Slashdot Mirror
Student Arrested For Classroom Texting
A 14-year-old Wisconsin girl was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after she refused to stop texting during a high school math class. The girl denied having a phone when confronted by a school safety officer, but a female cop found it after frisking her. The Samsung Cricket was recovered "from the buttocks area" of the teenager, according to the police report. The girl was banned from school property for a week, and is scheduled for an April 20 court appearance for a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge. I applaud the adults involved for their discretion and temperance in this heinous case of texting without permission.
Your mandated to be in schools. Your not mandated to pay attention.
No good deed goes unpunished.
"heinous case of texting without permission."
I think it has more to do with refusing bit than the texting bit.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Students shouldn't be texting in class. If a student refuses to follow the rules, you have to do something. In our lawsuit-happy culture, calling the police is pretty much the only option. If you were being insubordinate at work, you would be fired and they'd have security escort you from the building. If you refused, you would be arrested.
I'm not saying that this story is important, but this is usually something I would see in the normal sections of Slashdot. There would be a large discussion about the intrusion of law enforcement in an educational environment. I think the only reason that it's in Idle is because of the buttocks thing.
No existe.
... to Al-Qaeda!
Like oh mah gawd how can they do this is so unfair like people shoudlnt like be so mean to people who are like doing their own thing like what wrong with the world?
Wtf is wrong with our schools.
Photos or GTFO
I personally think that everyone under the age of 65 should be banned from texting.
Also, the impression that I got of this young lady after reading the article is that she would be the type to wear very tight pants...if so, being able to stuff a cell phone in them would be quite impressive.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
Cop had no basis to search the girl - you can't argue that a physically harmless cell phone is grounds for a terry stop.
I can recommend. I'll even cut y'all in on the finders fee.
The criminal charges sound excessive, but do you really believe that this kid has some kind of inalienable right to chat with friends in class?
Hmm, this "phone in the butt" story appeared just after the bar of soap phone story... cue jokes about bending over.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
What ever happened to just getting the paddle form the Vice-Principle? Isn't it legal for at least a principle to frisk someone or remove them from school premises? I thought we gave up any rights there when they decided everyone student was a terrorist with a bazooka?
What a smart ass... I'm assuming it was a smart phone...
When I was in High School, disruptive kids got sent to the Vice Principal for this kind of thing. Why did this get charged as a real crime? Don't schools have any discretion or judgment left to them anymore?
"No more butt-dialing!"
I applaud the school for putting the lying disobedient bitch back in her place.
Oh wait you said butt not vag.
First offense, confiscate the phone and give it back at the end of the day.
Second offense, give her in detention, confiscate the phone and require the parents to pick it up in person if they want it back.
Subsequent offenses, repeat step two. The parents will get sick of this pretty quickly, and she will find herself without a phone.
It's not that hard.
The teacher asked the student to stop. Is there some other action a school is allowed to take with a student who refuses to follow instructions?
I think you are supposed to give them a trophy or something.
It helps with their self esteem;-)
When I was in school, having a pager on school grounds was immediate expulsion and a call for a criminal investigation (ie. is the student selling drugs) and attempting to log out of the terminal session on the library's card catalog was at least two weeks suspension. These days students and parents think having a phone is a universal right.
How are students supposed to learn how to circumvent the system when we set the bar so low?
old news, heard it on the radio this morning.
You can take away the phone, but you can't force the mind to focus on the instructor. Kids won't pay attention to boring things unless they have motivation to do so. This can come from parents or peers. It can't come from "safety officers."
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
The problem at the school district where I work is the kids are texting answers to the tests to each other.
There are days when I think that we need to get rid of our entire educational complex.
Why is it that every educator wants to stop student to student communications of any form using any media? Teachers don't teach you how to live in a free society. They teach you to live in prison.
My solution is simple. Have the students see the bill for "education" right up front and if they don't want it then they aren't required by law to be there any more.
That's what makes this bad. That student was required by law to be there. I'm sure other laws have been made to "force students to behave in class." When will students band together and force teachers to behave or have pay cuts?
My god, what else do you think is acceptable then?
SWAT team brought in for a schoolyard fight?
Anti Terrorist squad for a stink bomb in the corridors?
Solitary detainment and waterboarding for not spilling the beans on who wrote in chalk on a school wall?
I'm disgusted that you think this is ok.
She sounds like a little shit, but that's what detention and suspension is for NOT the bloody police.
Please.
Why are my very expensive courts and police being tied up with this nonsense!!???
A Simple suspension and call home to the Parents was seen as going soft!!!???
WTF!!!???? Really WTF!!!!!?????
Had this been another country, one more serious about education, and parenting, this character would have been given an immediate failing grade and forced to repeat. But this is America, and we molly coddle our kids, who generally end up laying an egg when it comes to technical topics in high school.
This is about the punishment - not the crime. What the hell is wrong with you. Do you tie your shoes in little nazies. In an age where we find Judges being paid to send kids to jail we should be questioning every single one of these incidents. What's the motive here? And how did we come to this?
This is type of thing is indicative of the sense of entitlement everyone under the age of 20 seems to have these days. Everyone's the victim and no one is responsible for their actions. This girl doesn't need to be kicked off school property she needs to be stuck in a camp where there is no internet, cell phone, television, playstation, et al. for 6 months and see how the little punk likes it. She needs to be taught discipline of the highest order and maybe a criminal record and a good LONG dose of Community Service will teach little twerp respect.
Pax Vobiscum
I see a bunch of "oh how could this happen" and sarcastic responses to a sarcastic article... but I'm in the "Great!" camp because I have a daughter that has a cell phone addiction. She has other issues too that make having a cell phone a very bad idea. For example, sending threatening texts to her classmates, and generally using the phone to create drama (as well as completely go off the deep end by misinterpretting texts she receives.) Can a cell in class be disruptive? Are you kidding? First, the kid with the phone is obviously distracted. Second, anyone around the kid with the phone will see/hear the thumbs going mad (not to mention giggles, outbursts, or whatnot). School is for ... learning? I'd LOVE to see more schools out-right ban this [anti] social phenomena. Seriously, there are kids that would rather text than eat (bathe, or whatever other self care you can think of.)
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
I hope she used protection and lube... as well as plenty of disinfectant afterwards.
"What else can you do?" Really? This sounded like a completely routine school disciplinary matter to me. Even taking your swipe at "our lawsuit-happy culture" at face value, which do you think is riskier from a lawsuit standpoint: 1) giving a student a suspension; or 2) having her arrested?
In days of yore, the teacher would have demanded the student pay attention and probably gotten compliance. Or the teacher would have threatened to make a phone call to the parents. Falling that the teacher would have grabbed the student by the arm and marched her down to the vice principal. Today, that would result in a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the school.
In too many schools, teachers haver zero authority, and students and even parents don't care about education.
Did the teacher overreact - sure. They probably should have just ignored the texting and all the other disruptions small and large in the class. Is it any wonder that 50% of teachers quit teaching in the first few years of their "career".
[Insert pithy quote here]
A 14 year old wouldn't stop texting in class? Leading to a frisking by a law enforcement officer and a court appearance? What the hell happened to "in loco parente" ("in place of parent", means while the student is at school, the school is the parent)? This parent gives you permission to destroy the fucking phone. If you're in shop class, you have quite a few more tools at your disposal to drive the point home, a physics lab, slightly less so. Unless the class was government, there's no reason to involve the men in blue. This was math class. Confiscate, eliminate the problem.
These days, teachers are responsible for students' learning. These students' performance on test scores lead not only to their continued success but to the school getting more funding. Kid thinks her phone is that much more important than learning, kid needs to learn how worthless the phone is so she can fucking pay attention. Only way to do that is to remove the phone from the equation. Shoot the hostage, so to speak.
My daughter will be 14 in 9 years. I will have given her the phone because I wanted her to have one in an emergency, not so she could text her friends in the next room. I will be very sorry for the inconvenience and disruption she will have caused. By the time she gets home, it will be hard for me to correct her behavior because we're so removed from the situation -- I will appreciate it if you could help me out. With the cost per SMS being what it is, you'll be doing me a double favor.
OK- but how does finding a phone on someone's body prove that she was texting in class? I know its pretty easy to check to see if she was, however at the time they probobly couldn't even prove it! Besides, texting might be rude, but disorderly? Pressing buttons quietly at a desk isn't exactly disorderly. Breaking a school rule- yes, But this is way to far. I mean, is sneezing to loud now disorderly? Or running to the bathroom when you really have to go?
Make-up with glitter in it was classified as a "distraction in the classroom" at my middle school, and people would get detention if they wore it . However, detention is a far cry from a disorderly charge.
I'm so glad I'm grown now. Schools are becoming more like tyrant camps than an actual learning environment.
For instance, when a police pulls behind us while driving, we have two choices. Run away or stop. Kids and other with similar development will run, thinking it is fun. Most rational adults will stop and do whatever is necessary to avoid a scene. It is a choice, and the expedient choice is made with training.
I know that the expedient choice is not always the right choice, but at least in america there are ways to make the expedient choice, admit no guilt,and deal with the situation later. This of course requires maturity and practice.
And training with proper use of phones is important. The teacher obviously asked her nicely to stop and the situation only escalated when she would not. What happens when she is so addicted to the phone, which she obviously is, that she cannot sit for her SATS without using the phone? Or if she is in an interview for college? Or when she starts to drive. I am sure that many of you would be happy to have your young children on the same street as a phone addicted adolescent that has just learned to drive.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
What ever happened to detention??!
My
Limekiller
For the parents' response to this. The parents can either blow this thing way out of proportion by showing a sense of entitlement in the issue (as in "our daughter is entitled to do whatever the hell we say") or they can agree that cell phones don't belong in class in use.
Not to say that calling the cops was necessarily a reasonable reaction; one would hope that school suspension would have accomplished enough.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
FINE!
You Pay for it!
Police and Courts cost money to maintain. Money that does not need to be spent on childrens idioc obsessions with phones. Real criminals are making life tough on working americans and I want my police dept, and Distric Attorney out in the streets kicking ass, not wiping the ass of some disturbed little girl and her phone fetish.
Taking a trip in the way back machine on a setting of 17 years ago...
I had the brilliant idea of bringing my left-over 4th of July celebration fireworks to middle school and setting them off outside in the long jump pit of the track area. I cut last class of the day and ducked out to the track and field to wait for the last bell to ring before setting them off and running to my bus. My collection amounted to a handful of black-cats and some whistler bottle rockets (yawn, i know). I twisted all the fuses together and lit them with my Marlboro Red and before the first one went of, I was ambushed by the 4 principals.
Suffice to say they called the fire department and the police department and my and my buddy's parents. I remember laughing in their faces as my friend was crying like a baby, because I felt what I did was so petty. Yet all the adults were trying to make it seem like I had committed a murder!
