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Missouri High School Principal Resigns After Posing As Student On Facebook
longacre writes "Suzy Harriston wanted to be friends on Facebook. The profile said she was from Clayton [Missouri] and had more than 300 friends, many of them from Clayton High School. No one seemed to question who Harriston was. That is, until the night of April 5, when a 2011 grad and former Clayton quarterback posted a public accusation. '"Whoever is friends with Suzy Harriston on Facebook needs to drop them. It is the Clayton Principal," wrote Chase Haslett.' Suzy Harriston quickly disappeared from Facebook, and Louise Losos, the principal, subsequently took a leave of absence, and then resigned."
I know for a fact that stuff like this happened in my old high school in Missouri, but we didn't ever 100% prove it. Whenever the principal would find something that someone had posted on Facebook during school and punish them during the same day, it was pretty obvious.
She put the "Pal" i n principal!
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Slow news day eh timothy?
...so calm down.
Suzy Harriston, a.k.a. Louise Losos.
Seems like "he" is a she.
But yaknow, attention to detail is over rated.
Could you at least read the summary, if not the article? The principal is Louise Losos, a woman.
Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
I can't prove it, but students in my HS seemed to be punished almost *immediately* from certain FB postings, even postings made during school hours from cell phones, etc.
Either they had someone monitoring FB full time (doubtful), or there was a "trap" account disguised as a student that people friended by default believing the account was associated with a student at the school.
I would say this one is still an okay story to put on Slashdot compared to some of the other constantly anti-Apple stories ( really, have we all come to a consensus Apple is evil and others are not? and I am not an Apple fan either ) and the anti-TSA stuff (how many stories do we need of that? We all are in agreement about that one for sure). Why is this particular story interesting? IMHO , how bad is faking your identity online ? I mean did she solicit students for sex ? or was it just to know the current vibe among? Did she just wanna be a cool principal by knowing what goes on among her students ? I briefly read the above article about the whole PE teacher thing. I dont know. Has no one used a fake name in real life ever? Does Facebook have a policy that you cannot lie about your age to underage kids ? I think it raises some interesting questions about online identities. I mean what if she was friends with some kid in the school and she got that kid to give her the username/password of their fb account (hypothetically speaking) and just looked at all her friends profiles and walls etc. Wouldn't that be similar to this?
When I was on Facebook, I didn't friend anyone unless I actually *knew* the person. If you friend someone on Facebook just because they friended you and you want a really big number of friends, well... the joke is probably on you.
Did they get fired for that?
I'm not sure who or what the persons are who do this, but as someone with around 300 Facebook friends, I've received at least 5 friend requests from dummy profiles (fake name, fake profile pic, awfully "sterile" personal info) with an oddly high number of mutual friends. I doubt it was any of our teachers as they use their real profiles and friended us if they wished to, including our principal. Could it be some sort of a bot for harvesting personal information that would otherwise be inaccessible to non-friends, or just a stalker from within my/my friends' social circle who's trying to remain anonyous?
If "Suzy Harriston" was indeed a fake profile created by Losos, then she violated a recent Missouri law which went into effect this year which bans teachers from friending students. What's worse, the school district seems to be covering up any attempt to find out if that's the reason why she resigned.
Another reason to "friend" only folks I know in IRL....
substitute she in those sentences and it makes even more sense. women love the gossip
If that's her birth name, I can't tell if her parents were evil or geniuses (or both).
In this case it was also motivated by school politics - an ongoing vendeta between her+the school board against a popular teacher who had the vocal support of a lot of the students, whose contract was not renewed.
Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
if it hadn't been for those meddling kids.
She might just have garnered herself a lucrative position in the Department of Homeland Security. Leaving the public school system, an industry under fire & in decline, for the one true growth industry in the USA -- the Police State Complex, might be a great career move.
Can't even make friends on Facebook like her.
That is a low level of sad.
RIP in peace.
In stories like this, it's almost never worth reading the article, and the summary is usually wrong anyway. The reporter spent 400 words to expand a 40 word brief, and then another 600 words on a story that is only vaguely related because the principal apparently used the fake profile to spy on kids who supported some guy who was fired.
Having read this article closely, now I feel sorry for Ms. Bock that she's got such a shitty beat...
If that's her birth name, I can't tell if her parents were evil or geniuses (or both).
Quite possibly one or both of them were Superman fans.
Obviously this is a bad thing but I don't understand how kids reason. Seriously, when someone tries to add me on Facebook and I don't know them then I ignore them. Being that the Facebook person was not even real she should not have had any friends. I guess if you don't add every random person you find on Facebook then you might miss out on random party invites to places you aren't really wanted.
