Proposal could make it easier to expel HISD students
Texas recently celebrated a legal victory against zero tolerance policies. Legislation signed into law gave school boards explicit ability to review cases on a merit basis instead of using a look-up table of mandatory punishments. Many school systems immediately moved to take advantage of this to update their due process procedures and revise their codes of conduct. Signs that pointed to the Houston Independent School District taking the same path were apparently false as the district is instead implementing new zero tolerance policies.
Simply put, it makes it simpler to expel students.
Before all the students within the Houston Independent School District walk the hallways again, HISD wants a new, tougher conduct code in place.
“And we’ll continue to make the code of student conduct tougher when we find the need to do that,” said Terry Abbott, HISD spokesman.
There are three new zero tolerance policies going into effect. Any student who creates a “hit list”, recruits a “gang member” or engages in “high tech cheating” will be automatically expelled. Scare quotes are used around each of those terms because they are genuinely scary. The terms are not defined so they will apply or not as administrators choose.
Contact Information:
School Board President Dianne Johnson
School Board general delivery
Parents weigh in on zero tolerance
Updated 03 May 2005: Zero Tolerance reform bill passes Texas House.
Updated 06 June 2005: Bill approved by State Sentate, now awaiting Governor’s signature.
Updated 24 June 2005: Perry signs bill into Texas law. Details at bottom of post.
Texas lawmakers are looking at revamping laws about school discipline. Concerned parents are taking opportunity of their willingness to listen.
Critics say this policy gives school districts the green light to impose strict, uniform penalties for misbehavior without considering extenuating circumstances such as the students’ intent to do harm or prior disciplinary records.
Fred Hink of Katy Zero Tolerance, a group dedicated to protecting parents’ rights in the discipline process, said these practices not only lack common sense, they do not appropriately address issues such as disability considerations, due process and the long-range effects of placing children in alternative education programs.
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Great Poem, Stupid Title
The Shorewood High School magazine went to print minus one very powerful poem that was censored by school Principal John Green.
The poem itself was very well written.
It dealt with the pressure and emotional turmoil that high school girls face when it comes to being sexually active.
Too bad that most kids - and parents - won’t get to read it.
It also had the unfortunate title of “My First F*ck”. Green is catching serious flak over yanking the poem and it’s well deserved. No attention is being paid to the faculty adviser who OKed the poem with that title, nor is anybody pointing fingers at the student editors. That’s a shame because each of them in turn messed up just as badly as the principal.
Not one of these content editors had the basic idea to just do their job and edit the profane title.
(Tip credit to solara7)
Cultural Tie Gets in the Way Of Graduation
Thomas Benya, a graduating senior at Maurice J. McDonough High School, was denied his diploma for violating graduation ceremony dress codes. The traditional Cherokee bola tie he wore under his gown was deemed “too skinny”. He will not receive his diploma until he attends a conference with school administrators.
The high school is sticking to its policy. The dress code is mandatory for seniors who choose to participate in the graduation ceremony. And Benya was told during a dress rehearsal Tuesday that his black bolo with a silver and onyx clasp the size of a silver dollar was “not acceptable.”
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In March, Benya’s high school sent a letter to parents and seniors explaining that “adherence to the dress code is mandatory,” with the word mandatory in bold and underlined. For girls: white dresses or skirts with white blouses. For boys: dark dress pants with white dress shirts and ties.
That left Benya’s classmates free to wear bright orange, red and striped ties under their gowns at the ceremony Wednesday at the Show Place Arena in Upper Marlboro. One senior girl wore a headscarf and long pants for religious reasons.
“The First Amendment protects religion, and we do everything possible to honor that,” O’Malley-Simpson said. “There is nothing that requires us to follow everyone’s different cultures.”
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Anti-BB Gun Project Deemed Too Dangerous
Eighth graders Nathan C. Woodard and Nathaniel A. Gorlin-Crenshaw were disqualified from the state middle school science fair because their project was deemed too dangerous. Their project sought to show that BB guns are dangerous.
Nancy G. Degon, vice president of Massachusetts State Science Fair Inc. and co-chair of the middle-school fair, said fair rules prohibit hazardous substances and devices.
“The scientific review committee does not consider science projects involving firearms to be safe for middle school students,” Degon said.
Middle school kids all over the States use BB guns. It’s perfectly legal as they are not (despite quips from executives of Science Fair Incorporated) firearms. These two conjectured that BB guns, though legal, were not safe. They conducted experiments with ballistic gelatin at considerable cost to try to prove their theory. Ironically they were dismissed out of hand for trying to prove what a fair organizer decided arbitrarily.
This is how science is taught today? It seems remarkably like the science taught in 1633.
And yet it does move. - Galileo
(Tip credit to Opinion Journal, Tim Wise)
Maloney student and mom say penalty is excessive
Mark Padilla, 17, has been expelled from Francis T. Maloney High School [Meriden School District] for 180 days following a closed door school council vote. Padilla had been part of a profanity strewn argument with assistant track coach Thomas Pepe.