The end result was a 4hr "behavioral corrections" class, 2 week grounding, and 1 week in-school suspension... AND a life-long obsession with combustible and flammable materials!@#
I would probably be serving multiple consecutive life sentences had this occurred yesterday and not when I was 15 TEE HEE. GOD FUCK AMERICA, I MEAN BLESS!
oh, but you still let your daughter have a phone, do you?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's stupid, but teachers have no other option. If they confront the student in class, they open themselves and the school to lawsuit.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Before everyone goes spouting off about how we're becoming a police state, has anyone (including submitter) bothered to read the linked police report? The cop refers to "prior negative contacts" with this person for both him and the administration. The chick ignores the teachers, lies to the cops, and brazenly continues to text in class. It's too bad the cops had to waste cycles getting involved, but judging from the police report the school personnel were at the end of their rope.
-R
SWAT team brought in for a schoolyard fight?
Well, why not. If kids can get beaten with baseball bats by other students, it seems more a job for police than teachers at that point.
The parents would have the teacher charged with force able confinement and the school board would be sued.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Teachers have their hands tied these days, they aren't allowed to do anything to the students. Calling the police is the only option it's sad but true.
I highly disapprove of strip searching students (at least a female cop did it this time). But then you have kids like her lying and stashing things where the sun don't shine, who can only be caught by strip search.
Expel her.
I have a daughter that has a cell phone addiction
That is YOUR responsibility as a parent to fix, NOT the schools. If your child spends all her time texting, then YOU simply take the phone away from her and let her know that she'll only have it back once she learns to use it responsibly. People like you are one of the main reasons why we have an ever more powerful government that takes more and more rights away from citizens.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Indeed because, as we all know, refusing to comply or follow orders in a non-military school is indeed a crime against all of society punishable by a sentence decreed in a court of law!
Who cares if it sets off the fire and other alarm systems, destroys all the classroom computers and any electronics in close proximity. It would get the job done! Plus it's alot less messy than hacking off her fingers so she can't text...or do anything involving opposable thumbs...
Once upon a time in a mythical land called Soviet Russia, a hot bowl of grits had Natalie Portman.
What the hell is wrong with you. Do you tie your shoes in little nazies.
What the hell is wrong with that statement? Was it supposed to make sense? Are you asking if we kill and hollow out Nazis and tie our shoes in them? Or is a nazi some sort of shoe covering whereupon tying our shoes with them still on constitutes a serious social faux pas?
And are you just fundamentally opposed to question marks. or are you just too lazy to use them. and if you're that lazy to post your little message, why should we care what you have to say.
Snowflake had hidden the 'phone in her underwear so having Police present is the only way to avoid a lawsuit.
No sig today...
Whoever filed the charge against the student? I think the US constitution requires hanging for overt treason, does it not?
Police and Courts cost money to maintain. Money that does not need to be spent on childrens idioc obsessions with phones.
No, it's much better spent dealing with the MPAA/RIAA's random lawsuits...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
How you gonna do that when she stuffs it down her underwear? And if you let her get away with it, what's she going to do next?
No sig today...
WTF??? Your daughter has a 'cell phone problem' and you applaud the school for taking care of YOUR problem?? When did it become the school district's PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY in the matter?
Take a little responsibility for the actions of your offspring!
Don't spend your life lamenting your life.
If we let her get away with unauthorized texting, next thing you know she will be a crack-addicted prostitute!
I've personally been involved in situations where a student's refusal to cooperate lead to the situation escalating far beyond what was necessary. I think sometimes they believe that if they dig in their heels, nothing bad will happen and the adult will let up. They don't understand that digging in just escalates the situation. When I encounter such a student, I usually have to explain the complete consequences of their actions (including ultimately getting cuffed and hauled out if need be), before they relent.
From reading the report, it's pretty clear that the student had multiple opportunities to come clean before being arrested, and refused to take advantage of them. Yes, I agree that arresting the girl was overkill, but the report mentions that the officer had prior [negative] dealings with the student before, so I would suspect that there is a story here that goes back a little farther than "ZOMG STUDENT ARRESTED FOR TEXTING." Arresting the girl was overkill *if* this was her first disciplinary issue. If this is one of a long string of issues, it's a different story. When sane, measured discipline isn't getting through to a kid, it may be a good time to over-react and try to get the kid's attention.
I don't know the kid, and I don't know her history, so I can't judge whether or not the officer was out of line. I can imagine plenty of scenarios where it is, and plenty where it isn't. I've had students get in a disproportionate amount of trouble for similarly stupid reasons, and it usually plays out the same way: a student with a long disciplinary history tries to press their luck over something moronic, and comes up with the short straw.
I think we recently had an article on here about that. put tinfoil in the classroom walls.
Twenty years ago I was in the same school district and would have attended her high school. (Her school was not built until after I graduated). So, that narrows down where I grew up to about a square mile..
Anyway, a buddy of mine had a big box of .22 ammo in his locker for use at the range after school, got caught, and was lectured for a minute and told to take it home. There was no buttock storage involved unlike this story, which may or may not be relevant.
Also as a member of the future military members club, we thought it amusing to play hot potato with demilitarized training grenades in the hallway. Nobody really cared but some ex-mil teachers started telling us some "war-stories".
I recall police were called only for drug possession incidents.
It is, admittedly, a much more ghetto / multicultural area now which may explain the heavy handed-ness and / or police state environment now seen.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
"In the criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories."
*DUN-DUN!* Maxwell's silver hammer came down on her head
*DUN-DUN!* Maxwell's silver hammer made sure that she was dead
Am I the only one who realized that April 20th is 4/20?
I was under the impression that in this country minors were protected from searches on a non-violent nature without a parent present....
I can understand had this been a weapon but a cellphone? If that were my kid I'd be ripping that cunt cop a new asshole and setting the phone on vibrate.
You can't take the sky from me.
I've seen different permutations of this comment being thrown around, and this is indicative that either the system is really broken or people are highly exaggerating and don't know what they're talking about. Do we have any legal precedence of parents suing schools, teachers, and school boards for giving their child detention? Unless the teacher beat the crap out of the kid before detention, or unless the child was sodomized while in detention, I do not see how anyone can just sue and not be laughed out of court.
I went to high school in the 90's and detentions and suspensions were handed out a lot. When fights would occur, teachers would pull the kids apart and they would get suspended or face expulsion if there was more than one prior incident. I've only seen one incident of a school going into lock-down after a fight with the police called, and that was only because of a rumor of a weapon, which did not exist. Arresting a student for texting and then lying about having the phone is stupid and goes way too far. The kid should have been pulled out of class and given detention for her disruptive behavior. What a waste of police resources to have to go to a school to arrest an "unruly" kid for using their phone.
Anyway, have you actually seen or heard about parents suing teachers with "force able confinement" ? I read the report of the whole incident and the student was really bratty. She attempted to conceal her phone, kept lying to the officers, and even gave them wrong numbers when they tried to call her parents. Had she admitted that she had the phone to begin with, none of this would have ever happened. For that, I do blame her. But to arrest her? There are far more nefarious criminals out there that deserve our police department's attention, not a 14 year old brat. Stick her into detention and take away her phone privileges for a month for the first offense.
Best "String" Ever!
Install passive cell phone jamming tech in the schools.
Obviously cell phone use is not the disease it's the symptom, but unless we want to start legislating how people parent, treating the symptoms may have to suffice.
Or so I hope. I would love to see a texting/talking/beeping fuckwit in a theatre arrested. Almost as much as I would love to see them lynched by an angry mob of disgruntled movie-goers... OK I lie: the angry mob would clearly be a much more satisfactory outcome.
I will go ahead and state the obvious:
What the kid did was annoying, disorderly and immature; no argument about that.
What the school and police did was irresponsible and a complete waste of public resources.
This was not a police matter. Very few things in a school are police matters. In this case, the teacher failed to properly supervise and discipline a student under their direct responsibility. Suspend/detend the kid, sure, but cops ? Did someone get beat/stabbed/shot/raped ? No ? Then no cops.
Idiot teachers like this are the leading reason why today's kids are such utter failures. They take after the moronic role models they're given.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
the teacher of that class is ineffective. The administration has overreacted. The police overstepped and violated her civil and constitutional rights. I hope the family hires a bulldog lawyer to counter-sue, this will be a great trial.
They're using their grammar skills there.
What ever happened to detention?
Remember The Breakfast Club? It convinced students that detention was a valuable part of the whole school experience and could actually be fun. Now kids go out of their way to get sent to detention, hoping they'll get a chance to hook up with Molly Ringwald.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
As a former high school teacher and technology coordinator/sysadmin, I've seen firsthand what cell phone addiction does.
During the administration of a standardized achievement test, there was a very strict rule: no cell phones--not just for distraction, but also to keep students from leaking test material out of the exam room.
Sure enough, a small handful of students had to go "use the bathroom", and as soon as they set foot into the hallway, out came their phones. They were quickly confiscated and given to me, so I could testify that they were not trying to leak test material. Of course they weren't; they just wanted to text and chat with their friends.
The school's policy on cell phones was simple: outside only, inside with staff permission. In the freaking LIBRARY, I grabbed a countless number of phones, that students then had to retrieve from an assistant principal. Half the time, they were on the phone with their parents.
My personal favorite was one morning when the water chiller didn't start in time. The massive 1930s WPA building had 12' ceilings and the air conditioning took a while to do its thing. The chiller was typically started around 0500 to get the classrooms down to 78F when students and staff showed up. This one morning, some classrooms were as warm as 82F--it was dropping, but the chiller hadn't been started until around 0630. Students were calling their parents from class to complain about it--and parents were CHECKING THEIR CHILDREN OUT of school for the day because of four degrees Fahrenheit. The damn school didn't have air conditioning until 1982; how did the first 46 years of students get anything done?
A local high school student recently died running her car off the road. Turns out she racked up around 15,000 texts per month in the summer. That's one text every 2 minutes, 16 hours a day, nonstop, for a whole month. I never remember being that addicted to BBSs when I was in high school.
Rant over. :-)
Or are you just pleased to see me?
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
When schools are run like jails, what schools produce are criminals.
Have you looked into making sure that homeschooling stays legal in your area? You should.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
"heinous case of texting without permission."
What an idiotic comment. Something a smart but clueless 8-grader would say.
Texting is not the issue.
Parents are either unwilling or unable to parent. Teachers aren't allowed to use that paddle any more, the one with the holes drilled in it to reduce the air cushion that made such a loud smack sound. How the hell else are you supposed to get their attention. Basically, the only thing left when students refuse to follow instructions is to call a cop and charge them with something.
arthurpaliden writes:
"The parents would have the teacher charged with force able confinement and the school board would be sued."
OK, I'll bite. Cite one example where a school or teacher was sued for "force able confinement" when giving detention or suspension.
My
Limekiller
I agree: the police should not have been involved. But that means all those lawsuits against school personnel "assaulting" pupils are going to have to disappear.
What are those lawsuits against school personnel "assaulting" pupils?
Anybody can sue anybody for anything, but the only cases that come to court are the ones that involve a teacher injuring a student, which makes it a real assault (no quotes around it).
Can you cite a case?
I may only be a law student but I can't imagine that really added up to disorderly conduct.
W.S.A. 947.01 (2005): "Whoever, in a public or private place, engages in violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, unreasonably loud or otherwise disorderly conduct under circumstances in which the conduct tends to cause or provoke a disturbance is guilty of a Class B misdemeanor."
