Cardboard Letters Get You Banned From Prom

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Raggy, you downplay the impact of the cardboard letters, but at work the company we share the building with tried to make us take down posters in case the blutak broke the glass.

 

Did they punish you, too?

Besides, after having seen post-cleanup pictures of the school I make a U turn and say that that teen is criminal scum who should be in jail. Apparently that love crazed bastard used super glu tape.

 

Super glue tape?

Oh, well, I say flog him 30 times, and leave the tape be. It'll most likely prevent the building from collapsing in case of terrorist act!

Prom+Glue+puppy love = FTW!

 

Ragusa, I'm surprised I need to be so basic here ... the "results" in this case were his punishment. It's just like many traffic violations here in the US -- the "results" of speeding is rarely an accident, more often it is a ticket and a fine.

If the kid wasn't so hormone driven to impress his love interest he might have realized his actions would be frowned upon by the school and he would be punished (and if he bothered to learn the rules he would know any punishment results in being banned from school social events for a month or so). He's an idiot and I don't feel sorry for him. I hope some other guy takes Sonali to the prom, though -- she didn't do anything wrong.

 

I'm not disagreeing there BTA, but the boy should have realized his actions would not be looked highly upon by the school administration (school administrations are not known for using common sense and typically stick to some draconian rule book). I don't think the PA announcement thing would have worked -- it just would broadcast "he got away with it."

In general it's best to simply not do those things which are against the school policy ... and putting up signs without the school's approval is pretty obvious as being against the rules everywhere I've been.

 

I agree. Any administrative body overseeing children sets bad precedent by saying "those zaney kidz!" and laughing off their antics, or ruffling their hair with a "don't do that again, you zaney kid, LOLZ!" attitude when they act up. Children growing into adults have to learn boundaries, and giving them a pass on one so inane as being omg banned from teh prom! is not doing them any favors.

Forget the boundaries junior, because even this stupid one doesn't apply. Just go have some fun!

 

And I don't; with neither of you. So the reasoning essentially boils down to that the Kid needs to be punished because what he did was against school rules? Because it sets a bad precedent? Which would be what? Let me guess ... if he wasn't punished it would open the flood gates! EVERY KID would do that and the cardboards would get ever greater! Soon the kids would attack school staff! And then the sky would fall!

Well of course not. What this is about is that the bad precedent set is disobeying school rules, which are enforced with zero tolerance for infractions.

What zero tolerance policies do is to punish rigorously even minor rule infractions equally stern. Why? Well, because the rules are so and so and must be obeyed. Whether the kid actually caused any harm or damage is secondary - it's about the rule infraction - even when the deed in question on its merit was harmless and its effects easily corrected. So he is being made an example of, irrespective of him having caused no harm and negligible damage? What about punishment being for something you have done (individual guilt) and not what others may (or may not) do?

This is about enforcing conformity, not teaching the kid something. Having to remove the cardboard letters from the wall would have taught him something, in particular boundaries (you shouldn't have done it, now remove what you made). The mere and inane punishment of banning him from the prom for it teaches him nothing but the merits of conformity and obedience.

Blind deference to authority, because they can punish you if you don't conform, is not a mindset or attitude I would want to instil in my children.

I think that the rationalisations why that concrete headed school whatever was perfectly right to punish him are about as wrong-headed as pernicious.

 

I do agree with you, BTA. And I agree with Ragusa, that the principal did not want the headache of making a judgement call and instead just applied the rules and policy without regard for common sense.

However, Gaear and T2 do have a good point, that while it may not be opening the "flood gates," there more than likely would have been a few students who would have tested those "boundries" a bit more. Unless things have changed since I was in school.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- just because you've gone to school for 12 years doesn't mean you know how to teach or run a school. I've been on the front lines teaching these kids, and I'm telling you armchair, Monday Morning Educators have no idea the ramifications of letting kids do whatever the hell they want.

 

Not banning the kid from the prom for that minor prank is not the same thing as telling him to do what he wants to do.

There were and are better, more reasonable, alternatives which weren't possible under a zero tolerance policy, like having him to do the cleaning. That for instance would be a creative and sensible sanction that is directly coupled to his misdeed, unlike not being allowed to go to the prom because he broke school rules. The former is reasonable and adequate, while the latter is bone headed legalism. My beef is with the particular sanction (not that he was sanctioned), and with zero tolerance policies that prevent a reasonable and measured approach and deprive teachers of any pedagogic leeway in disciplining their kids.

 

I agree completely. He was charged with trespassing. As T2B pointed out, unless there's a lock on the school grounds - and there almost certainly isn't - how is it trespassing? Presumably if he posted the sign when school was not in session that the school would have been locked, but there was no need for him to enter the school.

The kid appears to be a generally good kid from everything else that has come out about him. He's a honors student, with no disciplinary problems on his record, and is bound for Syracuse University this fall. This isn't some little punk that tries to get away with stuff every chance he gets.

