I was sure I’d written about this when it happened, but a search of the archives says otherwise. Some months back, a girl was disciplined for violating a public school’s dress code because she wore a denim skirt and socks with a picture of Tigger on them. The dress code was instituted by the school in an effort to reduce gang-related violence by prohibiting denim, multi-colored clothing, and solid colors outside of a fairly narrow set of choices.
Expecting gang members to avoid gang-related activities simply because they are no longer allowed to wear what they would otherwise wear seems far-fetched. If I were running a gang, I would simply find some other indicator that doesn’t violate the policy but still allows my gang members to identify each other. Disciplining children who violate the policy who are clearly not wearing clothes that are some kind of gang marker is just asinine - a simple note home reiterating the dress code should be sufficient.
The school, in Napa, California, has since found itself in a legal battle with the ACLU. The lawsuit seeks to eliminate the dress code altogether as a violation of First Amendment free speech rights. I doubt that a dress code enforced in a more realistic manner would have necessarily triggered such a lawsuit. In all likelihood, the dress code will be going away.
More details on this update can be found in the San Jose Mercury News.
Paul Clinton of the Daily Breeze reports on an elementary school’s narrow avoidance of a horror only a step shy of another Virginia Tech massacre. Shortly before fifth-grade graduation at the Cornerstone School at Pedregal, the administration discovered that eleven students were planning on bringing military weapons to the event. Fortunately, the safety of the children attending was assured by prompt and decisive action on the part of Principal Denise Leonard (leonardd@mail.pvpusd.k12.ca.us.)
The students were required to clip off the ends of the weapons with scissors. You see, the dangerous weapons were those carried by little green army men mounted, in Cornerstone School tradition, on the mortarboards of the graduating fifth-graders.
Leonard’s diligence helped prevent a major incident in keeping with the school’s zero tolerance policies on weapons and administrative intelligence.
Pair of 8th graders held in toy gun incident at Farb
Two fourteen year old students at Farb Middle School in the San Diego Unified School District were arrested yesterday for possession of a toy Airsoft gun. A caller reported seeing one of the eighth graders hand a gun to the other as they left their bus.
All of the pupils who had ridden the bus were questioned and two 14- year-old teens were ultimately taken into custody in the school counselor’s office.
They will be released to their parents and are likely to be expelled under the district’s zero tolerance policy, [District spokesman Steven] Baratte said.
This expulsion attempt will occur despite possession of imitation weapons being classified as an offense punishable only by suspension in the school’s discipline policy . By contrast the district policy for suspension doesn’t deal with imitation weapons at all. In order to be expelled according to district policy a student would not only have to posses an actual weapon but would also have to use it.
So here we have a school district that had two students arrested for a legal activity and is expected to expel them for something they don’t classify as an offense. Even the stricter policy at the school level only calls for a suspension. They are enforcing a zero tolerance weapons policy that does not even exist.
Contact information:
SUSD School Board
SUSD Spokesman Steven Baratte
Principal Susan Levy
Teacher accused of more harassment
Updated 31 March 2005: Megan Camacho expelled, complaints of harassment discarded.
Updated 18 April 2005: Warren retires after being cleared by school. Details at bottom of post.
Seventh-grader Megan Camacho, a student at Ethel Kucera Middle School in the Rialto School District, got into an oral argument with her teacher George Warren. She was suspended and now faces an expulsion. Megan was fed up by a pattern of sexual harassment by Warren and lost her temper.
Since Megan’s accusation, other girls have come forward as well.
Megan said Warren also stared at girls’ chests and bare legs. Warren is on paid administrative leave while the Rialto Unified School District investigates the claims.
…
Lydia Garcia said Warren would whistle and howl at her 12-year-old daughter.
…
Carlos Yvonne Malone said her daughter was sexually harassed by Warren two years ago as an eighth-grade student at Kucera.
Malone said her daughter, now 15, complained about Warren’s behavior. Malone said Warren would rub her daughter’s shoulders and back, making the girl uncomfortable.
Malone said she spoke to Warren about his behavior and he stopped touching her daughter but continued his behavior with other girls in her class.
(more…)
Boy Suspended For Wearing Makeup?
Wiccan student suspended
James Herndon, a student at Pacific High School in the San Bernardino City Unified School District, was suspended for five days for wearing make-up.