That's a heck of a generalization. If I remember my middle/high school days at all correctly, there's usually not much to do in class. And texting is not disruptive to others... so if you're that bored, why not do something instead of staring at the clock?
I really feel like if teachers would actually focus on education and stop worrying about discipline for discipline's sake, students might actually have a chance at being engaged in lessons.
How much of everybody's time was wasted because the teacher felt obligated to deal with texting instead of math?
The real question is, was it set to vibrate? Inquisitive minds want to know.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
They called the school safety officer which means this school has a cop or cops working inside full time. Calling one on a student is just as easy as sending her to the principal.
Having gone to a school which also needed 3 full time officers walking the hallways this was prob a super bad school. You cant fuck around with these kids and the last thing a teacher needs in a bad school are students who don't think they have to follow the rules.
Back in the day before cellphones I unfortunately sat in front of a girl who talked. So one day I was finally annoyed enough with her talking over the teacher, so I turned around and said rather loudly, "WOULD YOU SHUT UP, WOMAN!?" She was so shocked that the quiet guy in class said something that she looked at me blankly and actually did shut up. I might have passed that class because of that event. I'd have done the same to a girl who was clicking away at her phone. But realistically if I was the teacher, the easiest and most effective thing to do would be to fail her, class participation was probably a part of her grade and if she didn't ace the rest of it, it would've been well within the teachers authority to fail her. But just as easy as kicking her out of class, sending her to the principals office, and having administration call her parents would've been equally effective at dealing with her, teaching her that this was inappropriate behavior, while still allowing her to eventually get her education, and perhaps not send her down the road of a delinquent. What would be interesting is to follow up on her in 5 to 10 years and see if she's a contributing member of society, or if she's on welfare with octuplets.
They are making her an example of what is going to happen from now on. It is really extreme to be doing what they are doing to her...hysterical is probably the best word to use here, but on the other hand this might cause the kids to suddenly behave...probably not because you're dealing with kids.
A teacher will get ito all kinds of shit if (s)he puts his/her hand into a kid's pants - for any reason. Far better to get law enforcement to do this.
Hopefully this will send a message to the stroppy teen.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Stop texting right now or I'm going to shove that phone right up your a.... oh nevermind.
Refusing to obey and causing a stir can lead to a public disturbance, which can be construed as disorderly conduct. How far that should go, however, is a pretty good sized grey area.
I realize that the core issue is refusal to stop being disruptive, but why not prevent this particular type of disruptive behavior?
If teachers could have rooms which were basically Faraday cages, wouldn't that make texting impossible?
Wauwatosa East High School is older than you are. It underwent extensive remodeling in the 1973-1975 time frame, but since then seems mostly unchanged (at least from the outside, when I was last in Wauwatosa). The area also has not changed a lot in the last sixteen years (since you would have graduated, based on your blog profile), at least in "ghetto / multicultural" terms. I went to East, a while before you were in high school. The last high school that Wauwatosa built was West, which opened in 1960.
Wauwatosa has, from what I remember (and people I know who still live there have told me), a typical suburban police department. I'd guess that she got the citation (note: she was not "arrested") because (1) she wouldn't give up the phone, so the only way that they could get it was to call the police, and (2) she had prior negative contacts with the police (as indicated on the police report).
Nothing particularly surprising, unusual, or particulaly heinous (except perhaps to a teenager) in this - pretty much what I would expect to happen, given the circumstances.
This is not the kind of love and support this young woman needs. You can't solve the problems that have been brought by years of abuse and neglect arresting someone and calling it "accountability". In point of fact, this young person was being held against her will, and there is no law saying she has to do everything her teacher says.
"Treat teenagers like adults they act like adults."
I never see people calling the cops on my friends when they are texting during their compulsory education process. That's because we don't write laws to compel adults to sit on their ass 8 hours a day (yet), and last time I checked, texting was not illegal. You have a strange idea of what constitutes freedom and accountability, sir. There's more to life than keeping your head down and doing what you are told. You advocate teaching her the opposite of accountability.
Then you are not a Teacher.
I've given up on Slashdot's comment scores.
1. What makes you think it would do much? If a student is _that_ disruptive, to the point of flat out refusing to cooperate or obey in any form or shape, not to mention the attitude to the cops bit, I'd say the parents aren't too involved in her education, one way or another.
Best case scenario: it's some single mom who threw in the towel long ago. You might make the mom unhappy a bit, she'll sob on some friends' shoulder, but she's not going to even know where to start to discipline her daughter.
Second worst: the parents don't really give a flying fuck in the first place. They just hope that their daughter grows up without much attention, like the tree in the back yard. Or that if someone has to do things right, it's the teacher, society, whoever other than them.
Absolute worst: the parents actually are proud of that antisocial behaviour and encourage it. Behind many a sociopathic school bully is a parent who's proud that his son/daughter looks out for number one and puts those losers in their place. Behind many, "bah, learning is for loser nerds. Who needs it?" attitudes is some parent who slipped through school on the exact same attitude, and still rationalizes it as the right thing.
2. If she refuses to leave class or stop, what are you going to do? Let her sit there and keep making a point of being a git until the parents get there? Even if the parent immediately drops everything and comes over, you're realistically looking at another hour fucked up before they actually get there.
I know people, heck, work with people where the dad commutes half way across the country, the mom commutes two cities away, and either of them can't get home in less than two hours even if they wanted to.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I'm speaking from a purely UK-based point of view here, but here in England, it's up to the school to enforce these rules. Some schools have an acceptable use policy for mobiles, while others allow them as long as teachers don't see them (they remain in the student's pocket and such). Our taxes aren't wasted on calling out the (already stretched, badly trained and poorly funded) police to sort out such petty incidents.
And at least our classrooms have no state-supported creationist wackaloons, or a sports culture that leads to hysteria, exclusion and murder.
The bottom line is that us Brits can prioritise when it comes to education. Some schools allow phones, and we're none the worse for wear.
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
Lying is not a crime.
Yes it is. It's called fraud. And as part of their education children are taught that lying has consequences. When they reach adulthood the consequences may be more severe.
---
The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
"I have a daughter that has a cell phone addiction. "
no, you have a daughter with a lack of will power. At worse, it's a habit. It is not an addition. Calling it that pushed YOUR responsibility onto others.
Why does she even have a cell phone? turn the damn thing off. Kids survived the whole of human history all the way tp the 21sty century without having one.
I'd rather parents took the damn things away and had some modicum of responsibility instead of blaming and 'addiction' and trying to make the school the childs only place for learning [proper behavior.
Yes, I am a parent. Yes one of my children borrows the cell phone. Guess what? they don't use it during class.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
They are making her go to court on 420? Those sick bastards
I am not necessarily in favor of calling out the cops, but an example sometimes has to be made. If this kid is more interested in texting than in the math, then he/she should be chucked out of the school and be home schooled.
I do not understand the reference to creationist nonsense. Or do you folks imagine that every county in the US is like Dover, PA (the people there had the good sense to finally get rid of the neanderthals in any case) ?
Anyone else thinking of skipping this one?
I'll bet the disorderly teenager will.
Yes it is. It's called fraud. And as part of their education children are taught that lying has consequences. When they reach adulthood the consequences may be more severe.
What the hell are you talking about? Fraud is deception motivated by the intent to damage another party or for personal gain. Lying is an intentional declaration of an untruth, but may have many many different underlying motivations (or none at all).
Here's an example to distinguish a lie from a fraud:
Yes it is. It's called fraud.
Assuming that you know you're full of shit (and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt), your statement above is a lie. However, it does not constitute fraud.
It sounds to me like this kid was lying and disruptive. There is already quite a bit of discussion about the correct response when dealing with this sort of situation. What interested me with this story is the disruptive nature of texting.
Hypothetically a student could be in class texting and not be disruptive or bothersome to others (if there are no sounds from the phone and so on). Shouldn't the kid have the right to do that if they choose. I realize it means they will not be paying attention in class but that is their loss not anybody else's. A post above mention how some classes are required even when they are really a waste of time to some students shouldn't we allow these students to use their discretion? If this story was about anybody besides a public school student or a prisoner it would be ludicrous.
If kids are never allowed to learn how to use their freedoms aren't we just creating a society that will never know those freedoms exist?
The numbers still say that biology teachers have a harder time in the U.S. teaching evolution because of regulations on textbooks requiring them to have nonsense from the Discovery Institute, et al, as an alternate 'theory'.
But anyway, back to the point: when we get a case like this (texting, lying to the police, truanting, smoking etc.) we generally realise they're a lost cause, throw them in the lowest sets and wait for natural selection to take its course. They normally end up working at the deep frier in McDonald's.
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
I dunno, #1 sounds like what a rational society would do. #2 sounds like false arrest - definitely worth bringing a lawsuit about. Kid can't follow school rules? Kick them out and arrest their parents for abandonment if they keep coming back.
She didn't get into trouble for the texting,she got into trouble for not following orders to give the phone up. So its all her fault the cops got called. If she would have given them the phone nothing more would have happened. So stop feeling bad for the spoiled brat already. If it were 30 years ago she would have went home with a red ass instead of a red face
Jack of all trades,master of none
The numbers still say that biology teachers have a harder time in the U.S. teaching evolution because of regulations on textbooks requiring them to have nonsense from the Discovery Institute, et al, as an alternate 'theory'.
Curiouser and curiouser. Please supply those numbers since the famous court case did establish that any such regulations on textbooks would violate the establishment clause. While it is conceivable that certain biology teachers in red states experience some social ostracism for teaching evolution in science class, there are no regulations of the sort you speak of. At least AFAIK.
the number of people here who think that students shouldn't be held responsible for their actions, and that teachers shouldn't have authority in their classrooms. To me this is just a sure sign our society is collapsing of its own narcissism. The idea that morality is only what you see as right in your own eyes and that there are no ultimate standards of right and wrong is sending this society down the road of self-destruction.
Maybe the school officials are getting kickbacks from private juvenile detention centers.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/17/penn_judges_plead_guilty_to_taking
http://www.prisonradio.org/judges_like_these.htm
Well, yes, if it was one-on-one tutoring, but it isn't. If you have to stop the entire class every time some kid decides that rules don't apply to them then you won't get much teaching done.
Oh, wait, that's exactly what's happening....
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom.html
No sig today...
hopefully, she'll learn her lesson about inappropriate texting BEFORE she learns to drive a car.
Sure she isn't allowed to anything she wants, and texting is probably disruptive to the classroom as well. BUT, who in their right mind would say "yeah let's get in a loud and belligerent conflict with the student" instead of ignoring her until the end of the class where a one on one conversation could occur without including and wasting all the other student's time. There were definite ways to go about this, and they chose the way of displaying raw power to the detriment of all the students involved, instead of keeping a calm head and handling it with more discretion. It's just stupid when authoritarian figures concluded that the only way they can fix a solution is with authoritarian power.
