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.

Comments

Sounds fine to me

[OrangeTide]

"heinous case of texting without permission."

I think it has more to do with refusing bit than the texting bit.

Re:Sounds fine to me

[oldspewey]

The student was issued a criminal citation for disorderly conduct

If I were to guess, I'd say the student escalated the situation to the point where a disorderly conduct citation was appropriate and warranted. The summary makes for fabulous reading with the whole "heinous case of texting without permission" bit, but there's a whole story (that's not detailed in TFA) around how many times she was told to stop, how she reacted when told to stop, how she reacted when told to hand over the phone, etc.

Re:Sounds fine to me

[darkmeridian]

At some level, citizens have to submit to authority figures. I'm not saying that we have to blindly follow all edicts, but if a cop pulls you over, you should pull over instead of fleeing. If a student is texting during class, she should stop when asked. Lying about it and causing a kerfluffle about it ought to be punishable. The same would be true if she had been passing notes in class and caused a fuss about it.

The self-professed libertarians here who argue that she should be able to do whatever she wants are missing the fact that this is in class. The education of the class would be impossible if anyone could do whatever they wanted.

Re:Sounds fine to me

[erroneus]

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.

Re:Sounds fine to me

[limekiller4]

oldspewey writes:
"If I were to guess, I'd say the student escalated the situation to the point where a disorderly conduct citation was appropriate and warranted. The summary makes for fabulous reading with the whole "heinous case of texting without permission" bit, but there's a whole story (that's not detailed in TFA) around how many times she was told to stop, how she reacted when told to stop, how she reacted when told to hand over the phone, etc."

Wow.

What could be more germane to an incident report than actions by the student that would warrant an arrest?

"Guessing" that the student did something to warrant an arrest when we have the complaint in front of us (and making no mention of such behavior) is downright bizarre.

What else can you do?

[RockMFR]

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.

Re:What else can you do?

[BrianRoach]

If they arent disturbing anyone, why is it a problem? It only is going to effect their own grades. .

Oh, I whole heatedly disagree.

Having spent my Junior and Senior year in high school sitting in classes with slack-jawed morons who could barely read at an 8th grade level and whose futures generally involved the question "do you want fries with that?", I can tell you it does more than effect their own grades. The curriculum / classroom changes to fit the lowest common denominator in our public school system.

So instead of kids who want to be there actually being able to learn something, you have an enormous amount of resources / class time going to the morons.

While your grades may not be effected, what you actually learn and therefore your purpose for being there, is.

I gave up on actually showing up for my senior English class when it was the third year out of four that involved reading *the same book* (Fahrenheit 451, which is exceptionally funny since I read it on my own in 7th or 8th grade).

Re:What else can you do?

[bwcbwc]

Thanks to the fear of lawsuits, teachers aren't allowed to touch the students and searches can only be done by the school cops. So if a student refuses to turn over the phone and do what the teacher says, they HAVE to call the cops, because at that point it becomes an issue of disruption in the classroom. Most urban schools now have cops on campus during school hours, including the Elementary schools, for just this reason. So it isn't a question of overreacting and calling 911. This is just the normal escalation process for a student who started out disobeying a minor rule by texting and then made the matter worse when she refused to turn the phone over to the teacher. The cops were called because of the refusal, not because of the texting.

It ain't the police state that caused this, it's our lawsuit-happy culture. In the old days, the teacher would've just caned the silly kid on the butt and that would have been the end of it.

Childhood is a form of slavery. Parents and society have an obligation at least try to teach kids as much as possible, even when they aren't interested or actively resist. The consequences of not teaching kids things like using math to figure out if they're being scammed, or how to avoid STDs are worse than the consequences of the coercion.

Re:WTF?!

[myVarNamesAreTooLon]

Wtf is wrong with our children.

Fixed it for ya. Seriously, they are in school to pay attention and learn, not sit there an text people.

Call their parents

[pavon]

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.

Re:Don't they send kids to the Vice Principal?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, because in today's world the brat's parents would sue.

Re:Mandated

[cayenne8]

I don't get it. You have some 15 yro's that go and murder someone, and they have hangups about trying them as adults, yet a teen girl, acts up in class....and she get slapped with charges by the police? How fsked up is that? Geez...give her some detention, but, it doesn't sound like she committed any offense that required being charged with a crime?!?!?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:more to do with the refusing

[macraig]

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!

Escalation

[Troy]

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.

