters and call them “scum” like you did the posters on this board, or you will continue to get nowhere, and continue your vicious frustrated/angry cycle.”
- Do you see the difference? Let me point it out to you in verbal mathematics…”scum” = believers of the vomiting low-life…so, not necessarily you, but those who decide to believe half of a story, also known as propaganda, something you, of all people should know about since you are all about anti-government.(..That is how you have portrayed yourself here)
- Ok, so here you are also trying to tell me that I am just some kid whose parents tell me what to do, say, and think…riiiight..well, for your information, I happen to be a “kid” who just happens to have a brain and can think for themselves…Apparently, you believe that the condensed information that had been presented to you, held all the truth and did not manage to look any further…lazy maybe?…You should really stop stereotyping.
-”Jessica, all I can say is “Wow!” Your rant was almost as long as Lesley’s. You sound like you are as angry of a person as she is, too.”
- So, now days, if you have an opinion based on pathos or logos, you are suddenly an “angry” person..? Well, I guess that makes us just as angry as you…And “feminazi”? Try again.
-”It sounds as if she has an agendum against this student. If she’s willing to lie about the pizza, who knows what else she’s willing to lie about.” -Sub-
-I really could have cared less about this student up until recently…And, watch what you imply, rather than just trying to stir something up.
-”While it is a remote possibility the kid managed to do it it is far more likly Lesley, is drasticly exagerating the truth or flat out lying.”-Travis-
- You really think that I am trying to hyperbolize this situation? Please, it does not need any exagerating, be au fait with the whole story, which seemed to be with-held from you at the time.
-”Otherwise, she just seemed to be up in a golden pedestal here, looking down on us all, “sweetie”.”- Dan
- Me? On a pedestal? I think you may have been mistaken. I’m just speaking out and fighting for not only my reputation, but that of my school’s. You really don’t have to be so chauvinistic, “sweetie”.
-About all the paragraphs, or lack there of…(eg. “-A high school student who knows how to use such vocabulary would also know about paragraphs, proper sentence structure, and punctuation, so some people’s suspicions are not ill-founded.”-dweeb-)
- I apologize if I misunderstood or angered you all, but I had no idea that I was supposed to write that all out in MLA format?!
-Sherrie, thanks for communicating in such a mature manner, really.
-Shadowe…I’m an actual student, not a high school…maybe that’s something you could look into…
Thanks Barry, CJ, Gina, Jessica, and Tina; thanks for standing up and speaking out, even if it meant being verbally bashed, which it appears you all took so well.
-”If you want students to be free to have as many rights and as much of an opinion as the supposed adults in this country then you need to be prepared to have young people who’s ideas clash with yours.”
- Thank you.
And since we all seem to agree that we can express our own opinions in a public place (The First Amendment), then it should be no problem to hear all of this, especially from me, a high school student, since I’ve taken all this drivel and twaddle from these people that do not even know me. Although, I must say, if any of you were trying to hurt me or prove how far superior you are to me, you still failed. And the only reason I am posting this is because I felt I had to justify and stand up for myself.
-Lesley-
p.s. This comment is only about 1,570 words long…for those who are counting.
I am also a student at Olathe Northwest. I am friends with Lesley, but I am also friends with the “kid” who vomited on Senor Young. I know that he can be a jerk sometimes, but he can also be very nice if he wants to. I never heard him say anything about planning to vomit on Senor Young, but I would assume that he did. I will admit that I didn’t like Senor Young either. He got on my nerves and he had absolutely no control over his classes, at least not the one I was in. He used to bribe us with donuts, just trying to get us to be quiet. I don’t want to offend Lesley or go against anything she says, but I do like the student that is in so much trouble. I agree with the school for expelling him, but I don’t think they should have pressed charges.
I will tell a short story about something that happened to me this last year at Olathe Northwest just to show people how the administrators can be.
One day before school a student, somebody that I know but am not especially friends with, came up to me and pulled me down the hall to talk. By the end of the day we had both been called into the office because the SRO saw what happened on the video cameras. The administrators completely overreacted and, to make a long story short, the other student was charged with sexual harrassment. He had a court date, but the court didn’t punish him in any way because my parents and I kept telling everybody that it was no big deal. He ended up getting in a lot of trouble at school for absolutely no reason.
Maybe if that hadn’t happened to me this year I would agree more with Lesley, but I am really good friends with the student that vomitted on Senor Young, and I’ve seen how unreasonable our administration can be.
Lesley;
Hey why didnt I get my own Paragraph. you didnt quote me.
I could be wrong Lesley, But I dont thik any one was trying to insult you I know I wasnt. You like your school thats great, It is also a Bias. I hate the way most public schools are run Thats a bais too. I really enjoyed your first post, It gave me somthing to do(I ran right out to see if the pizza thing was possible. I can eat let me tell you but not that many Pizzas it didnt occur to me think school pizza or personal pizza.
Even though the judges punishment is quite fitting I still think that both school and legal punishmet is over board.
I recently read a news account about a guy who covertly put urine in his co-workers’ beverages. He was fired from his job and charged with a crime. Is this overboard Travis? I don’t think so. The evidence came out in court. This kid threw up on the teacher intentionally. He has no business in that school and criminal charges were appropriate. If you don’t think so, perhaps we can get together so I can intentionally barf on you.
Right, let’s just threaten other people. That’s a good way to make a point. Have you ever taken a class on persuasive writing Dan?
I understand what a school pizza looks like. I went to school for a long time myself. Pizzas made by a school are typically made in a retangular pan that is about 24″x36″ pan. The crust is approximately 1/2 inch thick, and it’s very doughy.
I think I’ve established that I know what school pizza is.
Now - as they are not usually cooked in individual 5″x8″ pans, that would tend to indicate that the larger pizza is cut up into smaller individual servings. That would make the individual servings ’slices’.
Further, another person has come in here and said they go to that school and that these are in fact regular sliced pizzas. That would further tend to indicate that we’re seeing a certain level of direct or intellectual dishonesty on the part of the previous poster.
I believe that my point has been made.
Sub
Oh for heaven’s sake the debate over “is it a slice or is it a pizza” is really getting old. From what I can see you can’t go by anyones own school experience to determine this. The school I work at serves those 5″x8″ pizzas, but ours are not sliced that way. They actually come that way from the manufacturer. So I guess it would be considered a pizza but I consider it a slice. Anyway what I am trying to say is that I think the “slice or whole pizza” thing is a matter of each of our own personal opinion.