Herndon says his black lipstick and red eye makeup express the Wiccan religious beliefs he shares with his mother, a priestess in the neo-pagan faith. He contends the suspension violates his constitutional right to free expression.
…
Herndon, who is repeating his second year at the school, has worn makeup since he enrolled, according to his mother, Valerie Wallace.
(more…)
Parents Protest Student Computer ID Tags
Updated 29 March 2005: Town forces radio tracking system out of school. Update at bottom of post.
Brittan Elementary School has new ID badges. Visible identification in schools is not a new concept but these badges are equipped with radio tracking transmitters. Many parents see this as an attack on basic liberties.
The badges introduced at Brittan Elementary School on Jan. 18 rely on the same radio frequency and scanner technology that companies use to track livestock and product inventory. Similar devices have recently been used to monitor youngsters in some parts of Japan.
…
“There is a way to make kids safer without making them feel like a piece of inventory,” said Michael Cantrall, one of several angry parents who complained. “Are we trying to bring them up with respect and trust, or tell them that you can’t trust anyone, you are always going to be monitored, and someone is always going to be watching you?”
Cantrall said he told his children, in the 5th and 7th grades, not to wear the badges. He also filed a protest letter with the board and alerted the ACLU.
(more…)
School’s ‘peace flag’ program is a new deterrent to campus violence
Rogers Middle School in the Moreland School District uses alternative punishments and a visual incentive to reduce violence on campus and keep kids in school.
Principal Gary Stebbins introduced the peace flag to the school on Feb. 28.
“Its purpose is to represent nonviolence,” Stebbins said.
When fights break out, he said, the offending students will be made to take the flag down, after which it will not be raised for a certain amount of time. The fighting students will then raise the flag “with a renewed spirit that they will not be involved in this activity again,” Stebbins said.
(more…)
Declaration of Independence Banned at Calif School
Is Declaration of Independence unconstitutional?
Updated 31 January 2005: Stevens Creek Parents speak out, offer clarification and information. (Details/commentary at bottom of post.)
Updated 30 November 2004: The lawsuit has been archived on The Smoking Gun.
The Declaration of Independence, various state constitutions, the diary of George Washington and the writings of John Adams and William Penn. These historical documents have been banned from the Cupertino Union School District because they contain some references to God and religion.
Steven Williams, a fifth-grade teacher at Stevens Creek School in the San Francisco Bay area suburb of Cupertino, sued for discrimination on Monday, claiming he had been singled out for censorship by principal Patricia Vidmar because he is a Christian.
“It’s a fact of American history that our founders were religious men, and to hide this fact from young fifth-graders in the name of political correctness is outrageous and shameful,” said Williams’ attorney, Terry Thompson.
(more…)
Pot arrest for Oakland schools official
Dan Siegel, school board member of the Oakland Unified School District, was caught on Tuesday with a quantity of marijuana while trying to travel from Oakland International Airport. Siegel is unapologetic and apparently unconcerned with his illegal actions.
“Yes, I use marijuana occasionally for stress,” Siegel said Wednesday, a day after he was caught with the marijuana. “It’s just a part of life.” He said he does not have a prescription for medicinal marijuana.
(more…)
Soccer star can return to school
Miguel Tanton was a soccer star at Cupertino High. He was a good student and looking forward to going to college with a scholarship. In November he went to pick a friend up at a dance and was frisked by an officer looking for a suspect in a recent armed robbery. He told the Sheriff’s Deputy about the pocketknife he carried. Things went downhill from there.
Tanton said he was nervous about walking through a dark alley, so he slipped a small knife with a 3 1/2-inch locking blade into his pocket, the same knife that he uses to cut string for macrame necklaces he makes for friends and family.
He never entered the gym where the dance was being held. Instead, he waited in the lobby and outside for a friend who was to accompany him home to watch a movie.
Just after 8:30 p.m., sheriff’s deputies investigating a nearby armed robbery found an individual who appeared to match the racial profile of the Latino suspect. It was Tanton, whose father is Caucasian and mother Filipino.
“I was just thinking, ‘Keep it cool and answer their questions,’ ” Tanton said. “They asked me if I had any weapons, and I said, ‘I have a pocket knife.’ “
Tanton was cited for possession of a weapon and released to his father.
(more…)