Re:Escalation

[Locke2005]

While in many ways school children have no rights, in one way they have far too much right -- it is almost impossible to expel a child from school. Kids that don't want to learn and are disruptive should be removed from the classroom so that the teacher can do their job and teach the kids that are there to learn. As school districts pack more and more kids into each classroom, less and less learning gets done because teachers spend more and more time dealing with disruptions. What is needed is a quick, effective way to remove disruptive students from the classroom so that other kids can learn. (And yes, sending a student to the principal's office would be a lot less disruptive to other student's learning than calling in law enforcement to physically remove a student from the classroom. Imagine trying to get students to focus on math after observing this incident!)

Re:Mandated

[LifeWithJustin]

Actions have consequences.

Yes and consequences of this action should be either detention or in school suspension.

Re:This is stupid.

[japhering]

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.

In this day and age.. "in loco parente" has been crushed by all the parents suing schools and teachers..

Re:Lying is not a crime...

[bit01]

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".

Re:schools have rules for a reason

[QRDeNameland]

There is a difference between playful misconduct and willful disobedience. Historically the former was handled with detention and the latter with corporal punishment. Since corporal punishment has all but been made illegal what tool do you use?

So the only choices to deal with the willful disobedience of a minor are physical beating or arrest by the police? Who the hell modded that insightful?

Re:Mandated

[Neoprofin]

So tell her to go to detention.

"No."
"Ok, then you're suspended, leave school."
"No."

If someone disregards the authority of a teacher, what makes you think they'll suddenly start respecting it when the punishment is upped?

Re:Hmm..

[moose_hp]

Im really interested in hearing your alternative to mandatory school, seriusly, no sarcasm (no personal attack eigther).

I live in what most people call a 3rd world country (but we are delusional about it and call it "In ways of development"), I'm currently aspiring for a master degree, have 10+ years of work experience, and I think that the biggest problem in this nation is not drug cartels, is the lack of education for the general public.

While the elementary education is mandatory by law, the reality is that just a tiny fraction of the population here actually learns to read and write. I agree that 10 years of education makes your mind work in a very "deterministic" way, but I can't imagine a worse way.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Re:Mandated

[Lars512]

I read the article, and the redacted transcript, and there's no sign of them issuing her with a detention, or a suspension. Besides which, when a child is suspended you call their parents and request for them to pick them up, not kick them off the grounds (duty of care).

In the end it's the parents you escalate to in a situation like this, not police. There's a whole process beyond that, including a school pscyh councilor, more suspension and then expulsion before you anything like this should happen.

Re:Mandated

[MrNaz]

I agree.

In this day and age, kids seem to be getting overdoses of "it's a free country and I want my rights", giving them absurd senses of entitlement over anything and everything.

Seriously, society has gone mad. The concept of individual rights has been twisted into some disfigured unrecognizable mass of idiocy. We can't spank our kids any more, which is why the current generation is such a rabble of unruly, apathetic, self-centered brats. On the other hand, civil liberties are so far gone that we can't protest outside of designated protest zones.

Kids need spankings. It's worked for thousands of years of human behavioral evolution. Governments need checks. Demonstrated over thousands of years of human social evolution.

People, its time to pull our heads out of our asses.

Re:Mandated

[Neoprofin]

I read it too, I know it's not in there, the point is that it's an ineffective solution because there's no ability to enforce it. Since you did read it you'll know that they tried to call her parents, and she did everything in her power to make it impossible for them to make contact, of course she could have just said nothing and made it impossible.

So, given that my point what "none of that works if the child doesn't cooperate" do you have any suggestions that don't require exactly that?

Detenion: Refuse
Suspension: Refuse
Parents: Withhold the contact
councilor: Refuse

I understand that these are routes that went untried, but I think it's misguided to assume they would have had a different result given the attitude of the child in question.

Re:Mandated

[Neoprofin]

Studies say that it doesn't help, but here's something I've never seen studied:

When I was a kid I was a fairly well behaved boy, one of the other kids I grew up with was not. He was spanked regularly because he frequently acted out and was violent and destructive.

Now, true, he was not helped, he's still a moron, BUT, my desire to avoid a similar fate lead me to be very well behaved. There are some kids that can't be helped, but that doesn't mean that making an example of them can't yield fringe benefits.

Re:more to do with the refusing

[supernova_hq]

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.

Re:Mandated

[Rhone]

Research on behavior modification shows that punishment (like, say, spanking) results in escape and avoidance behaviors and usually results in people reverting to the unwanted behavior once the source/threat of punishment is taken away. Positive reinforcement for wanted behaviors (and removing the reinforcement in response to unwanted behaviors) is more effective, longer lasting, and generally results in a more psychologically healthy individual.

And, just for some anecdotal evidence, I worked for 3 years in a group home for abused and emotionally disturbed children. The ones who were physically beaten seemed to have learned from their parents not how to behave properly, but that anger and violence are the way to respond to someone who does something you don't like.