Wow way to take this situation and really run with it. I like the part about the SWAT team. It's not that we think this okay (at least I don't) it's that this is what our society has been reduced to, the student was causing a disturbance, refused to stop, refused to leave the class. Teachers can not use force on a student, so what are they supposed to do? Call parents who most likely both work and may even side with their "little shit". In the meantime what about the other students the ones that are not being a disturbance to the learning environment? I'm interested to know what your solution is. Mind you since the child is a "little shit" she most likely learned it from someone, good chance her parents, so now the trick is find a solution where you don't get sued.
public school system which treats students like inmates and citizens like subjects
I don't know about you, but I went to both a public schools and private schools (In Australia). The public schools ther students had the "upper hand" so to speak. Teachers had next to no rights over the kids, couldn't touch, couldn't this, couldn't that. The result was an overall poor education - though every liberty in the world. I then moved to a private (Catholic) school. It was a rude awakening of a much smaller set of rights for each student. There were after school detentions (staying back for just over an hour writing lines). There was homework - and you actually had to really get it done. Oh, and my favorite, with some teachers who didn't believe in detention, you got the cane - hand out, generally three to five. That fucker stung for a good ten minutes too. And you know what? My kids are going to private schools. Why? I learned discipline. I learned respect for others. I learned that there were consequences to my actions and to my lack of actions at other times. That is a GOOD life lesson to have.
So she had a cellphone... What exactly is the big deal?
Lets look at that.
1) A student in a school is there to learn. Sure, it might seem okay to just leave her alone and do nothing. But when her grades start to plummet, who parents do you think will come baying for blood demanding to know why their precious Snowflake can't read at a level three years below her?
2) She is sitting in a class of ten to thirty other students (No idea of class numbers there) and not paying attention. When teacher asks her a question she can't answer, the teacher then has to explain things over again taking up the other students learning time because Little-MIss-Chatty wants to SMS.
It's interesting they chose to charge her with disorderly conduct, of all things. She was not drunk. She was not loitering
People who are drunk and disorderly are charged with being drunk and disorderly. People who are loitering after being asked to move on are charged with loitering. People who are being disorderly are charged with being disorderly. What's not to get? Let me spell it out more clearly.
Disorder is the opposite of order. At a school, the order for teachers is to teach. Students generally attend school to learn, ergo the general order for students is to learn, listen and obey teachers/instructors. When a student disobeys a teacher they are being disorderly. When the refusal is escalated to the level where the student outright refuses under strict instruction to obey, there is a number of options available. The school chose to call the police. If this was the school I went to, my phone would have been confiscated the first time I dared to bring it out and was caught. If I refused, an afternoon detention would have quickly been written up along with a phone call to my parents.
If banning the girl from school for a week and a minor misdemeanor is what it takes to learn a life lesson here that it's not always alright to do anything you want and that in situations, you might have to do what others want you to do even if you don't like it... Then that's a very cheap price for that lesson.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
The student was not arrested for texting. The student was arrested for refusing to turn over the phone and lying to the instructor and the police officer about it.
Had this student turned over the phone to the instructor, there likely would have been a small punishment, perhaps confiscation of the phone and detention. Now this kid gets a juvenile record (purged at 18), a court appearance, and will perhaps learn a lesson...
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
Not for the police?!
Nowadays there are police that are assigned to high schools (mine had 1, maybe 2 at 6 years ago) to act as babysitter for just this sort of situation. Its sad that police need to be increasingly involved in school matters but it seems to be a popular solution ever since Columbine. That and it removes liability from the school to the police.
Yes it is, if you are talking to a police officer involved with an investigation. It can be construed as "impeding investigation" or "impeding police business". They were investigating her, so, her lies were directly impeding their ability to get to the bottom of the story.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
amen!
with one small correction. calling the safety officer on a kid is actually *easier* than sending them to the principal... what if they just choose not to go?
They will never stop until somebody makes the
It's pretty clear there was no justification for the search. The disorderly conduct charge was invented specifically to "justify" the search as a search incident to arrest.
Wisconsin law provides "Whoever, in a public or private place, engages in violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, unreasonably loud, or otherwise disorderly conduct under circumstances in which the conduct tends to cause or provoke a disturbance is guilty of a Class B misdemeanor."
Texting in class doesn't fall under any of the listed categories, so already you have to use the catch-all "otherwise disorderly". But what really makes it clear is that no arrest was made after the conduct was described and investigated. Instead, the arrest was made after she refused to turn over her phone, showing it was merely a pretext for which to justify a warrantless search.
Some posters are acting like she (the student) alone escalated this. If the teacher hadn't disrupted the class-to call a student out on a behavior that was not disruptive-everyone would have won except the student texting. This is on the teacher for picking a fight that couldn't be won. And disrupting the class to do it. And doing it in front of other students so the student would have no choice but to try to save face. How much instructional time was lost to address this nonissue?
It always does seem to be the red neck states where these sorts of outrageous stories occur. Hmm.
I've been following the slashdot posts for a couple of weeks now and I must say I'm shocked that there is so much agreement here. I thought slashdotters were a more radical group. But judging from the comments to this post they seem to be all in favor of obedience. In my view school should be about learning, not obedience. You can force a child to obey but you can't force them to learn. In fact obedience is a very dangerous thing. Americans are so obedient we just sit and watch as our authorities wreck the economy.
No mod points now, though.
this was TOSA EAST?!
as somebody who attended tosa west (the GOOD wauwatosa public high school) let me just say that i'm not the slightest bit surprised. our ac dec team beat the pants off 'em every year, and probably still does.
wow, you'd think i wouldn't still be this emotionally invested in an old high school rivalry...
They will never stop until somebody makes the
The student needed reprimanded, that is clear. The sad reality is the schools must rely on our police force to deal with the students, or risk a lawsuit. What can you do with a student that will not do what the school employees ask, and blatantly lies to them? In the meantime the students wanting to learn probably missed a day of lecture.
She sounds like a little shit,
Yes, she does. I do wonder though, how much of that is because she is in a school where the supposed adults can't even drum up enough respect from a bunch of 14 year olds to handle a bit of willfulness without resorting to calling the cops. That doesn't excuse her behavior, but it might well explain it.
When I was in school, such behavior meant a trip to the principal's office. Any attempt to refuse to go would result in being dragged there if necessary (and consequently, a much less pleasant conversation once there).
I've seen different permutations of this comment being thrown around, and this is indicative that either the system is really broken or people are highly exaggerating and don't know what they're talking about. Do we have any legal precedence of parents suing schools, teachers, and school boards for giving their child detention? Unless the teacher beat the crap out of the kid before detention, or unless the child was sodomized while in detention, I do not see how anyone can just sue and not be laughed out of court.
http://www.aclupa.org/legal/legaldocket/studentsuspendedforinterne.htm
"the type to wear very tight pants"
You mean mumble pants?
Why mumble pants?
Cause you can see the lips move, but you cant hear what they're saying.......
Lying to the police is a crime. Many jurisdictions call it interfering with an investigation. Not only that but it SHOULD be a crime to lie in almost every circumstance I can think of, with a few extreme cases where I think it might be acceptable (keep in mind you still have the right to refuse to answer a question). Lying is destructive to almost every situation in which it's used. This is why almost every religion and moral code established in society have it considered taboo and why there are so many moral stories in which examples are shown of it's destructiveness.
Student with attitude gets authorities upset with her and ends up charged with disorderly conduct. Doesn't this happen at least 10 times a day somewhere?
The Samsung Cricket was recovered "from the buttocks area" of the teenager
hehe, I've seen that video too...
Could schools legally do cell phone jamming perhaps? Maybe have a designated area where phones will still work, like the lunch room?
No no, you misunderstood. He said nazies.
It would be awesome to have shoes made out of hollowed Nazis though.
What you just said isn't derivative of Schwartz' speech, and in fact is counter to his intent. Schwartz made the point that people must be able to BREAK the rules when it is wise to do so. He also used that example of the kid accidentally being given an alcoholic drink which then, because of people following the rules without wisdom, resulted in the boy being separated from his family for weeks! That is nearly a direct parallel to what happened here: school staff and enforcers blindly applying and enforcing rules without wisdom, leading to this only slightly rebellious kid being whisked off to a criminal court.
Schwartz is right: people are so now dependent upon "rules" that they lack wisdom and the moral will to exercise judgement.
"was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after she refused to stop texting" :(
Arrested for being an obnoxious teenager? Not to be trolling, but I doubt I'll ever dare to visit the US!
This makes me think of a friend in high school. His phone rang during our senior English class.
He stood up, answered it, said "I have to take this" and walked out. Our teacher actually cried.
After class, she called him a whore.
Perhaps the school has had a problem with students using cell phones and texting for other purposes. I've heard of places where they've banned the devices because too many students were using them during school time to set up drug sales or prostitution. If this is one of those schools, that would explain why the charges of having the device and refusing to give it up were considered so serious.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
I don't think the parent was trying to say that she did not warrant punishment, just that it shouldn't be a "criminal" case. As annoying and obnoxious as she may have been, it does not warrant having a criminal record! This type of situation should have been dealt with at the school level (suspension, etc) but not in a criminal case.
There are kids that get physically assaulted by other students in high school and all that happens is maybe a suspension the first 3 or 4 times. For these kinds of assaults to get mere administrative punishment and a texter to get a criminal record is absolutely STUPID. It pisses me off when people complain about problems not being dealt with while big important ones get completely ignored.
From Wikipedia: "In the broadest sense, a fraud is a deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual."
Does the rule of inclusion elude you? Fraud is performed through lying, but lying does not necessarily imply fraud. Just as a DUI requires you to be driving, yet driving is not illegal.
This is the Stupidest fucking bullshit I've heard of in a while. The safety officer needs to be locked in a room with a bruiser and roughed up a little. Yeah, the student was a bitch but send her to the office and then suspend, expel her. This has nothing to do with the law. If it was my kid I would handle the situation with my kid, and then handle it with the school system. And yes, the latter would include 'the law'
Agreed, keep it within the school. If she's breaking school rules that's why we had detention and suspensions when I was growing up. You acted up and they made sure you were bored out of your mind for a a good solid 4 hours on saturday when you could have been hanging out with your friends. Don't think you need someone with a gun strapped to their leg to enforce that.
She wasn't simply arrested for texting in class.
She was brought to the school's office because she refused to stop texting despite a teacher's repeated orders for her to do so during class.
Once in the office, she was questioned and lied multiple times.
The school's officer questioned several witnesses whose stories all agreed with the teacher's, meaning the student was almost certainly lying. (Her own friends ratted her out)
After confronting her with this, she continued to maintain her lies.
It was at this point, having refused to cooperate with the teacher to end her disruptive behavior, having refused to cooperate with the school's officer, having lied to multiple school officials, and refusing to cooperate with anyone there that she was finally informed that she would be arrested for disorderly conduct.
The school's officer then requested her parents' contact numbers so they could be informed.
The student gave multiple (different) incorrect numbers for her father.
She then provided a correct number for her mother, who was called to the school.
She was then searched by a female officer, who located the phone on her.
The school officer did what he could, giving her every opportunity to cooperate.
It was her decision to refuse time and time again and to provide false information time and time again, and now she's living with the consequences.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Uh what? Who exactly did she defraud of a monetary sum by saying she didn't have a phone?
