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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.
Fixed it for ya. Seriously, they are in school to pay attention and learn, not sit there an text people.
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.
No, because in today's world the brat's parents would sue.
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.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
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?!?!?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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).
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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.
We are the 198 proof..
Actions have consequences.
Yes and consequences of this action should be either detention or in school suspension.
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.
My
Limekiller
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.
DON'T PANIC.
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.
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.