On May 4, Mark Padilla said he was doing exercises at track practice when Pepe, the assistant coach, came over to help the boys with their starting positions. Padilla said Pepe was holding a high jump pole at the time. Padilla made a suggestion to Pepe and the coach started screaming at him to “shut the fâ€â€- up” and “get the fâ€â€- away,” he said. The student responded, and the two were swearing at each other. Padilla said he felt threatened as Pepe held up the pole and stared at him.
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Judge slams officials at Middletown schools
In October of 2003 an 11 year-old student of Twin Towers Middle School made a drawing at a slumber party. It had two gravestones with teachers’ names on them. The party host found the drawing the next day and alerted the police who then alerted the school. The school immediately suspended the girl.
In a sharply worded ruling, U.S. District Judge Charles Brieant refused to throw out a case brought against [Middeltown City School District], former acting Superintendent Patricia McLeod, and Gordon Dean, the principal of Twin Towers Middle School, where the girl was and still is a student.
The judge determined that the district officials violated the girl’s rights to free speech as well as due process, and that “the defendants knew clearly that their Code of Conduct did not apply to off-campus conduct that was not related to school functions.”
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Lawndale school having too many kids arrested, group says
A community coalition is protesting excessive student arrests at Lawndale schools. Things came to a head when they brought their protest to Roswell B. Mason Elementary during a school board meeting on Wednesday. The principal denied that too many students are being arrested at the school and then had two of the protesters arrested.
The North Lawndale Accountability Commission has been picketing Mason, at 1830 S. Keeler, since last week, citing information the coalition says it received from the local police district. That data purports more than 250 children were arrested at the school in the past few years. Chicago Public Schools officials dispute that figure.
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“They’re literally prosecuting these children, fingerprinting and mugshotting them and locking them up before even calling parents. What they’ve done is taken away parents’ constitutional rights,” said the Rev. M.G. Hunter, whose 12-year-old niece, an honor roll student, was arrested at Mason last month after arguing with a substitute teacher.
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Tuesday Afternoon Headlines with Bill Bryant (click on headline to play video)
There will be no more bad hair days allowed at Williamsburg schools. For students.
Newscast transcript:
Williamsburg city schools [Whitley County School District] have banned exotic hairstyles or hair colors for students. That includes Mohawks and unnatural colors such as blue, pink or green. The principal [Kenneth Powell] says the school is trying to bring the regular school dress code in line with a stricter code at the alternative school. The school system says it will send letters home explaining the new policy.
Why apply a more stringent dress code to students at the regular high school? The news story indicates no reason for the change. Unfortunately there is nothing about the new dress policy on any of the school or district websites. Additional restrictions are expected in an alternative school. What has happened to make administrators want to apply these restrictions at the regular schools? Given only the principal’s statement the reason appears to be “just because”.
Comments from cj, an area teacher:
I’m a teacher, but I believe that kids need to be allowed to be kids. High school is when kids get to wear Mohawks and rainbow-colored hair. Most of them don’t have the opportunity to do so once they grow up and get jobs, since most employers frown on it. Of course, at the school where I teach, some of the teachers may be affected by the ban on “any unnatural color” — we have a few teachers with shades of red hair that don’t exist in nature — and there are always a few at any school with lavender and blue hair. Wonder if Williamsburg City Schools will hold teachers to the same standard?
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I know that many adults don’t see this as a big deal, but I worry about kids that we don’t allow to search through various identities. It’s part of growing up — kids have fashions that adults don’t understand but it helps the kids as they search for who they are. If the worst thing a kid ever does is dye his hair green or purple, that’s a pretty good kid!
It will be interesting to see how they write this policy. I can foresee dozens of pit falls ahead for it. Going blond is unnatural if you are a brunette. What about a student who dyes their hair and then lets it grow back out with its natural color? Half brunette/half blond is definitely not natural. Will a student who has once dyed their hair be forced to continue dying it in perpetuity? How about a shaven head?
Methinks they have opened up a can of worms here.
(Tip credit to cj)
Seven of 10 Teachers Quit Mo. School (link is dead)
Penalty leads to rockslide of protest
Christa Price was fired from East Lynne School District in Cass County. She had objected to the punishment applied to an 11-year-old student. When her objections were rebuffed she helped the child complete her punishment. She lost her job for this insubordination.
The fourth-grader in the East Lynne School District in Cass County was assigned the task last September for refusing to do her schoolwork, but she was unsupervised except for a security camera. The playground was near a road but inside a fence.
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At contract time in March, Superintendent Dan Doerhoff recommended firing Price, a popular teacher who had had good performance evaluations, for insubordination. Seven other teachers then chose not to return their contracts.
“If a teacher who advocates on behalf of safety of a student is not fit to be a teacher at East Lynne or anywhere in Missouri according to this administration, then none of us are fit to teach at East Lynne,” the teachers who resigned said Tuesday in a statement.
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