Schools and police in the US have a history of violating student's privacy by confiscating communications devices and then perusing the contents. Lying while not under oath is the compliment to freedom of speech, freedom to think and all that other shit that your army raped Iraqi girls for. At least appreciate it you fuckcunt.
Before you call my response disproportionate to your stupidity, let's consider that the poor girl is appearing before court for texting during class.
Umm no it isnt "fraud is the crime or offense of deliberately deceiving another in order to damage them"
I don't think she was trying to damage, obtain property, or receive service unjustly... i'm sure she or her parents paid for that phone. Nigerian scammers are commiting fraud, she on the other hand is just lying. In your world they might be the same but thankfully the law doesn't. They're just trying to stretch the law she may have broken of causing a disturbance... though I think the teacher is more responsible for that. S/he should have just sent her to the principals office so that she could be suspended if it was such an unforgivable offense.
The TED speech given by Barry Schwartz that someone else referenced (oddly trying to make a contrary point) is very descriptive of what happened in this instance.
If you have to call the police just because you have a 'disruptive' student silently texting, you won't get much teaching done either, and should be looking for a new profession.
Maybe if you'd continued to show up for English class it would have "effected" your ability to know when to use the word "affected".
I don't get people who go and write a smug post containing mistakes in English about how English class was too slow for them...
If you had any common sense that comes from being an adult, you would know this.
.
Achieving adulthood does not magically impart others with morals, values, or opinions similar to yours. That is a conceited and utterly laughable point of view; one that I can't honestly believe that you hold. Why, then, would you make a statement like the one above?
Perhaps it was because, as you stated, you believed that the GP was school aged. After all, you don't have to use a real argument when convincing a minor... they don't have the perspective to understand your obviously correct "adult" point of view.
All of this leads me to one of two conclusions:
1) you are a troll
2) you have little respect for young people, and like a bad parent, use your "I'm the adult and you are the child" attitude to look down on them and avoid acknowledging them as living, breathing, thinking, feeling human beings.
Which of these is true I cannot say, but either will damage your ethos enough to discount your arguments with regard to this topic.
Where to begin...
This is absurd on so many different levels that it is practically beyond belief. Where was the teacher? Where was the administration? Why do we have police handling petty garbage such as this. Is that what we as Americans have come to? The kid is lying! Quick get the police and commence a full body cavity search!
Second... honestly if this is what the police in Wisconsin occupy themselves with then I say someone needs to go to Wisconsin and start some shit worthy of police time and attention. You know... The good old strong arm robberies, maybe a DUI, a burglary or two. Evidently Wisconsin law enforcement needs some attention.
If I were the a City Counsel member I would start by reaming the Chief of Police for this ridiculous waste of resources. If I were a School Board member I would start by reaming and firing the administrators. I work for a k-12 school system and know this is not easy but is possible.
I have six kids ages 9 - 21 in addition to being a public school employee as mentioned above. Absolutely ridiculous. Way to go Wisconsin! Show the rest of the country how you have lost control of the students you are charged with educating and escalating this to a criminal issue.
Unbelievable! Before I get a bunch of people flaming me that I should log in I have created an account and am awaiting the password. I just could not wait to reply. Also I am aware that a school safety officer is a fancy and P.C. way of saying School Police Officer. They existed when I was in High School some thirty years ago but the school did not involve them for anything short of aggravated battery, drug trafficking, rape or murder. I went to school on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and the crimes mentioned above were not unlikely to occur. But I promise you that the teachers never even considered involving the police because some punk kid wouldn't give up their CD or cassette player or electronic football game. The wrote a referal and away you went to the office. They confiscated the device your parents were notified and the consequences ran from after school detention with the football coach or suspension.
This is another sign that we have lost all common sense and these P.C. quacks that run these public schools systems are out of control themselves and could use a good spanking!
Whew! Unbelievable...
I'm surprised no one has mention the handling of the actual cell phone. The search was done by an officer, not a school official, and the citation was issued from the police. Why was the cell phone then turned over to the school. It also seems this would be evidence, making it worse.
Yes, with the shocking invention of the baseball bat our society is now in utmost peril. There is seemingly no defence to a teenager armed with sporting goods except an armed response from the State.
Wrong: not all lies are fraud, and this one certainly wasn't. No one was harmed as a result of her lie (except the girl herself, and the taxpayers whose money has been wasted prosecuting her).
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Fraud, slander, libel, falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater, etc. The list goes on. And when it comes to lying to authority figures, there's always obstruction of justice and perjury.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
As an adult, I'm not obligated by the state to spend 6 hours a day doing something which I consider to be a waste of my time, so if we treat her as an adult, maybe we should afford her the same right to choose how she spends her time.
There's only one problem with this option, and that's our current screwed-up welfare system, which will likely be her path given the easy way out in life as an uneducated adult. For me personally, as a taxpayer who gets rather pissed by working very hard to ultimately pay for others who choose not to, thanks but no thanks.
Why is it sad? They're there to teach, not punish. Let someone else do that so they can get on with their jobs with those that want to learn. Everyone else can be garbage wo/men.
So you taught him the universal life lesson of "don't get caught."
"You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
"I noticed the zipper on her pants was down."
lol the cop is staring at my crotch olol im gna sue u so hrd
I'm probably showing my age by saying this ("I'm 37! What? I'm 37. I'm not old") but this appears to be a totally appropriate response by the school authorities. In fact, I would advocate smashing her phone into a thousand pieces with a sledgehammer, right in front of her. It's unfortunate that the cops have to get involved but remember that these days, teachers are hamstrung by lawsuits, PTAs and school boards. I would recommend that everyone read the *entire* report before jumping to conclusions. This student has had discipline problems in the past (see last sentence in first para), and she repeatedly lied to the teacher, the principal and the police officer about the phone. I also don't understand how anyone can claim that using a cellphone (this includes texting) during lessons is not disruptive. I'm sure parents would be aghast if their precious little snowflake pulled out a PSP or a Gameboy in class. And yet, using a cellphone in class is OK?
There's a huge difference between fraud and lying.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Forgot my tags
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Forgot my [SARCASM] tags
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Alright, this girl was texting on her cell phone. How much of a disruption is this really? It's not. It doesn't distract any other students. The police officer, on the other hand, interrupted the class of the girl who was a friend of the cell phone girl to see if cell phone girl had a cell phone. He stopped a class and pulled a student out to see if another student had a cell phone. Now that's a disruption. The fact that the school kept her in the office for several classes and then arrested her and barred her from school was a larger disruption.
Here's what would happen if they let her stay in class:
Best case scenario: She learns something from class between text messages.
Worst case: She doesn't learn anything and she doesn't disrupt anyone. (It's not like cell phone keys make a whole lot of noise)
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Lying is one of four factors necessary to comprise fraud. Lying, in itself, is not a crime.
SG
sooo why weren't the parent's contacted.. ... ect.. and just being a brat
if the "minor" / "child" wasnt being legally violent
i.e throwing , slamming, screaming
it sounds more like a case wherein she shoulda been inschool suspended
and the parents notified..immediately upon the fact that the student wouldnt hand over
EXPENSIVE personal PROPERTY thats technically under license from whatever company her
parents are signed with.. or her self for that matter..
yes teachers need more leeway in some cases ... .. mandatory schooling is not a beneficial as it should be.... .. myself or even do both but not just work .. there's nothing in for it, a nice shiney watch and a heart attack after 20yrs
yes
i'd rather learn than work
Why does the police record say 2008 ?
I think a public caning is in order.
After reading the police report, she basically got charged for lying to the teacher and to everyone one involved. I'd be surprised if the judge doesn't throw this out. What a joke.
Fraud is lying with the intent to cause damage to another party. Lying itself is not a crime. I don't know why your comment was moderated so high, people need to step back and think about this with a level head.
Without a doubt. I read the complete police report included with the article and she was an unapologetic liar! Furthermore, she is a repeat offender as evidenced in the police report.
"No, I don't have a phone!" "No! I don't have a phone!" "I told you I don't have a phone!!!" "How'd that get up there?"
I know I probably sound like one of those "Get off my lawn!" old guys, but childhood is PRECISELY about developing character and learning right from wrong. This lying crap-weasel needs a huge lesson in truth and respect. If you ask me, they didn't go far enough.
Pink Floyd: we don't need no education. I hope the school has some strong policies in place. Otherwise, they'll lose this case.
Yes, actually, depending on how disruptive your behavior is. Of course, the real problem here is that people who act out in this way generally tend to keep escalating the situation until they end up in handcuffs (and even after that, in some cases).
It's like the "don't taze me bro!" retard. He was acting like an idiot, being insulting as hell, and generally distrusting the event at which he was present. Even so, both the speaker and the security personnel restrained themselves and gave him a chance to speak his mind. When they finally asked him to leave, he refused. They still restrained themselves, and gave him every opportunity to do the right thing. Instead, his behavior got worse and worse until he ended up on the ground getting zapped and cuffed.
Some people simply have no common sense. They seem to think that they have unlimited freedom to encroach on the rights of others, and do not acknowledge authority of any kind. Well, so be it - whether or not they want to acknowledge authority figures is irrelevant, as long as we have authority figures who are authorized to use force.
is not interesting enough to keep the students from distraction, and we decide to punish the student for the "incompetence" of the hierarchy.
As a teacher I do think that perhaps what is unsaid is probably the bigger cause of this. I know there are a lot of slashdotters that are all about 'students rights,' and I agree to an extent they have to be there. But, when you're dealing with a classroom of students and attempting to teach state mandated material to students, maintain discipline, and manage to teach kids everything else in between (including often times being someone that they're more willing to talk to than their parents,) there has to be rules in place. (That's of course not including any daily fun you have with parents, politics, and whatever else comes up in your daily routine).
Cell phones in particular are a real big hot button in the education setting right now. At my school as long as we don't see them or have evidence they're there we leave well enough alone. I teach band, I'm down right happy for cell phones when I come back from trips - they keep me from waiting till 2 in the morning for parents to show up! The issues of photos, bullying through the phones, and much more importantly emergency management are causing this kind of stuff to begin being mandated to us by district lawyers. Word for my campus is next year they're not to be here at all - automatic consequences.
In the past I have had students outright say that they'll not listen to me on that issue if there's an emergency lock down or something. That kind of break down in discipline at that kind of time is something that can't be tolerated. Now I know that there are none of these circumstances being mentioned here - but please get off the high horse about students should be able to have every disruptive device and use them at all times.
Most importantly with this, I'd be willing to bet the student in question was blatantly disrespectful to all of the authority figures involved. At a certain point the student probably limited the options available to them. Perhaps there were mistakes, but due to privacy issues you will never hear the school side of the story.
Please explain this to George Bush, Dick Cheney and.... well, every politician that ever lived.
Yeah, thought so.
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur
Disorderly conduct is one of those 'crimes' that should not exist.
It is arbitrary and capricious and allows a cop to arrest you for doing anything or literally nothing at all.
When you get arrested for disorderly conduct you can be sure that you just pissed the cop off and they decided to run you in as payback. That's all it is. It is a 'crime' made up to let police lean on anyone they don't like.