The reason he probably didn't look up the rules in the Student Handbook before doing this was because he felt that his actions wouldn't get him suspended (he's said as much). Simply suspending him in the first place seems over the top to me. In my high school suspensions were for serious infractions - detention for the minor stuff - and this to me certainly looks like minor stuff.

EDIT: Oh, and to those who say that if he weren't punished everyone would do it - I agree. I'm just saying that the punishment was disproportionate. If the punishment was a week's detention, or required to come in after school or on the weekend and pick up trash on the school grounds - something like that - you wouldn't have everyone doing it, because just like adults, kids value their weekends.

 

^ +1
Good post.

I believe, that if a punishment exceeds a reasonable measure (in ratio to the commited crime), it fails to deliver the 'poente' punishments are about!

 

Basically, yes -- I just understand how administrators in schools generally work. He would have been punished in every school I've attended and every school my children attended. Period -- it's not a question of "if" he was going to be punished, instead it was a question of "how bad" he would be punished and the kid was simply stupid not to realize that.

Ragusa, the schools you want are in some fantasy land, or perhaps in Germany (). They don't exist in the US. I would like to say the issue has gotten worse because of some tragic incident (such as Columbine) but this kind of draconian culture has existed in education for decades (perhaps centuries). It's not right (IMO) but it's the way the system is and I don't feel sorry for students that don't realize it. In the overall scheme of things, missing a dance is not a big deal (if it is there are other issues witht he kid that need to be addressed).

 

I disagree T2. None of the schools I attended would of chopped the prom off a kid doing this. To me, the big questions is, how important is the prom? If cutting it is the punishment, you need to grade what the prom actually represents in the first place. When I was in school, the prom and graduation were by far the 2 biggest days you could have in high school. Everyone looked forward to it, even the parents as ushers. You would of have to been a very bad person to be denied the prom. Like busted with Alcohol or Pot in school. Or hit a teacher. I came from a very large, public high school in the suburbia of Philly. My hgih school was the worst in teh county, though most were pretty good, my high school was just "ok" by normal standards. The Guidance Counselor or a Principal would of talked to the student and told them lets not do it again, but that would of been the end of it. Possible encouraging the kid to use his creativity for other ends that are more important. Maybe a day in detention, maybe... the kid was being creatinve in a non-destructuive way. His sign was not offending and his actions were not terrible. The punishemnt was overly harsh.

Unless of course, these days, prom's are no big deal. I don't know, I'm out of that loop currently. I have another 14-15 years before my wee ones get there.

 

Hopefully you won't be living in Rockford when your kids go to school -- mine went there and the school district is a basis of my observation (and opinion). Oh, I should warn you the gifted program in Rockford doesn't improve the education or the quality of teachers/administration, the teacher just "challenge" the kids in the gifted program by giving them more homework and grading them harsher (the gifted teacher slots go to the senior teachers in the union and are the laziest teachers I saw in the school district there).

/

 

I hear ya. We ahve already looked into it. They will be going to the a Private Academy. My 3 yr old starts this fall. My wife went to Auburn in the Arts program. It's a whole different monster now. If I am living in the Rockford area that is... but as I work for the only "paying" Aerospace firm around here, I am probably stuck. Though a move southeast isn't out of the question. One good thing about Rockford, homes are cheap...

 

They say that there was indeed a locked gate, and that the kids found some alternative method (a "footpath") to gain access to the property.

Trespass isn't necessarily limited to buildings though, nor are unsecured areas automatically exempt. Normally it works like this: let's say an unwelcome person comes and stands on your front yard at 2:00 a.m. (or any time actually). Assuming he's not committing any other crime like vandalsim or an assault, etc., he has to be informed by you (the property owner) or an authorized representative that he is trespassing and must leave. If he fails to comply, he is then guilty of a misdemeanor and can be arrested and charged accordingly (by the police only).

I'm not sure exactly how this would play out on public property (was it a public school?), but if the school has a stated limited or restricted access policy during hours of inoperation, you can't just go there at 3:00 a.m. without fear of repercussion. It's like nighttime hours of restricted access for public parks.

At any rate, I don't know that he's actually facing a trespass charge; rather, he was told (by whom I don't know ... "He was told another reason for the suspensions was that they trespassed on school grounds." ... sounds like the school) that he had trespassed.

In Connecticut, Simple Trespass is an infraction:

premises 1. (Business / Commerce) a piece of land together with its buildings, esp considered as a place of business

 

Check the linky in the first post, they have reversed their decision & will allow him to go to the prom.

 

Up next: Huge outcry about the possibility of using the power of social media to (try) to revert a decision that hurts oneself, instead of "sucking it up" as a decent, law-abiding citizen is supposed to do.

One major point that the headmaster missed in her original ruling was that you can't possibly punish someone when there's a total lack of mischief. If we're to rigidly stick to enforcing strictly non-disruptive behaviour, we might as well say buh-bye to any sort of a demonstration or banning any sort of a debate beyond the daily weather, as you can't really GUARANTEE that no one's feelings would get hurt. "You gotta break some eggs to make an omelet."