Updated 27 October 2005: Suspension removed, Mangum allowed back in school. (Details at bottom of post)
Prank in briefs has broad fallout
Dylan Mangum, a 17-year-old junior at Wake Forest-Rolesville High School in the Wake Forest Public School System, lost an election to the homecoming court. He decided to pay a visit on the court anyway - during the homecoming game - in his underwear. His attempt at PG streaking resulted in him being suspended for the remainder of the school year and a disciplinary record including assaulting an employee, sexual harassment and sexual activity.
Mangum decided to have his fun Sept. 16, the night of the homecoming game against Knightdale High School. During the halftime celebrations, he stripped to bikini underwear and made a mad dash across the field, racing by Army Junior ROTC members and the homecoming court.
“I laughed,” said Brittney Tackett, 16, a junior. “He was wearing underwear. I didn’t mind.”
But he knocked over science teacher Samantha Pontrelli. Mangum said that it was an accident and that he didn’t realize he had bumped into her.
“My heart was racing,” he said. “I didn’t see her at the time.”
(more…)
Person County Student Suspended For Wearing White T-Shirt
With all of the chaos caused by imprinted t-shirts and free speech issues you would think a school would welcome plain ones. Not so in the Person County School District where a student was suspended for wearing a plain white shirt.
A Person County mother … claims the school unfairly suspended her son for 10 days — just for wearing a white T-shirt.
…
But school administrators interpreted the T-shirt as a gang symbol and therefore as a direct violation to school dress codes.
The district policy does forbid “Clothing that promotes gang affiliation” but gives no indication of what that clothing might be, leaving literally everything open to interpretation.
Do they also interpret vanilla ice cream as “gang food” and white paper as “gang supplies”?
Contact Information:
Superintendent Ronnie G. Bugnar
School Board Chairman Gordon Powell
School Board Vice-Chairman Jimmy Wilkins
School Board Member Pecolia Beatty
School Board Member Ronnie P. King
School Board Member Vickie Nelson
Parents, Authorities At Odds Over Punishment
Michael Beam, a student at Yadkin Success Academy in the Yadkin County School System, unintentionally brought a BB gun to school. He has been charged with a felony crime of posession of a weapon on school property. He has also been removed from the custody of his parents and placed in a group home.
Before leaving home that morning, he had moved his school supplies to the bag because his other bag was dirty.
As soon as he got off the school bus, Beam turned the gun in to a principal.
…
[Mandi] Beam said her son, diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, is on the school’s “AB” honor roll but was on probation at the school. The BB-gun incident violated the probation.
As it turns out honesty is once again not the best policy and once again administrators have proven that it is better for a student to hide a dangerous or prohibited item rather than alert an authority.
The article doesn’t describe what Michael’s scholastic punishment will be but the Yadkin School Board policy on Student Conduct and Discipline requires expulsion for the remainder of the year.
Any student in grades 6-12 who is found to have possessed, handled, or transmitted any type of weapon or facsimile in violation of state law shall receive a long-term suspension from the Yadkin County School System for the remainder of the school year, unless school officials find sufficient mitigating factors. In grades K-5 the principal may use discretion in determining appropriate sanctions. The principal will file a written report with the superintendent.
Given his probationary status and the fact that they are pursuing a felony charge it is doubtful that they will determine that his turning the BB gun in by himself is a “sufficient mitigating factor”.
(Tip credit to Max Bremer and The Opinion Journal)
Schools learn to laud the good
Some Carolina schools are looking at themselves and their neighbors and are beginning to realize that zero tolerance and concentration on punitive measures doesn’t work very well.
Kids suffer academically when suspended from school, [Russell Skiba, an Indiana University education professor] said. Even factoring in issues such as poverty and race, Indiana schools with higher suspension rates saw 49 percent of their students pass state exams — compared with 58 percent of the kids at schools with lower suspension rates.
“You put kids out of school, those kids come back, and they haven’t learned anything,” said Skiba, who wrote a report called “Zero Tolerance, Zero Evidence.” “You just get into an endless loop.”
Studies show schools write more than half their office referrals for only about 6 percent of the students. If that kind of discipline worked, some argue, the same kids wouldn’t continue to misbehave. Getting tough is more likely to create anger and resentment, said Diann Irwin, of the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, who coordinates the state’s positive behavior program.
(more…)
Hug lands student in detention
Central Cabarrus High School forbids bodily contact between students beyond the holding of hands. 15 year-old Ashley Mignosa ran afoul of the rule on her second day of school this year.
“Like the second day of school, I hugged my boyfriend and I got a warning saying I wasn’t allowed to hug or I would be sent to the control room.� Mignosa said Tuesday.
Mignosa did hug someone again, though — a friend in front of the school. She was later punished for it.
Ashley received three days of detention for the illicit touching. The article doesn’t note if the huggee was punished as well.
(more…)
School bans solid T-shirts to counter gangs
We’ve previously chronicled various schools who fear the color pink. Who would have thought that there would be a school afraid of all colors?
Northridge Middle School is banning a staple of the teenage wardrobe: solid-colored T-shirts.
Principal Tom Bridges said he is especially concerned about students coordinating their shirt colors because it might indicate gang activity at the northeast Charlotte school.
“We’d heard on Thursday that there might be something happening Friday with kids wearing white T-shirts,” Bridges said. “It was a small number of kids, but we decided to deal with it.”
(more…)