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur
Although clinton's lie amounted to perjory and obstruction of justice...
Clinton's problem: no plausible deniability ;^)
She was not lying to gain anything or damage anyone. Just lying to preserve her property.. that does not equal fraud.
Should she be punished yes.. suspension/detention . Getting the police involved is a bit much.
open source sub sim. I might start coding again for this. http://dangerdeep.sourceforge.net/contribute/
I'm seeing all these comments about it being how the police officer arrested her in part because she lied about the phone and how other students and the teacher all said she had it and how she wouldn't give her the phone numbers to contact her parents. You all talk about it being sue happy and all they can do is call the police yet the police have a lot less authority then a teacher at a school the cop is still a cop and cant do anything to anyone unless they are breaking a law and not doing what a teacher wants you to do is not a crime
Teachers have a lot more authority in a school then a cop a teacher doesn't need probable cause they only need a reasonable suspicion to search but a teacher can't force a search nor can a police officer search them if the student refuses to be searched by a teacher but only if the cop has probable cause of a crime
What most of you don't seem to realize is she doesn't have to tell the police officer anything at all and there is no law forcing her to tell anyone how to contact her parents, and legally at 17 she doesn't even have to follow the teachers orders
Also breaking school rules aren't illegal and the school cops have less authority then a teacher does because they are cops and have to have probable cause that of a CRIME and having a cell phone in class or not listening to the teacher are NOT CRIMES.
And if her txting on the phone is not disorderly conduct in any state
If it was disorderly conduct they wouldn't have been able to continue class and talk to her afterwards.
All a teacher can do is sent them to the office and if they refuse to leave the classroom then they are trespassing and can be arrested for that
What the police officer did was illegal and the cop should be facing criminal and civil charges unless they were trained to to that or it was policy at the department in which case the police department is responsible
you people talk about how things that are irrelevant because school rules are not laws and police officers can only enforce laws. The school is responsible for having the contact information for the students parents and their emergency contacts. It couldn't have been disorderly conduct if the police waited till after to talk to her
most states only allow teachers to touch students if someones is in immediate danger
and you people talk about what are they supposed to do if they just say so to detention and other shit but dont seem to realize there is already stuff in place to handle that cant of stuff in MASS its called Child in Need of Services and say a 13 year old keeps doing stuff and refuses to behave they go before a judge and then the judge can order shit and shes 17 have her stay in the office the rest of the day until she goes home and suspend her and let her actual parents deal with her who are the only people other then cops, judges, and jailers that can physically force a kid to do something
disorderly conduct is a law that a lot of police officers use to abuse innocent people especially in a case like this where its unlikely to go to trial and most likely will have some sort of pre trial diversion and assuming she completes that the charges will be dismissed
can I make it down to one letter a line?
After seeing so many comments leaping to the defense of cops who use tasers on innocent people, I suppose I shouldn't be so shocked by the consensus here. Fine, fascism makes perfect logical sense, children should surrender their private property to agents of the state on demand or be thrown in prison, whatever. The best argument against that kind of attitude is me and people like me throwing stones at your head, and that's not really the kind of thing that can be expressed over the internet.
I agree, the police shouldn't be involved.
However he's right, it's lawsuit central out there now, the world is ridiculous, what can a teacher do? Call the principal, the principal can tell the student off, they still may not leave the classroom - period.
So the highest level of authority in the school still can't PHYSICALLY do anything if the person is being a little shit.
I hate cops involved in rubbish like this, I really do but this litigous (sp?) assholes have brought it on us all.
Lying is not necessarily fraud. Nor would it be fraud in this case. Lying to the police can be a crime, in most jurisdictions this is called Obstruction of Justice. But the girl was not charged with that.
What baffles me the most about this case was the rigamarole everyone went through to determine that she had a phone. Why did it matter? If the teacher saw the phone, that's the end of it. Give the pupil the appropriate punishment. (detention, suspension, saturday school, etc) Why did it have to be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that she did in fact possess a phone? What if she had passed the phone off to a friend before the officer arrived? Would they have then had to let her go unpunished? The incident originally wasn't about her committing a legal crime, it was about breaking school rules. When you're talking about breaking school rules you don't need evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to get a "conviction".
Lying is one of four factors necessary to comprise fraud.
By who's definition?
Lying, in itself, is not a crime.
Not always. Often however lying, particular for personal gain, is fraud in the broadest sense and has consequences, either socially or legally.
---
The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
Umm no it isnt "fraud is the crime or offense of deliberately deceiving another in order to damage them"
Wrong. At the time I write this wikipedia is saying "In the broadest sense, fraud is a deception made for personal gain ...".
---
The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
I find it cruelly ironic that both of you don't seem to have learnt the difference between effect and affect
.... the girl was arrested BEFORE the police attempted to contact her parents. I don't know what kind of totalitarian hellhole you live in, but here in Australia the schools don't call in the cops for disruptive students. The girl should have been taken aside by a senior teacher, and her parents contacted from the numbers on file.Seriously what kind of shit hole do you live in that the police can arrest you for not cooperating with their investigations into your own behaviour? I don't even have to identify myself to police here, and that is the way I like it.
This will get kicked out in court and this dumbass cop will get a rap on the knuckles and some bad press.
N.W.A. said it best (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiX7GTelTPM).
========
CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
If you RTFA, you will see that it was her fathers phone and she was texting him while in class. She likely didn't want to lose the phone in class because she'd be in more hot water at home for losing his phone. She also knew they couldn't forcibly take the phone away easily. Worse, the whole process was focused on taking the phone away, which is totally stupid and not the source of the problem. The child not behaving is the source and what should be focused on.
However, there are much easier ways to do these things...Just kick her out of class. At my school, you would be sent to the principal's office. After getting a good, long, mean lecture, they would call your parents. Unlike in the police report, they would have your parents' telephone numbers on file, especially if you were a regular problem. Your parents would be told to pick you up. That is exactly the kind of thing parents hate to hear the most. For them, school is a kind of day care, and if they have to come from work to get you....oh boy. Then the parents would punish you. In a case like this, the parents would at the least confiscate the phone or call the provider and shut it down. Some kind of grounding would be involved. That's it. The school would have minimum disruption.
Now, I thought our school was run like a prison, and it was. However, we didn't have real police there. And we especially didn't have real police hopping from classroom to classroom asking kids questions and disturbing class because one kid wouldn't behave. If we had that, we would never have had any classes as plenty were not unlike the girl in this article. This is simply an asinine, disruptive, and expensive way to handle a very old problem with known solutions.
...because in an English school the policeman/woman & teacher would've been laughed & assaulted for trying to take a phone off a pupil.
http://nathanlindsell.blogspot.com/
The numbers still say that biology teachers have a harder time in the U.S. teaching evolution because of regulations on textbooks requiring them to have nonsense from the Discovery Institute, et al, as an alternate 'theory'.
Curiouser and curiouser. Please supply those numbers since the famous court case did establish that any such regulations on textbooks would violate the establishment clause. While it is conceivable that certain biology teachers in red states experience some social ostracism for teaching evolution in science class, there are no regulations of the sort you speak of. At least AFAIK.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District/1:Introduction#Page_1_of_139
which do you think is riskier from a lawsuit standpoint: 1) giving a student a suspension; or 2) having her arrested?
Option 1 is riskier (especially if it involves touching the student in any way to resolve the issue). You cannot be sued by the other party for calling the cops. You can be charged by the cops for false police reports, but in a situation like this that isn't going to happen (especially if the school safety officer is a cop themselves and makes the call). Also, any misconduct would result in the police being sued, not the school.
"could barely read at an 8th grade level"
I hear about americans reading at an Xth grade level all the time. Could someone break down the levels for me? Maybe I can even find out what level I am on. (Do I level up by writing "what level I'm on" ?) That would be sweet.
"he, who has quotes in his signature, is a douche" - unknown.
Why so?
Just imagine that the teacher had laid his hands on *her* ! He would be the one explaining himself to the police, the courts, and the unemployment office afterwards. That's how things work.
That teacher had precisely 2 options left.
(a) accept the fact that henceforth he has no further authority over her (or any other student's) conduct in class
(b) call in the cops
According to US laws and customs that teacher acted both "professionally" and "correctly". It's idiotic, but there it is.
Besides which, the student in question can call herself lucky she wasn't even Tasered down (as seems to be becoming the norm with arrests in the US). Perhaps female suspects are discriminated against in that they don't immediately receive a Tasering ... perhaps the venue was too public, or perhaps she was smart enough to "comply" unreservedly with the police once they arrived (by immediately lying flat on the ground and spreading all her appendices).
Oh yes ... and that student also tried to brazenly (and stupidly) lie her way out of it by denying she had a cellphone at all (a classic pose). This was a bluff which would have worked fine had not everyone seen her fiddling with a phone and had the police not had the foresight to bring a female officer. Unfortunately for the student in question her bluff was called and she was strip-searched, she was subsequently proven to be lying when said cellphone was retrieved from the general area of her buttocks by a female police officer. I imagine her entering a plea that it was planted there, which was brutally over-ruled by the authorities, leaving her with psychological scars for life. Ah well.
Which just about sums up her general level of honesty, well-meaningness, and determination to make trouble for all involved.
In retrospect that teacher was *very* lucky he called the police instead of trying to cope with the situation himself. Quite apart from running the risk of being knifed on the spot by the girl's boyfriend, does anyone here believe for an instant that said female student would have refrained from making spurious allegations aimed at getting this teacher fired? I don't.
I'm afraid that this is what the world has come to. We've *got* to call in the police when high school students act willfully, or we're in deep legal trouble.
...is with the bleeding heart liberals, like the poster of this story, who have forced schools to escalate matters in a formal manner.
Pre-lunacy the school could and would have dealt with it internally: confiscated the 'phone and caned the disobedient child. But now because of bleeding-heart liberals they can't do that so they are left with the only option of escalation.
No half-way decent school can afford to let one stroppy badly behaved child get away with that kind of behaviour. If you're looking for someone to blame: look at the "me me me" generation brat and her crappy parents.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Seeing that I doubt she'll get capitol punishment for this (damn shame, should have happened in Texas, the only state sane enough to understand it's better to fry them young before they have a chance to become voting liberals!) she should at least be publicly caned!
... wait I'm not a redneck.....
The problem with youth these days is that pansy ass liberals in Washington have made it so that we can't beat our kids to keep them in line anymore. What's worse is that those bra burning lesbians in Washington won't just stay where they belong, AT HOME, barefoot and pregnant. This world is going to hell in a hand basket fast and it's all because people listen to CNN and get their panties all in a twist because they can't see clearly Saint George W. Bush is going to save us from the evil A-Rabs.
It's about time we stop sending girls to schools where they can distract boys from their studies once they reach puberty. It's about time we start slapping our daughters around when they show signs of free thinking. It's about time we get this work back under control. These girls don't need school anyway, they should be making babies from the day they turn 18 in order to make sure that those hispanols don't take over this county!
