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Facebook Photos Land Eden Prairie Kids in Trouble
slim-t writes "The Star Tribune is reporting that students have been disciplined for photos of them on Facebook. 'Eden Prairie High School administrators have reprimanded more than 100 students and suspended some from sports and other extracurricular activities after obtaining Facebook photos of students partying, several students said Tuesday.' Is the school right to do this? My opinion is that the students should know not to post pictures of yourself breaking the law."
I'd just like to know what all those administrators are doing cruising Facebook pages looking at the students in their school.
Looking for delectable jailbait, of course.
Won't somebody think of the children?
...
Er, wait
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Really, it seems kind of strange that school administrators would find these kinds of things without someone explicitly bringing it to their attention. Don't they have better things to do than sit around and look at pictures of the students? The argument could be made that this is pretty creepy.
Also, if the students are breaking the law outside of school hours, isn't that a matter for the police and not the school?
I don;t use Facebook, but don't they have a feature to group people by what school they attend? An administrator would just have to sign up for his own school then just browse profiles while filling out detention slips.
Maybe it will be a good lesson to these idiots not to document their wrong-doing.
Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
Reminds me of this NYT article on some George Washington University students who trapped their administration busting parties and had a great time at it as well!
This would seem to aid one of my longtime complaints; namely, that many schools at all levels of education spend far too much money on administrators and not enough on teachers... If they have time to be nosing around students' lives on Facebook, they probably don't have enough real administrative work to do.
Time to repeal the drinking age.
This isn't a "rights online" question. It's a natural consequence of the stupid prohibition laws we have. They need to be repealed.
If the only way anyone found out about the drinking was looking at Facebook after the fact, then how was it harmful?
I think that the kids are pretty stupid to post photos of themselves doing illegal things on the Internet, but neither is it the administrators' business to be scouring Facebook for such things. Their job is to deal with things as they're brought to their attention, not be a surveillance force.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I'd like to know how the fuck school officials are allowed to discipline students for activities not relating to school. That's the realm of police, is it not? You got together with friends to party? Nothing to do with school.
What the hell, man? I've asked before and I ask again: what the hell gives schools such a wide bullshit jurisdiction?
Perception is the thin dividing line between reality and fiction.
First off, the kid is a liar.
Second of all, if he's freely distributing evidence of himself breaking the law, he's lucky it's just his school that is punishing him.
Third, he's lucky it's just him getting punished and not his parents.
Kid breaks law, gets in trouble. The internet was mildly involved. News at 10:00. Bitching on Slashdot at 9:30.
She scans her students myspace pages all the time. It's pretty incredible what kind of information they put up.
:)
She doesn't do it because she's out to get them, though. If she learned that a student was smoking weed at a weekend party, it's not like she'd call the cops on them. I think she does it just to get a better sense of who her students are as individuals, and can then better tailor her instructions to each individual.
Let's say Katie is really emotional, and loves to answer questions in class. However, Katie has just gone through a rough breakup with her longtime boyfriend (we learn over myspace)... My wife would be a bit more understanding about why Katie is acting so depressed.
Or, she may learn that a student routinely smokes pot in the bathroom every morning before class. She might pay extra attention to that student, and if she smells pot on the kid while he's in class, she can certainly get the administration involved.
Or kids might comment about a stolen test. Or how they hacked into the computers and changed grades. It's crazy what they'll write about.
The point is, of course, don't put up information that you don't want your boss, teacher/SO/parents/whoever to read.
Posting anonymously for hopefully obvious reasons.
Supposedly the pics were delivered on a CD (maybe a DVD) to school administrators. The person who delivered it is either unknown or not being identified. (disclosure/source: My sister-in-law attends EPHS. I'm anonymous for her sake.)
Knowing several teachers, I have to ask this: is it at all (naively) possible that this admin is doing what he thought best? It seems to me like he's trying to straighten out these kids' lives (at least by his interpretation of life, mind you.)
It's surprising, I know, but some teachers actually care about their students. Not just whether they make the school look good at scholastic meets and football games, not just whether they pass all their (irrelevant) standardized tests. Some teachers care whether or not Joe Quarterback makes it home from prom nite. They actually care whether Suzie Cheerleader makes it home from prom nite unfertilized.
Just a thought. I didn't have the greatest high school experiences myself, but even I know not all school officials are malicious animals prowling 'That Facebook Thing' for whom they may devour.
There is, in fact, some middle ground left to on which to stand.
Being Swedish I find your alcohol policy absolutely bizarre. Schools policing students about what they do in their spare time? If a teacher did that over here they would probably get into legal difficulties as a result of it... Heck, my physics department has a student run pub in the basement and one of my lecturers even gave the students some time to advertise it. Despite of this ( or maybe because of ) we have a lower rate of alcohol induced diseases and a lower alcohol related crime rate.
I'm guessing this is the consequence of some "traditional" political opinions, much like Sweden insisting on having a state monopoly on alcohol, despite it being quite clearly demonstrated that it does nothing to prevent minors from obtaining it ( which is pretty much the argument in favor ).
