2 Winona High students put free speech to the test
Emily Nixon (17) and Carrie Rethlefsen (18), students at Winona Senior High School in the Winona Area Public Schools, have found themselves in trouble for wearing buttons. The buttons say “I [heart] My Vagina” (inspired by the play “The Vagina Monologues”) and are “meant to spark discussion about violence against women, about women’s rights.” School officials determined that the buttons are offensive and have forbidden the girls from wearing them.
School leaders said that the pin is inappropriate and that the discomfort it causes trumps the girls’ right to free speech. The girls disagree. And despite repeated threats of suspension and expulsion, Rethlefsen has continued to wear her button.
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“We can’t really find out what is inappropriate about it,” Rethlefsen, 18, said of the button she wears to raise awareness about women’s issues. “I don’t think banning things like that is appropriate.”
Their case could become another test of whether high school students have the right to express their views in school. Charles Samuelson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, has offered to help the girls.
“It’s political speech,” he said.
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“Free speech is a messy thing,” Samuelson said. “People need to understand that opinions that they are not comfortable with, or even opinions they disagree with, need to be allowed.”
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10 Die in Minn. Student’s Shooting Rampage
Red Lake High School in the Red Lake Independent School District was the scene of an indredible trajedy yesterday. A student armed himself with guns and went on a murderous shooting spree. When all was said and done 10 people were dead.
A high school student went on a shooting rampage on an Indian reservation Monday, killing his grandparents at their home and then seven people at his school, grinning and waving as he fired, authorities and witnesses said. The suspect apparently killed himself after exchanging gunfire with police.
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In addition to the shooter, the death toll at the school included five students, a teacher and a security guard, FBI spokesman Paul McCabe said in Minneapolis. Among the dead was Neva Rogers, 62, a teacher at the school for five or six years, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.
As a federally subsidised school, Red Lake High has a zero tolerance policy against firearms.
I have elected to not post contact information with this post. Red Lake Net News has been overwhelmed with contacts and I can only imagine the school is in even worse shape.
(Tip credit to Jessie)
Students don T-shirts to protest new mascot
Updated 10 March 2005: School removes online forum for discussion of mascot issue. Henry Sibley students invited to ZI. Details at bottom of post.
Around 100 students at Henry Sibley High School in Independent School District 197 got a lesson on sensitivity toward stuffed costumes as well as cracking down on civil liberties. The students were reprimanded for showing support for an older school mascot.
About 100 Henry Sibley students on Monday wore T-shirts calling for the return of the Sibley Warriors’ old Indian mascot.
Students said they were informed they would be suspended during school today for failing to remove the shirts; Henry Sibley principal Beth Borgen said she knew of only one disciplinary case. Some parents are appealing to the district’s superintendent.
The shirts, designed and sold by a senior, call for a replacement of the Sibley Warriors’ knight mascot, introduced in 1999. The front, with the knight crossed out, reads: “Got warrior? We don’t.” The T-shirt’s back features the school’s old Indian logo with a slogan “Warrior Pride � 1954 to 2005.”
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Charges could be filed against high school student
Charges will not be filed against student
A senior at Cook County High School in the Cook County Independent School District discovered just how bad the system can be. He turned in a creative writing assignment that played on the title of Michael Moore’s “Bowling in Columbine”. When all was said and done he had been suspended and the police, Child Protective Services and the County Prosecutor had all been involved.
The incident developed from an essay the student had written for a creative writing class where he talked about the killings at Columbine High School in Colorado. �His writing raised the concern that he might be a danger to himself or other students or teachers at the school,� Hennessy said.
But the student�s mother said she is outraged by the incident. �He wrote a story for a creative writing class,� she said. �There were no boundaries set. It was written last fall.�
She said she, her son and family were shocked when the sheriff�s deputies knocked on their door last week and escorted him to the hospital in Duluth for observation.
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School Board investigates administrator
Shirley Moger, the superintendent of Climax-Shelly School, is in trouble. She recruited a 16 year-old student to help her nab some students who were dealing drugs. The sting went sour and the student was forced to imbibe 8 pills.