Oh
The principle of the school should be canned like tuna over this. When the principle of the school reacts this harshly to an incident of a teenager lying to avoid losing their phone in school, how will he/she respond to real problems. Teenagers ARE disorderly. Teenagers are unruly. Teenagers DO lie to avoid getting in trouble. Threatening a teenager you know is lying is a waste of time. The kid already knows he/she is in trouble. The kid knows that if they get caught the punishment can't really be any worse. The kid will just keep lying until the situation resolves itself.
A school principle who has a student arrested over a situation like this lacks leadership ability and lacks good decision making abilities. The girl did not endanger any other students. She did disrupt class, but she'd have been scared to do it again later. Can anyone seriously tell me, how, on any planet a school leader can ever be taken seriously or gain the trust or respect of their students when the principle thinks the proper method of dealing with a 14 year old that obviously is testing her boundaries, is to have her arrested and then tried?
If I lived in this middle of nowhere hick town, I'd lynch the principle unless he/she dropped the charges and made a public appology stating that he/she overreacted because of his/her incompitance as a school leader.
This was posted in Idle because it's absurd. But the majority of Slashdot readers seem to find it perfectly normal to criminalize a 14 year old (who in other legal matters has the status of a child, i.e. no rights at all) for the equivalent of passing a note to a classmate. Is this your notion of educating someone to democracy and conflict resolution by discussion instead of violence? This won't teach her to pay attention, it will teach her that the one with the taser is always right and kids aren't. I hope you all don't have children, and if you do, that they run away before they've become like you.
Lying is not a crime.
Yes it is. It's called fraud.
I'm not one of those legal experts, but I'm pretty sure fraud requires substantiated pecuniary loss. I don't think butt-texter here cost her teacher any money
Those in authority always go for the easiest targets. If I was a cop I'd much prefer to be arresting teenage kids on bullshit charges than dodging the lead trying to prevent real crimes.
I grew up in Wauwatosa, my father retired from the Wauwatosa police force, and man listed as the complainent (Thomas Swittel) was my guidance councilor in high school. He's now the dean of students, apparently.
So let me give the /. crew a bit of info. Note that I am not involved personally, and I have not spoken to these people about the incident.
Swittel is a pretty laid-back guy. If you've ever seen Summer School, he's kind of like Mark Harmon - the teacher in that movie. Laid-back, easy-going, gym-teacher type. He wouldn't have called the cops on this girl unless that was policy and she really needed it. So you can give up on the theories on totalitarianism, they just don't apply here.
The officer involved isn't some hard-ass either, although he's a bit young for me to know in more than just wide passing.
The essential problem is, a teacher is no longer allowed to just grab a student by the arm and haul them out of class. Legal issues and all, and as the police report reads, this girl is a handful. So "Officer Friendly" gets to come handle her, and has to call backup for a search so you don't get boy-cop on young-girl action.
Just another slow news day, I guess.
To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if this news story came about because the girl was hoping to cause the district some grief. No one else involved would have brought a reporter in. And a simple open-records request would get the police report to the Smoking Gun.
I think fraud is actually lying for financial gain. Lying is in itself perfectly legal, unless it comes under professional misconduct or some other specific rule.
If someone might get 15 years imprisonment for throwing a shoe, how long a term should this warrant?
I'm sure they are only telling part of the story. The truth will probably be something more like this: 1) student texting in class, 2) student refuses to give up phone to teacher, despite it being against school policy, 3) teacher calls in campus police because student not complying and being disruptive, 4) student resists (misdemeanor!) police and does not give up phone. The article leaves out that this girl is a problem in the class in the past. People will say, "Oh my god this is horrible she was only texting..." In reality, this is not the case, newspapers love to fry people on the first page and exonerate on the back page- it sells better this way.
its mostly the fear that students will text the test answers to everyone in the class is the reason that it is not allowed in schools however it is mostly viewed by the students as a way to talk to friends who are not in the same class and is a distraction from the boring lesson. trust me im in high school i deal with this cell phone crap every day
Other than listen, ask questions of the teacher, and, you know, learn.
Best Slashdot Co
See: Bernie Madoff
Yeesh. She deserves it though.
Cellphones were banned when *I* went there, and I graduated almost 10 years ago.
TRHOnline - Staggering Towards Brilliance
Your mandated to be in schools. Your not mandated to pay attention.
Who wants to make the grammar joke?
His statement speaks for itself. That's the joke here.
Aside from the humor, he does make a valid point.
You're right. You're not mandated to pay attention. However, I'm not obligated to call this person educated or even intelligent by any means, or give them a job.
Oh, and one more thing. The school system isn't mandated to hand over a diploma either, especially to an Idiot With An Attitude who feels like they don't need to pay attention or follow rules.
But why are you defending his case? In college people do indeed behave as you say, and look at the quality of the graduates. Yuck.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
"heinous case of texting without permission."
the child was there to learn math.
she defied the teacher.
she lied to the security officer.
end of discussion.
There are kids that get physically assaulted by other students in high school and all that happens is maybe a suspension the first 3 or 4 times.
Uh, what?
I'm 31 now, so this happened a moment ago, but when I was in Jr. High school I was a mama's boy who didn't know how to stand up for himself. I would get in fights regularly, just minor scuffles really, but nobody ever got in trouble for picking on me. One day a kid actually picked a one-on-one fight with me and I beat the crap out of him and got immediately expelled. Went across town where it all happened all over again, except nobody ever picked a one-on-one with me again. Went to a high school where it happened some more, stopped doing all my classwork, got straight Fs and got expelled some more.
Most kids that pick on, beat up, or otherwise physically harass others never get in any trouble AT ALL. It is part of a pervasive culture of violence supported by school officials who look the other way even when they know who, what, when, where, and how. The why is simple: because they can. Is it a coincidence that all of these schools had sports programs and nearly all of the bullies are jocks? Fuck no, it is not.
Sending children to American public school is child abuse. It is a critical element in the perpetuation of our one-sided system.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They were investigating her
She was not accused of a crime. Thank you, please drive through.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This is BS. The police report clearly states that the student was NOT arrested for texting in class. READ TFA !!!
Normally I ascribe all life to intelligent design, but in your case I'll make an exception.
NOT all kids belong in class. Not saying they don't belong in school, just not in the classroom. In Holland we used to have a strict seperation between technical schools where you learned a trade and administrative schools where you didn't. They came in various level, the telling bit being that the levels weren't equal, lower administrative school (houshold academeny) was significantly lower then lower technical school. Basically, leao thought you how to boil an egg in the 4th year, lts trained cooks. mavo thought you how to make a check, mts thought you how to run a restaurant. Anyway, if you were the kind of student who had ants in his pants then techincal school was for you. LOTS of practice hours were you were so busy physically that the few hours of theory were a welcome relief. But that wasn't good enough, things had to change and practice hours went down and theory went up (not theory about trades but stuff like social studies) until the two systems were merged. The happy result? Employers complaining graduates don't have any skills and increased dropout rate because kids with ants in their pants can handle sitting still the entire week. The girl in this story should NOT have been in this school. We try to put all kids into the same mould and it just doesn't work. Some kids need more freedom to explore, some need strict discpline and some just need to be kept busy a lot. The US calls its new system, no child left behind. What it really means is "who cares about what kind of person you are, you will damn well behave like everyone else and if you don't everyone else will suffer the consequences". The only way we can change the education system is if we learn to accept that everyone is NOT equal.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I would simply suggest changing the building code for schools to include Faraday cages in the walls of every class. There, problem solved.
Then how do you handle calls to emergency services in cases of emergency ? How do you handle the problems for the gazillion of schools which were already built without the Faraday cages ?
If you want to solve the problem in a technological way, take a solution that already has been tested. To avoid abuses at the work place, there are firewall restricting what websites employee browse to.
For the school, one could similarly imagine local micro cell-towers, which could be automatically picked up by GSM phones (closer range - better signal - preferred by the phone) but would only allow outbound traffic to a set number of key numbers : 911 (EU:112), other emergency services, school's nurse number, other administrative numbers, etc. Done correctly, this could even play the same role as the wireless DECT network you find in lot of corporate work places. Except that it doesn't require a separate DECT phone but works with your everyday GSM phone.
When complaining about GSM phone nuisance, people are quick to ask for jammers (which could have actually very nasty consequences) but nobody speaks about small-scale emitter.
Specially, I suppose, licensing requirement should probably be lower for microtower given the much lower emitting power (we're speak about covering a room, not a whole city's block).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Lying is not a crime.
Yes it is. It's called fraud.
No, lying does not map 1-to-1 to fraud.
Quick cut from wikipedia: Fraud is lying when "in order to damage them â" usually, to obtain property or services unjustly.".
Another situation would be lying when testifying which is called perjory. This isn't nececarily fraud either.
Just lying for it's own sake probably doesn't qualify as fraud.
I read this article yesterday. The student got arrested for not stopping an action after class was stopped and the supervisors where putting school on hold waiting for her to stop doing an action. I don't like police states myself, but I like lame-ass attention-whores trying to pump up their ad revenues just as little.
Being arrested for not obeying an authority is not the same thing as being arrested for texting. mmkay?
So using your *logic*, you'd be OK then if I talk while sitting next to you in a movie theater, maybe even blow my second hand smoke in your face since its a non-military location?
Maybe now these children will start to realise that a large part of growing up is to do what you're told to. Hopefully they won't forget that lesson very quickly.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I don't let my kids carry cell phones because they are nothing but a nuisance. If someone decides to hurt my kid a cell phone isn't going to save them. To think otherwise is delusional. In fact I have never heard of anyone, anywhere saved by a cell phone. I have heard of people saved by their wits to evade danger and using their cell pone to call for help when a scream or other phone would have worked as well though. I don't care if other people let their kids have them though, if it makes you feel better then good for you. I am glad she got arrested and I hope they throw the book at her. When an adult says no that means NO dammit. This is especially true when there is an established policy against such behavior. I'm with president Obama, this "anything goes" attitude in America has got to go, people need to learn to do what they're told and be prepared to be punished if they don't.
One thing you have to understand, this is not the school and legal system I grew up in nor my parents grew up in.
I am guessing here but what probably happened, is that the twit was cheating on her Math test. Teacher caught her. Twit hid phone. So now it is Teachers word vs hers. In my day you would get sent to Principals office, teacher would inform of infraction, and punishment would then be done, probably just a talking to or perhaps a suspension if serious enough. Now a days, if twit gets suspended, and no proof, then school gets sued by parents.
Teachers do not have right to "frisk" students. See parental suing above. So what does teacher do, call the cops and have them frisk her, find phone, proof of cheating. Normally this would end the same way where the Principle would be the one giving out punishment. However refusing to comply with a Teacher is one thing, refusing to comply with police is another. It could be that once an incident has taken place the police are obligated to follow through and have no choice. It could be that they just pissed off the officer. More likely they are just using the incident to scare the bajesus out the twit in hopes of impressing on her some respect for authority. Who knows, not enough detail to determine. Anyway it is likely the report is sensationalistic and they just want to grab a headline, odds are it is really nothing.
One thing that seems to be left out of this discussion is the perceptions of the students who observed the action. They might provide meaningful insights. At this point, it sounds like you might need a court order to oblige the student to comply; in that light involving the police might make some sense.
