To Find Out Why Schools Are Sending In Cops To Bust Third Graders, Ask The Local Prosecutor

from the a-nation-of-laws,-applied-to-schoolchildren dept

Who's leading the installation of police officers inside schools and the implementation of zero tolerance policies? In New Jersey, the answer is the local prosecutor's office.

A little background: police were called to a third-grade class party because a nine-year-old allegedly made a racist remark when discussing the brownies they were eating. NO. REALLY.

A third grader had made a comment about the brownies being served to the class. After another student exclaimed that the remark was "racist," the school called the Collingswood Police Department, according to the mother of the boy who made the comment.

The police officer spoke to the student, who is 9, said the boy's mother, Stacy dos Santos, and local authorities.

Dos Santos said that the school overreacted and that her son made a comment about snacks, not skin color.

"He said they were talking about brownies. . . . Who exactly did he offend?" dos Santos said.

The boy's father was contacted by Collingswood police later in the day. Police said the incident had been referred to the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency. The student stayed home for his last day of third grade.

Literal language police. Literal hate police. In a third grade classroom because one nine-year-old thought another nine-year-old made a racist remark. WTF.

Backlash followed. Parents started wondering whether they needed to add attorneys' business cards to their children's lunches. Commenters wanted to know why the school had completely abdicated its disciplinary role to local law enforcement. Social media bonfires were lit and stoked.

School administrators quickly stepped up to point accusatory fingers at someone else:

Collingswood School Superintendent Scott Oswald said Thursday that Camden County prosecutors had demanded in a May meeting that the district report nearly every incident of student misbehavior to the police.

"During that meeting, it was made abundantly clear by an assistant prosecutor that if we did not follow the directive, they would come after us with criminal charges, they'd come after our educational certifications," Oswald said.

Since that meeting, students as young as 7 have been reported to the police for incidents such as shoving in the lunch line or allegedly making a racist comment.

Indeed, the county prosecutor's office had called a May meeting and indicated that pretty much every minor disciplinary issue was to be handled by law enforcement. Prior to this meeting, the Memorandum of Agreement between the district and law enforcement had only stipulated that "serious" violations -- like weapons, drugs or sexual misconduct -- were to be handled by police officers.

That all changed for reasons the prosecutor's office has yet to explain. The school district definitely left the meeting with the feeling that failing to cede all disciplinary actions to law enforcement would result in a violation of the agreement. Local police chief Kevin Carey backed up the school's claims, noting that it was clearly stated by the prosecutor's office that failing to follow the agreement "could result in criminal charges."

That's how nine-year-old kids end up discussing allegedly racist remarks with law enforcement officers first, rather than school administrators or their own parents.

Nowhere is it stated what the prosecutor's office hoped to achieve with this policy change -- other than maybe a larger slate of prosecutions to attend to. It appears the schools were very compliant.

Superintendent Scott Oswald estimated that on some occasions over the last month, officers may have been called to as many as five incidents per day in the district of 1,875 students.

The good news is that the "Call 911 for EVERYTHING" policy has been dropped by the district. The bad news is that the district has still refused to answer parents' questions about why they weren't informed of the escalation in police intervention or why the district didn't make more of an attempt to fight this until after it had blown up in its face.

The prosecutor's office still refuses to comment , stating only that the increase in police calls was due to a "misunderstanding," which is really nothing more than it declaring the district should bear most, if not all, of the blame for debacle.

Third graders being busted for racist remarks is the end result of insular thinking by a group of people who divide the world into two groups: them and "suspects." Prosecutors prosecute. Law enforcement officers make arrests. The natural states are indulged by crafting policies that turn mischief and misbehavior into low-level criminal activities -- and it's all backed up by an implicit threat of prosecution targeting the district itself.

Filed Under: police, school, zero tolerance

MPAA And Movie Theaters Issue A Complete Ban On Google Glass, Because They 'Have A Long History Of Welcoming Tech Advances'

from the welcoming?-we-meant-hating dept

There are days when you wonder what life must be like as a PR person for the MPAA. I mean, it must take an extraordinary amount of either cognitive dissonance or will power to avoid bursting out laughing at writing the opening sentence like the following in an announcement about how the MPAA and the National Association of Theater Owners (NATO) are colluding to ban technologies like Google Glass:

The National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) have a long history of welcoming technological advances and recognize the strong consumer interest in smart phones and wearable “intelligent” devices. As part of our continued efforts to ensure movies are not recorded in theaters, however, we maintain a zero-tolerance policy toward using any recording device while movies are being shown. As has been our long-standing policy, all phones must be silenced and other recording devices, including wearable devices, must be turned off and put away at show time. Individuals who fail or refuse to put the recording devices away may be asked to leave. If theater managers have indications that illegal recording activity is taking place, they will alert law enforcement authorities when appropriate, who will determine what further action should be taken.