The drug in question, according to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, was Dramamine, an over-the-counter motion-sickness drug that can cause hallucinations in higher doses and, in some cases, lead to coma or death.
Moger’s amateur sting operation did result in the confiscation of two bottles of Dramamine and a package of cigarettes. But, during the sting, her young assistant said she was forced to put eight pills in her mouth, four times as much as an adult is supposed to take at any one time. The girl said she managed to fake swallow and later spit the pills out.
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Five Lakeville students expelled for violating school weapons policy
District 194 has a very firm zero tolerance policy to back up its all-inclusive weapons definition. The penalty for having any weapon is expulsion. The penalty for having a “dangerous weapon” is even worse. No, wait. It’s exactly the same. According to the one-two whammy of ZT and the poor definition in Lakeville’s policies, a pencil is a fingernail file is a knife is a gun and the punishment for having any of them is exactly the same.
School Weapons Policy, E-45:
Any object, device or instrument designed as a weapon or through its use is capable of threatening or producing bodily harm or which may be used to inflict self-injury including, but not limited to, any firearm, whether loaded or unloaded; airguns, pellet guns; BB guns; all knives; blades, clubs; metal knuckles; numchucks; throwing stars; explosives; fireworks; mace and other propellants; stunguns; ammunition; poisons; chains; arrows; and objects that have been modified to serve as a weapon.�
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Teens Suspended From Hastings High School
The cops didn’t get called. That’s the sole bright spot in this particular tale. A 14 year-old and a 17 year-old at Hastings High School have been suspended for playing with a laser pointer in school. They now face expulsion hearings.
A teacher saw a red dot in the hallway and suspected a laser pointer. The teacher later saw that the pointer looked like a derringer — a small pistol — and brought the boys to the principal’s office.
The school has a zero-tolerance policy that extends to replica weapons.
I’m in quite a quandary. We are still very early in the school year and I already feel like a broken record. What more is there to say about this besides expressing my indignation and continuing shock at the stupidity of these school administrators?
So anything that looks like a gun is a gun and will be punished the same as if it was an actual loaded firearm. No matter how obviously fake it looks.
Found at Precinct 333, the weblog of regular commenter Texas Teacher.
Records sit open
St.Louis elementary schools are closing on a regular basis. This can save a school board some serious resources when student density shows they aren’t needed. Less buildings to maintain, a better concentration of resources and increased ease of administration are only a couple of the benefits of closing unneeded schools.
But what happens when the district abandons schools instead of closing them?
The school, at 1409 East Linton Avenue, looks like a war zone. A pile of papers, chairs, fire extinguishers and toys blocks the entrance. The “exit” sign hangs perilously from the ceiling.
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Desks are overturned, windows are shattered, dozens of trash bags line the halls. Student records with confidential information are left in the open. A thick layer of fire extinguisher discharge covers floors and walls of empty classrooms.
Student records such as special needs assessments, home addresses, information about parents, medical records, sit abandoned in 15 schools closed by the district last year. Bags of garbage line the hallways - collected but not disposed of by the custodians responsible. The schools supply the art class materials so vandals don’t have to bring in their own paint.
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Honor student won’t graduate
Kate Rumohr is an Honor Student who should be graduating. She has the GPA (3.6 and that includes post secondary education classes at the local community college). She has the credits and even the cap and gown. So why won’t Fergus Falls High School let her graduate?
Rumohr attended Hillcrest her freshman and sophomore years, said her mother, Jane, but transferred to Fergus Falls High School for her junior and senior years.
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[Fergus Falls] won’t let her cross the stage on Sunday until they get transcripts from Hillcrest Lutheran Academy.
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Lawmakers Look at Tying Drivers Licenses to School Attendance
Bill linking driver’s licenses to school attendance advances
The House Education Policy Committee approved the bill on a divided voice vote Tuesday morning that would revoke drivers licenses of students under age 18 who have seven or more unexcused absences from school.
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