It actually makes sense to use "them" in this case, because the gender is, in fact, not known. All that is known is the "gender" of the nom de plume, which is inherently suspect. The gender of the author is unknown, thus a gender-neutral pronoun is appropriate.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
It grates badly enough on old ears to hear "they" and "them" be used for singular
Only if you're a moron. The practice dates back to at least Chaucer, presumably earlier since it's unlikely he invented it. 'They' has been the gender neutral singular since Middle English. It's a lot older than you are, so I can only conclude that it grates on your ears because you never read any proper literature in the English language (like Shakespeare, Jane Austen, or George Bernard Shaw). The idea that it shouldn't be the gender neutral singular is a fabrication of 19th century assholes. Don't be like them.
Ms. Bock did more than just puff up a story - there was the fact-checking of school records to see if there was such a student, as well as a search of public records for ANYONE with that name. That's more than what passes for "reporting" on Faux News.
She also put it into the greater context of the on-going school board problems.
Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
Since we are talking about FB for no reason, shouldn't more appropriate stories come up, like the fact that it's going IPO soon?
It's really amazing that the inflation is so gigantic now, that it destroyed so many businesses and killed off real savings, that the investors are flocking just to anything that has some buzz around it. Sure, sure, a half a billion to a billion accounts are there, it's a sea of information and contacts and eyeballs, it's really amazing that there are so many people using the same platform, but after everything it is just another site, it's not like there weren't sites like this before and nobody really prevents more sites like this from appearing in the near future. Are people really intimately tied to their FB accounts? I don't know, I am just asking. To me it looks like a huge inflation driven bubble and a reflection of our time of lack of genuine investment opportunities due to lack of real savings and freedoms, but maybe I am completely wrong on this, I just don't know.
Isn't that a more interesting story than somebody pretending to be somebody else?
You can't handle the truth.
Yes but if she turns out to really be a man, wouldn't that be the kind of twist ending this story needs? Laces out!
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Yeah, man. Tell 'em!
...to accept a friend request from someone they've never heard of? Is this why all the kids have 600 FB friends despite their actually pretty limited social circles?
Everything different grates on someone's old ears; forgive me, but I don't really care. If your only objection to something is no more than a vague distaste, you should at least keep your opinion to yourself and not try forcing it on others. Either have a good reason to dislike something or stay out of it.
I haven't heard a single substantive argument for barring singular "they" and "them"--calling their use "incorrect" or "ungrammatical" is not sufficient. On the other hand, there are a number of good reasons to allow this usage: it fills a genuinely useful niche in language, it avoids the subtly sexist gender-neutral "he", and most English speakers use it in everyday life already.
That depends on the part of the story that's being left out: How did the quarterback figure out who the infiltrator was? Figuring out Suzy is fake: easy. Figuring out that Suzy is the principal: social engineered (CNN story) or other (maybe Slashdot story).
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Nerds of today & the future != retro nerds
Some one modded me down as flamebait... WAT???? You, whomever you are, think trolling is a mature, reasonable thing for a treacher to do??? I hope you don't have kids 'cause you've got problems.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Informative grammar Nerd crushes grammar Nazi like a grape, win-win!
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Unless she was using it for something nefarious, this is actually a good idea. No on is forcing the kids to friend her on facebook; hell, it took a while for anyone in the school to even realize that Suzy didn't exist!
Again, it depends on what they are looking for, are they using it to punish kids for what they do at home?, then maybe not. Is she being a sexual miscreant, then maybe not.
Another possibility is that she's using it to see how the students are doing, if any of them need extra help or counseling, if one of them is going to go off the deep end.
It could be abused, but it could also really help. Of course, they don't talk about what she used it for.
Informative grammar Nerd crushes grammar Nazi like a grape, win-win!
zomg +5 pwned
When I read this, it struck me that - while it's OK for US gov't employees (eg, soldiers) to pre-emptively attack & kill people, AFAIK, this article doesn't suggest any inappropriate behavior (eg, "grooming" [for unlawful sex], etc.)
It may be so that teachers & principals are forbidden from befriending students, and there is reason for this ban (eg, favoratism could - in some cases - lead to changes of grades or reduced "consequences" for rule breaking on the part of students).
But we wonder if there could have been any -humane- reasons for this principal's action; eg, could there have been any indications of abuse of the students by 3rd parties? Could the principal been watching for any indications of grooming, etc.?
