Is this what schools are coming to?

katiewhompus · April 2010

Girl arrested for doodling on desk

Cn's :
12 year old girl in NY was caught doodling on her desk. She was taken to the dean's office, searched, then led out of the school in handcuffs.

What gets me is that the mother was not allowed to go to the precinct with her...um...I know I get most of my legal knowledge from CSI, but don't minors have to have a parent present?

Something similar to this happened at my school. Long story short, our vp confiscated a cell phone with a picture of a students bare midriff on it. The kid who took and distributed the photo was expelled. Student then called law enforcement and vp was arrested for possessing porn (the phone had not been returned to the student yet due to internal school investigation). He was cuffed and led out of the school in the middle of the school day by the cops, then went through 6 months of trial before a judge called bs and let him go.

tlv204 · April 2010

That's nuts. Just yesterday I discovered a kid had written "i love lamp" on a desk, and guess what I did about it? I cleaned it up with a clorox wipe and they might get a lecture about school property on Monday.

jasmineh7777 · April 2010

Doodling is not a crime. I mean, if that is the biggest problem that school is facing than they should count themselves lucky.

tlv204 · April 2010

I do wish the article had quotes from the teacher, principal, and arresting officers. I mean they might not be allowed to talk about it now that there's a lawsuit, but I just wonder what their perspectives are. All we have to go on is the kid's words and an admission that it was unnecessary. I want to know why they searched her pockets. I feel like there's more to the story that we don't know.

katiewhompus · April 2010

Yeah, the whole pocket search thing is just strange. I wonder if the school is really bad so they were expecting weapons or something?

Mrs.B6302007 · April 2010

Yeah, there's got to be more to this. LIke she threatened someone in the process?

Kids write on walls and desks and textbooks all the time. I found "Mrs. B is an asshole" on one of my clipboards recently, and yep, Clorox wipe took it right off.

Stackeye210 · April 2010

I think they're just getting to an entire new level of extreme. It's so frustrating. The ones who deserve a slap on the wrist get expelled and the ones that need expelled get a slap on the wrist. There's no rhyme or reason, just over reaction!

Mrs.B6302007 · April 2010

Maybe it's what she doodled on the desk that prompted the search? IDK.

katiewhompus · April 2010

According to her all she doodled was a smiley face and " so and so was here".

I still remember a few months ago a girl was expelled from school because she gave her friend (another girl) a hug. PDA's are forbidden and apparently you aren't allowed to give hugs. The hug was because her friend's dad had died and she was crying. That was a very "wtf" moment.

Schroeder246 · April 2010

Sigh. That is really sad, and I totally agree with Stackeye that a lot of times, the wrong kids are getting the wrong kind of punishment.

As a teacher, though, I see the bizarre school policies that are happening as a direct result of bizarre parenting. Some (usually normal) incident happens, a parent or community freaks out about it, and the school is then forced to put a ridiculous policy in place to "solve" the problem. I'm sure that administration didn't WANT to arrest that girl, but there was some assinine school policy in place that criminalized vandalism, and the language of the policy was such that what this girl did fell into that category.

Kids learn by making mistakes!!!! By criminalizing every act, or over-punishing juvenile mistakes, we take away opportunities to TEACH them. We need fewer, broader, more basic rules in schools, and more individual responsibility. Unfortunately, in my experience, the students are not getting that at home, and it's nearly impossible to instill in them once they get to us.

/rant. Sigh.

sucrets4 · April 2010

It sounds like a case of zero tolerance gone wrong.

Like the stories where kids are expelled for bringing Tylenol to school. Ridic.

Zooloo · April 2010

I am not surprised provided my own personal experience with the public school system with my children. Teachers have been placed into a position of policing students to the point they are no longer focused on being educators. At my children's schools, information about 'the rules' comes home more often than anything else. There are contracts the students are expected to sign, meetings for the parents, videos, morning announcement reminders, even a song about how great it is to follow rules.

The total obession with rules is really curious, especially since we live in a town that has consistently been ranked as one of the safest in the country. These are not bad kids, so I don't understand why it's being crammed down their throats. Can we get re-focused on teaching them something about reading, writing, performing math functions ??? I mean, honestly, arresting a 12 year old child for acting like nothing more than a normal child is really moronic and extreme. If she wants to doodle, give her paper and some crayons.

sucrets4 · April 2010

Zoo - being a teacher, I can tell you where it comes from.

Some parents refuse to discipline their kids and send the holy terrors to school to let someone else do it. In order to help these kids learn how to function in society, rules must be imposed and enforced.

I called a parent of a MS kid once and the mom said to me "why are you calling me at work? I don't call you at school when I have a problem with her at home."

I'm not even paraphrasing, what she said will be lodged in my brain forever. It sums up the problem pretty well, though.

Oh, and I can guarantee you that the teachers would much rather be teaching their subjects than having to be surrogate parents to at least 25 kids.

Is this what schools are coming to?

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