Personally, at my school, they have a policy that if you violate a policy outside of school grounds within sight of a school official, or a school official is latter reported of the policy you broke, you will be reprimanded as if you were on school premise. People don't seem to remember that youth are still citizens, and are granted all the rights of the constitution. Schools extend and deploy their power in scary ways, forever under the umbrella "For the Children."
http://www.youthrights.org/
Ok, some may say that this strains reasonable doubt, but. . . let's say you find a picture of a kid on the Internet, and he's holding a Budweiser bottle in his hand, and appears to be drinking from it. . .
The bottle could, maybe, be empty. If the picture makes it obvious it's not empty, it could have water, or lemonade, or ice tea, or Cola, or. . . you get the point, in it. It's *probably* beer, but I wouldn't put it past kids to think it was a cool prank to take an old empty they found somewhere, wash it, then fill it with soda and take pictures.
The point is, a picture of someone drinking from a beer/vodka/whiskey/wine bottle does not PROVE that they were drinking alcohol. I would say it's, on the face of it, impossible to prove someone was imbibing illegal substances based on a photograph. The only way to really prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, in my opinion, is if you could actually test the liquid in the bottle somehow (smell, taste, chemical analysis), or by getting a urine/blood sample from one of the kids in the picture close to the time the picture was taken.
Other types of offenses might be provable from pictures (inappropriate nudity, sexual misconduct, etc), but not underage drinking.
You say you're a nerd who is picked on by the popular jocks. Do I have a plan for you!
1) Take a buddy nerd and sneak into a party where your victim will be (since you're a nerd you obviously weren't invited)
2) Hand the jock a beer, have your friend snap a picture during that second he's holding it (but before you're being pounded with it)
3) Post picture to Facebook using a fake account
4) Wait for jock to be suspended
I'm still trying to figure out how to fit "Profit!" into there as well. Maybe blackmail?
All these "well you shouldn't have posted the picture" posts are forgetting the very common case where someone snaps pictures of a bunch of people and posts them all onto Facebook. It's amazing how fast the camera phones can go off if you do something stupid even for a second at a party.
Our thinking seems to be devolved from "what kind of society do we want to live in?" to "what's in it for me, right now?" If doing X makes you "safer" or "happier" right now, it doesn't matter what the consequences are. It's just that we don't seem to be able to reason past the next couple weeks anymore! The lack of outrage over over-prescribed medication, random drug testing, schools spying on students, the sex offender registry, and warrantless wiretaps points to a huge "it doesn't affect me right now, so I don't give a shit" attitude. It's the moral reasoning of a two year old.
Its not the schools job or duty to police after-hours activities.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
- A fellow fourth grade student was caught possessing a beeper at school. FCPS believed the only reason anyone would possess a beeper would be to facilitate selling drugs. The student was expelled. His mother had given him the beeper the previous day so he would know when she was ready to pick him up from soccer practice. FCPS kept the ban on cell phones and beepers until 9/11, but not before threatening to suspend students who were trying to contact parents who worked in the Pentagon that day.
- A girl at my middle school was caught with a can of pepper spray. Her parents had given her the mace because she lived less than one mile from the school (FCPS does not provide transportation to students less than 1 mi from school) and had to walk through a rough neighborhood each day. She was suspended.
- My school once let out early and had a student fair on the soccer field. Attendance on the field was not mandatory, but students could not leave school grounds without a note from a parent. The administration was so concerned with our attendance that every student who left early had their car fully searched to make sure they weren't taking home other students.
Unfortunately, FCPS holds all bargaining chips before students even enroll. They force each student sign a "Student Responsibilities and Rights" document essentially stating you understand FCPS has the right to deal with you any way they please should you screw up. If you don't sign it, they won't give you a locker, a parking spot, nor allow you to participate in after school activities.If school administrators stumble upon pictures of a student doing something illegal, but not while at school, they should report it to the police, and the buck stops there. If a student's "extra-cirricular" activities don't interfere with school, then schools shouldn't interfere with them.
When I was a teenager, I had a friend who saw the school principal at the grocery store. After making eye contact, he gave him the middle finger. The principal was understandably irate and the following Monday suspended him.
When his parents found out, they called the principal and made it abundantly clear that he was far, far outside his bounds and pushed until the school rescinded the suspension. Don't think he didn't suffer consequences, they were just delivered by his parents whose duty it is to do so outside of school.
The duty of school officials is to discipline and teach students within the school environment. From 8-3 or on school grounds, that's it. Period. The minute the child leaves school grounds, he's under the purview of the law and his guardians. The second school officials leave the school grounds, they're just average folks. No legitimate power over and above any other schmo.
A lot (if not most) high schools have conduct codes that all student athletes/extra curricular participants must sign that states they will not do illegal activities. This is basically proof that they went back on that code and they are being punished for it.
-nick
I've lost any faith in the schools.
In my sophomore year of high school I was suspended for telling somebody how to open the command prompt. Now, remember, that goes on my permanent record. Not only was I banned from using the computer (which is pretty tough when I'm in C++, Cisco, and Webmaster classes) but it also ruined my chances of getting into certain schools.