Could she have wanted her -genuine- advice to be "better received" than it might be "from a prinicipal"? (Friends sometimes have -greater- influence on a young person than parents or school staff.) Of course, if she's been advising students to run amock, she was wrong.
"War-making deemed good; movie at 11" :-)
"Friendship deemed evil; movie at 11" :-)
Hi, posting AC 'cuz im lazy.
I went to school with this woman, her older sister was in my class and IIRC they both went to Harvard. My point in saying that is that I'd always had the impression that these were smart ladies. Certainly older sister is, I believe she is a scientist of some sort now. I really don't keep up with people from high school.
We went to a public high school in a nice part of St. Louis, Louise went back after college and taught there for 8 years apparently.
If you google her name you will see her LinkedIn page pop up. You can see she has an extensive background getting her degrees, including a Ph.D.
She is plenty smart to know better than to spy on the students. If she just had to know what was going on in her school, she should have actually taken the time to get to know people and talk to them. To me this is only common sense.
No telling what happened to that in her 25 years of education/work since she left high school. People change, but I dont see where it is right to spy on kids on Facebook. As a matter of fact, I find it rather nosy and a bit creepy.
Clayton, Mo. is a wealthy city just immediately west of the city of St. Louis itself, so they will do everything to cover this one up and pretend it never happened.
Someone with as large a circle of friends won't always refrain from "checking in on them" from "dangerous" places.
She signed into the account at school, then the auto-profile name is right there at the top near "view my profile"
Who knows? Evidently this person enjoys pretending to be someone else...might actually be Louis Losos in drag...
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
The practice dates back to at least Chaucer, presumably earlier since it's unlikely he invented it. 'They' has been the gender neutral singular since Middle English.
Well, yes, when it was introduced in the middle ages, until it had become the standard for plural around the time of Chaucer. But we're not speaking middle English here, are we?
It's a lot older than you are, so I can only conclude that it grates on your ears because you never read any proper literature in the English language (like Shakespeare, Jane Austen, or George Bernard Shaw).
Shaykespere wasn't a great poet because of his grammatical skills, but despite his lack of them. Using Saxpur as an authority on English is disingenuous.
Shaksper seldom bothered with stuff like "who"/"whom" or other grammatical niceties, for that matter. But he did use "him" as a an anonymous singular:
"What rebell captaine
as mutnes are incident, by his name
Of course, the rest is garbage:
can still the rout who will obey th a traytor
or howe can well that pclamation sounde
when there is no adicion but a rebell
to quallyfy a rebell, youle put down straingers
kill them cut their throts possesse their howses
and lead the matie of the law in liom
And finally another epicene "him":
to slipp him lyke a hound
Not exactly a brilliant example on how we should write.
Anyhow, the only example I can find of Shakespeare using "they" or "their" for singular is when referring to an unknown but presumed large plurality.
As for Jane Austen and GBS, strong claims require strong evidence. So, citation?
What I can find is that the use of "he"/"him" and transcribing to "one" or "people" is what was common, or elaborating by expanding the qualifiers to "him or her".
Also, some use of "they" when pointing back on words that aren't obviously singular, like "anyone", "everybody" or "many a man".
Or with negations, like in Shakespeare's "no man" - "their".
While technically "man" here can be seen as the all-encompassing "man" and not a logical singular, it is immaterial, because the negation makes the quantity unknown. Here, the use of "their" is logical, not grammatical, and similar to using "were" in a similar context.
No grammar nazi would accept this use, but I am not one of them.
This particular use of "they" (and factual "were") cannot be used as a justification for using "they" to refer to a word that's singular in both grammatical and logical sense.
Fast forward to the 1960s. At that point, women's liberation called for eradication of sexism, including not just attacking the intent, but words themselves. Some proposed new gender neutral words, and some authors tried to revive the old Middle English feminine "hir" as an epicene pronoun. (Alice Sheldon, Dick Lupoff) Chaucer might have been pleased.
The claim that singular they is old is misleading at best (yes, it was used that way in the 1300s, but then again, everyone who mattered was presumed to be male too). The modern use really is a child of the PC movement, and it (not "they"[*]) should die.
[*] A subscriber to said political correctness might insist on "they" instead of "it" in my sentence, and by doing so introduce ambiguity. Be that on hir head.
Singular they has rapidly taken over to the point where it's now even used for persons where there is a presumed gender. While I may be fighting a losing battle, by god does it need fighting.