Too bad you can't swat kids with a paddle anymore. Could have punished the girl and taken her phone out all in one stroke. Problem solved.
Never argue with a man carrying a water buffalo
But those inconsiderate dickheads who insist on texting in the movie theater should be drawn and quartered.
"I'm in the "Great!" camp because I have a daughter that has a cell phone addiction"
And your daughter has a parent who lacks the character to take steps to remedy this himself, apparently.
Why is this under idle. It really should be YRO.
Forget the criminal record, how about the fact that it somehow warranted an officer putting a hand down her pants to confiscate it from her? According to TFA, they probably still have her phone.
As annoying and bratty as this girl could have been, it was certainly handled inappropriately, especially in what's supposed to be a free country.
is our children texting?
The teacher in a classroom is legally responsible for the safety and security of the students in his/her charge (technically "children" even if 17 years and 364 days old); and is also legally responsible to the administration to follow the rules of the school; and is also restricted by many rules of interaction with students. I urge the libertarians posting to consider how they might handle contradictory directives which can lead very quickly to immediate removal from one's job (plus, due to the nature of the job license, being forbidden to get another such job *anywhere* *ever* again). Escalation to higher authority is typically the only safe solution, and that higher authority will also take the safe road of overreacting. After all, charges can always be dropped.
And that also means legally responsible for knowing where those students are at all times. To the poster whose child stopped at the bathroom without seeking permission, you are reasonable in being annoyed that the child received a disciplinary note, but you would be HORRIFIED if a child had an asthma attack and died and nobody noticed that a child was missing until the next class change.
Being adversarial with police and other authority figures, especially when you are guaranteed to be caught in a lie, is not a particularly good tactic either. It guarantees that they have something to pin on you even if the original issue evaporates.
If I received a forced pat down followed by attempted removal of objects from under my underwear, I know *I* would be engaging in some disorderly conduct.
They went waaay overboard. An escalated response on her part was justified.
RTFA. She was only searched after she was arrested. And guess what--when you get arrested, the police are allowed to search you.
Make a scene after you are under arrest at your own peril. That's a great way to get a resisting arrest charge.
Courts have consistently ruled that police are allowed to do what is necessary to arrest someone. The time to make your case is in front of a judge--not with the arresting officer. Again: if an officer informs you that you are under arrest, you would be extremely well-advised to shut up and cooperate.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Yeah, see a couple of posts earlier. Leave the police to the ACTUAL crimes, not to someone refusing to listen to the teacher.
I am not devoid of humor.
It's a misdemeanor. Some juveniles benefit from a scary court appearance. I don't know about Wisconsin, but in some states, certain misdemeanors are wiped from record after a short period, and if she's under 16, it might be expunged after she's 18.
I need people to pour my coffee, pick up my garbage, and scrub the toilets I use each day.
I applaud their decision to opt out of education. We need to nurture people like this. We should provide them with additional distractions beyond their phone. Once they've shown a disinterest in education and the disdain for authority to go with it, we should issue them a portable game unit and a headset.
First offense, confiscate the phone and give it back at the end of the day.
Second offense, give her in detention,
I agree with you for most students, but if you read the complaint, you'll see that this girl was well-known to the arresting officer. That tells me that this kid has a severe discipline problem.
I think it's safe to assume that the school has long-since been through offense 1, offense 2, and offense 536 with this kid. I'm not surprised in the slightest that the school decided that detentions, assuming she showed up to serve her detentions at all given the ease with which she lied to a cop, were simply not getting through to her.
It's actually a lot harder than you'd think to achieve behavior-modification in kids who are that blatantly defiant. We could speculate all day about how she got to that point, but the fact still remains that someone like her represents a huge challenge to those who is responsible for her.
By way of example, what would you do if your 14-year-old kid just openly and publicly defied your authority? Let's say you were in public, in front of lots of people, and your kid loudly informs you that you are a total asshole. The instant you open your mouth to speak, he follows it with, "Shut the fuck up, dad." I've actually seen this happen before. What would you do if you were the dad whose kid just undermined and humiliated you?
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
"Disorderly Conduct" also allows them to charge a person with a Misdemeanor instead of a felony, such as assault. Misdemeanors often have terms like restraining orders, fines, and community service. Felonies generally have jail time.
And you ignore the fact that the police can use it to lean on someone YOU don't like. Such as the guy who walks into a church with his boombox turned up to 11 and refuses to go away. Peeping Toms often come under the Disorderly Conduct label as well.
The definitions of Disorderly Conduct are often quite soft. Which makes it easy to charge, and much harder to prosecute.
I really wish I had mod points to mod you up and mod the GP down for your elegant retort.
That's exaggeration and mis-framing of my point. I was highlighting the excessive disproportionate response, not promoting the anti-social behavior.
I'd love to hear your answer to the GP's question.
I think you underestimate the challenge that such a grossly defiant child presents for those who must take care of her.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Strange that the link did not intrigue you enough into landing the following URL (obtainable through the URL you sent) :
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District/6:Curriculum,_Conclusion
OH come on! a record?? Disorderly conduct in most states is actually LESS of a crime than Drag Racing, or excessive (20mh+) speeding. Criminal record? phah...not only that, she's probably being charged as a Juvenile.And, let's not forget--a school is not private property; they're state-owned and public buildings.
But refusing to follow orders disrupts the rest of the class, some members of which might actually want to learn something from the lesson. Or must the needs of the rest of the class be subordinated to one disruptive pupil in order to satisfy your wish for anarchy?
The personal gain here was the ability of the girl to continue with the inappropriate behavior as well as the attempt to avoid consequences.
The child likely won't have a criminal record from this.
A) Misdemeanor or even Infraction, depending on local laws- if an infraction, no record is typically kept
B) Juvenile records are usually sealed when the person turns 18
What is wrong with you people? You break the rules you get punished, period! End of discussion!
Since you opened this door, lemme ask you: which was more disruptive FOR THE ENTIRE CLASS, the student texting, or the teacher making an authoritarian control issue of it and dragging police and others into the classroom? You don't seem to recognize the very real possibility that this was authoritarianism run amok. The teacher and school officials reacted emotionally to their loss of control to this "disruptive" student, got angry, and reacted very disproportionately.
People in positions of authority over others, from parents on up to emperors, as well as their enforcers by proxy, are sadly still human; their reasoning falls victim to their emotions ALL THE TIME. It shouldn't happen, but it does; this shouldn't be what we value in leaders, but all too often it actually is, because citizens are also mentally frail humans.
Sometimes "disobedience" isn't harmful to the greater good at all: sometimes it's really dissent against selfish or tyrranical authority figures doing more harm than good to the Greater Good. Disobedience and dissent are the EXACT same behaviors, the only difference being whether they have a beneficial or detrimental effect on the greater good.
Does the rule of inclusion elude you? Fraud is performed through lying, but lying does not necessarily imply fraud.
Does context elude you? This woman was attempting to deceive for personal gain. According to wikipedia, that's fraud in general.
A few people think that lying/fraud for personal gain is okay if they can get away with it. They're sociopaths and they're likely to get caught if they make a habit of it.
---
Marketing talk is not just cheap, it has negative value. Free speech can be compromised just as much by too much noise as too little signal.
If an underage girl is frisked by an adult in a clear case of abuse then the adult must be charged with the appropriate crime and the girl is entitled to compensation. Ten million dollars in compensation is adequate.
Exactly what personal gain do you believe the woman was attempting to receive? Even if she was using the phone to cheat on a test, I doubt the score on a single high school test would be enough to constitute a high enough gain to warrant a fraud charge.
Now if she was copying work off of a third party (website, etc), you may be able to use copyright fraud, but that's a bit of a push given the details supplied about the incident.
i agree. if school crimes ought to be criminalized, please, get some perspective. Bleeding noses, possible genital disfunction, broken limbs, (and much more) are much more serious than misbehaviour. And kids misbehave, they are kids for god's sake.
I've been reckless in highschool.. mostly to get back at the teachers. Students have no power at all, and that is very frustating. It's no surprise she has no respect to authority, probably authority did not had any respect to her in the past.
From the police report, i can see a lady with authority problems that are not going to be solved by arresting her.. this is not the solution, this is authority abuse.
This whole thing is a horrible indictment on the state of society as a whole in America at the moment.
Here in Australia this acceptance of police officers at schools and metal detectors is so... so foreign.
It absolutely comes down to creating at least some sort of respect in the classroom to begin with, and part of that is SOOOO to do with the parents.
It's a breakdown from the home onwards.
Sad
That's retarded, they should have just let this girl take the grade fall instead of arresting her for it.
Meh. Just shove that text device up their ass.
Whoa cowboy. Do you have children? Do you have any idea how the public schools work? Do you understand that half or more of the employees there, including the teachers, are completely incapable of doing their jobs effectively and can and do cause great harm to their students? As a parent who DID NOT sue, but certainly had every reason to, I take strong exception to this bullshit blanket moronic blaming of parents. Reread the post above yours re 8 year old written up for zero reason. This kind of reactionary, blind rule mongering is the basic culture of public schools. There's also an economic benefit to schools to label kids, particularly boys, as having behavior problems - they can then get the feds to give them more money for the extra "services" they claim they will provide. Services, yeah right. More like more coffee and donuts to sling around in their daily bitch sessions. Here's another example of something that happened in my son's class. Teacher decides to have pajama/watch movies day. Aside from the fact that such idiocy would never happen anywhere but the US, the same teacher proceeds to pass out "energy" drinks to the class. One kid has a seizure. Whoops! Sorry. Guess you better go to the nurse's office, but be sure to get your hall pass first and check in with the principal after.
"this heinous case of texting without permission" ... and then telling bald-faced lies to everyone about it. She got no more than she deserved. The details about it being texting w/o permission are irrelevant. The moral wrongs she committed are simple and twofold:
- Disobedience
- Lying
I think a week suspension for exercising those very bad habits, for a teenager, is pretty light punishment. You can't ignore basic unacceptable behaviour just because
"oh it's just text messaging".
Ever hear of, going to the principal's office and calling your parents? Maybe Detention?
Cops for texting????
How about OVERKILL!!!
She doesn't have to be accused of a crime to impede a police investigation. Thanks for for playing.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
That's sure to find it's way to eBay.
Considering the fact that it is..
Yeah, I'd say it's the government's job, to some extent, to stop those fights (which, incidentally, seem to often be gang related?).
But I guess "boys will be boys" and "kids will be kids" and we have to "let them grow up on their own" and "do what they want to do" and not "force morality on them." If they want to beat up some other kid, why should the State are? So what if it's public property?
Parental responsibility? I'm all for it. Public schools that teach something, even if that means teaching them that beating up another school kid is not the way to get even? I'm all for that, too. And if that means arresting the kid and kicking them out of the public schools, then that's fine with me. If the kid is old enough to wail on someone with "sporting goods" then he is old enough to go to jail and/or not get free lunch at school.
Also, I do find it interesting that you claim that there's no defense to a teenager armed with "sporting goods." I'm not a parent, but I'm guessing both of our views might change a bit if it was your kid that comes home (or goes to the hospital, either way) beaten with baseball bats on the school soccer field.