I may sound bitter, and what I'm talking about may be considered entirely unrelated but the point I'm trying to get across is that schools look for every opportunity they can to catch kids doing something "bad". Shouldn't they be trying to catch kids doing something good?
The security administrator at my school would ride around the parking lot in a golf cart and check to see if student's cars were unlocked. If they were, he had no problem in allowing himself to search their car. I just could never understand how people stood for this.
These students being suspended for Facebook photos (not smart of them, but the reaction is over-the-top) could very well affect their future. IMO, it's time for people (high school students in this case) to start standing up.
Probably delivered by a kid who got picked on by the popular alcohol chugging kids.
I was in the EP school system from Kindergarten until halfway through 9th Grade... and I recall it was pretty clique-ish and people were particularly nasty and cruel to other kids.
Most people might say it's the same in every high school, but I went to 3 high schools my freshman year (EPHS inclusive). And the high school in Connecticut and especially the high school in Arizona were a LOT nicer in terms of students' attitudes and treatment of other students.
Sounds like revenge!
Were the kids rich or poor?
I'm from Eden Prairie.
"I'd just like to know what all those administrators are doing cruising Facebook pages looking at the students in their school."
Short answer: They weren't.
An anonymous person stopped by the high school and dropped off a CD containing the images saved off numerous Facebook sites.
Links as well, I believe, but am not sure. Of course speculation is that it was some kid who wasn't invited; I rather speculate it was a parent who was sick of the hypocrisy of the rules never being enforced, and dropped it off to confront the administration and FORCE them to act.
And for the Europeans who feel our 'policies on alcohol are bizarre': let's remember - to participate in student athletics in Minnesota, EVERY student must sign a pledge to entirely abstain from alcohol or tobacco as a student athlete, and (as I recall, it was 20 years ago I was in EPHS) even to avoid being PRESENT at such activities. Say what you want about the motivation behind the rule, the simple fact is that every one of them signed such a promise and are now blatantly proved to be breaking it. Busted.
My cynical view is that I would like to know WHEN this CD was dropped off. EP is a perennial powerhouse dominant in the local football league...coincidentally football season *just* ended 6 weeks ago. So no real penalties nor damage to the football team.
-Styopa
That's not proof. I know it's unlikely, but unlikely is not how the law works.
The burden of proof in a misdemeanor case for underage drinking is beyond a reasonable doubt. If you saw a photo with a room full of people drinking out of cans and bottles clearly labeled as containing alcohol, in what appeared to be a party setting, what would you think? I think it would take an effort of willful blindness to buy the notion that they weren't drinking alcoholic beverages.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I graduated from high school in midterm of 1972. I'm more pissed off than ever about this kind of bullshit now that I help pay for it. "God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board." Mark Twain
Tech Public Policy stuff
You don't want to be drunk when you're voting. I'm still convinced that's how bush got elected.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Because when an 18 year old votes, there is zero chance they'll kill someone due to their inexperience with voting. The same cannot be said of a 16 (or 18) year old who gets their drivers license and to celebrate, gets drunk and goes driving.
Yeah, yeah, parental responsibility and all that. As a recent article on here related, teen brains lack impulse control. They don't have the same reasoning capability as someone twenty years older. Here's the CNN article which talks about this subject.
For the record, roughly three times a week in my area there is a story of someone underage dying because they were driving drunk or someone who was a passenger in a car with someone who was underage and drunk while driving being killed. In fact, last year, there was a case where two passengers died in a car accident where the driver was underage, drunk and crossed into the oncoming lane where it ran headon into a minivan. A few of the people in the van died as well.
MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) was the driving force behind forcing states to raise their legal drinking age to 21 through government coercion (withholding of highway dollars). In theory, states don't have to have a drinking age of 21 but because states fund their operations through debt servicing rather than pay-as-you-go, they need all the money they can get and so go along with having a high drinking age compared to other countries.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The same cannot be said of a 16 (or 18) year old who gets their drivers license and to celebrate, gets drunk and goes driving.
This is true, but it strikes me as odd that they solve this by having the drinking age higher, not the driving age.
I mean, driving is still a risk even if you aren't drunk, whilst this way of doing things unfairly affects under 21s who don't drive. It's also surely more likely that an under 21 driver might get hold of some alcohol, compared with an under 21 who can legally drink then randomly deciding to find someone else's car and illegally go for a drive...
And I don't know, but to me, being able to drink - something which can be done even in private - seems like a more fundamental right than being able to drive a potentially dangerous vehicle around on public roads at life-threatening speeds... But I guess given the taboo of drugs in general, not many agree with me.
Sure beats shooting up the place.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
Your comparison is unfair because you compare drinking and driving with voting, instead of just comparing the dangers of drunkenness or irresponsible driving, alone, with voting. A drunk 18 year old is no more dangerous than a drunk 21 year old when not operating a motor vehicle. An 18 year old is also a legal adult and responsible for his own actions.
MADD is a dangerous organization because they are truly a temperance society, as evidenced by their support of unreasonably low BAC limits under 0.10 that have not been scientifically proven to result in safer driving. They also support sobriety checkpoints, random searches, and other infringements of the fourth amendment.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.