+1
/* TODO: Spawn child process, interest child in technology, have child write a new sig */
Before posting something completely silly that destroyed a few brain cells, couldn't you at least look at the article - the woman's picture, the fact that the school board confirmed her identity as principal, etc?
Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
It grates badly enough on old ears to hear "they" and "them" be used for singular
Only if you're a moron. The practice dates back to at least Chaucer, presumably earlier since they're unlikely he invented them. 'They' has been the gender neutral singular since Middle English. They're a lot older than you are, so I can only conclude that they grate on your ears because you never read any proper literature in the English language (like Shakespeare, Jane Austen, or George Bernard Shaw). The idea that they shouldn't be the gender neutral singular is a fabrication of 19th century assholes. Don't be like them.
Fixed them for you.
Ms. Bock did more than just puff up a story - there was the fact-checking of school records to see if there was such a student, as well as a search of public records for ANYONE with that name. That's more than what passes for "reporting" on Faux News.
She also put it into the greater context of the on-going school board problems.
Woah, she checked some records and did a search for ANYONE with a particular name? And she tied all this together for a stupid Facebook teen drama?
If it weren't for that _god_ _damned_ Rupert Murdoch and the KKKoch brothers oppressing her, because they hate children, that woman would have her Pulitzer by now!
There were also THREE sidebar articles that had related contextual information. You would have seen that if you had bothered to read the article, rather than just the summary. So, troll much? You need to pick your game up a bit.
Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
Worse even, grammar Nazi crushed while trying to correct a goddamn quarterback.
That's like closing the door of your own locker while you're in it and giving yourself a wedgie while you're at it.
Unless you're into that of course.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Singular they has rapidly taken over to the point where it's now even used for persons where there is a presumed gender. While I may be fighting a losing battle, by god does it need fighting.
Why do you feel it needs fighting? I really don't think it's critically important to communicate gender with every use of a pronoun. We don't have separate pronouns for different races, young vs. old, short vs. tall, fat vs. skinny, smart vs. stupid, obstinate grammar nazi vs. speaker of contemporary english, etc., so what makes the detail of gender so important that it alone must be embedded in the pronoun? I really can't see a purpose for automatically referencing gender every time you refer to a person other than to reinforce sexism.
We don't have a "proper" gender-neutral singular pronoun, so we use "they" and "them" instead. It doesn't matter if this behavior has precedent dating back to the 1300s or if it started last week. What matters is that it's currently widespread and unambiguously understood by most (if not all) modern english speakers. The dictionary should be descriptive, not prescriptive. You are witnessing the evolution of language in action! Don't fight it, be fascinated and pleased!
Knowledge != Intelligence
That's "film at 11" in the US, "pictures at 11" in Commonwealth countries, knob-head.
Except that "he" and "she" isn't used about absolute gender, but assumed gender too. Newspapers do this all the time - if it's a female name, they say "her", and if it's a male name, they say "him"; even though they could be wrong, it's correct form.
And even if you have some weird rule that says "her" should only be used when the gender is known, not assumed, the guy who said this knew that the principal was a woman.
Who actually friends people they havent spoken to or even *seen*?
I dont even add people I have met and known for a couple of months, until Ive had a chance to speak with them on a semi regular basis first and work out if they are interested in my life, or if I am even interested in theirs.
Far too much trust on the Interwebz, no wonder so many people get screwed by scammers.
you'd think, "I must actually know this person, and just don't realize it."
This tends to be more true after graduation. Lots of people change their last name upon being married. Some people even change their first name for various reasons.
That said, I tend to be wary of adding people I'm unsure of due to creepy stalker-ex's, so I usually do a bit of research first. FB doesn't make it easy as somebody can request to friend you without supplying any details of their own (perhaps that's changed now but I doubt it). The system should work so that anyone who makes a friend request should automatically share the same pages as they do to the already-friended
4. Registration and Account Security
Facebook users provide their real names and information, and we need your help to keep it that way. Here are some commitments you make to us relating to registering and maintaining the security of your account:
1. You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission.
Obviously the "no false personal information" is not widely followed anyhow... but it is a TOS violation.
Was a joke and thus deliberately completely silly. Apologies for destroying your brain cells...no doubt you have plenty left.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
The district has now paid out a $140k settlement to the principal to keep her from suing the district. And they had to agree to give her positive references.
I wonder how the quarterback got his information... and if it was really correct. It is no secret that the quarterback wanted her fired after she fired the football coach.
Except the quarterback is the quarterback at the Univ of Illinois, not at the high school. He is no longer anywhere near the school campus.