This is the same MPAA that tried to sue the VCR out of existence. This is the same MPAA has tried to block things like "day and date" releases so that movies might be released to home viewers more conveniently. This is the same MPAA that sued a variety of file sharing properties out of existence. This is the same MPAA that was the main backer of SOPA, a copyright bill that would have significantly hindered security on the internet. This is the same MPAA whose prominent member, Viacom, engaged in a years-long legal fight with YouTube. Yeah, it has a history of "welcoming technological advances"? I don't think so.

This particular policy is not too surprising. After all, the company did summon Homeland Security to interrogate a guy for deciding to wear his Google Glass (while it was turned off) during a movie. For groups so welcoming to new technology, they don't seem to recognize that Google Glass has terrible resolution and battery life and would be a really dumb choice for someone to use to record a movie (not the least of which is because when the video is recording there's a bright LED light shining from the device, making it easy to spot).

Of course, they're coming out with this policy after basically Google Glass has become a dead product. It didn't catch on, and it's not clear that Google is even taking it that seriously any more. There are others attempting similar things, but, really, at this point the MPAA seems to be barring a technology that was never a serious threat in the first place for no good reason. Because it's so "welcoming" of new technologies.

Next time, MPAA PR person, why not just be honest for a change. Here's the announcement translated for accuracy:

The National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) have a long history of trying to stop any even remotely innovative new consumer technology that challenges our existing business models. As part of our completely wasteful and pointless effort to stop file sharing of movies, we have a zero-tolerance policy that makes us look clueless and out of date, by doing things like having young people arrested for capturing a few seconds of a movie as part of a birthday celebration. As part of this long standing "screw the customer for no good reason" policy, all devices that might possibly record just seconds of a movie in terrible quality must be shut off. Frankly, if we could, we'd force everyone to dump them in a bin before going into the theater, but even we think you'd probably revolt at that step. Individuals who have basic common sense will be asked to leave and everyone will be reminded that maybe, just maybe, instead of paying $12 for a movie in a crappy theater, they'd be better off at home, futzing around on the internet. But, don't worry, we're looking for ways to make that illegal too.

Filed Under: film recording, google glass, movie theaters, movies, wearables, zero tolerance
Companies: mpaa, nato

School Claims Teen's Writing About Marijuana Use Is 'Drug Possession'

from the writing-is-9/10ths-of-the-law dept

The latest illegal high to hit high schools? Writing about drug use.

Last May, a teenager was punished with a lengthy suspension after teachers discovered her folder which contained stories with references to marijuana use. Her father is now speaking out and appealing the school’s decision.

Tom Grayhorse, father of Krystal Grayhorse, told Ozarks First that he was called by Buffalo High School’s assistant principal after staff found Krystal’s folder containing the stories at the school and were “alarmed by the contents of the notebook.”

“She wrote about making out with a boy- well, you know, she’s a teenager- and also about having some pot then eating it and swallowing it at the school,” said Tom Grayhorse.

So, a student's personal notebook -- not one belonging to the school or any particular class -- was left behind and read by a member of school administration, who then "freaked out" and brought it to the attention of school officials.

Grayhorse can only imagine what was actually written by his daughter because the school has refused to provide him with copies of the objectionable writing.

He went to the school for a meeting but was told he couldn't see the notebook because it's considered evidence, and that his daughter would be suspended for ten days.

Yes, the school went full cop on him, claiming the evidence was so secret it couldn't even be seen by the legal guardian of the minor involved. The ten-day suspension has now been extended until January 2015, thanks to its "zero tolerance" drug policies, even though no actual drugs were involved. District Superintendent Robin Ritchie offered this deferral to policy by way of "explanation."

"If they give a ten-day suspension it comes to me as the superintendent and then it is my decision to look back at it and see if an extended suspension is in order...our drug and alcohol policies permit for several different consequences that can be given out. And most of the time it's 1 to 180 days that students can be suspended," Ritchie said.

Apparently, in this case, the decision was to use the full 180 days, stretching from the original suspension in May to early 2015. Obviously, this will have a negative impact on the student's hope of graduating on time, but the district has been less than helpful in ensuring the drugless drug violator will be able to stay on schedule.

"I asked them about alternate schooling for people that had been suspended and they said they didn't have it," says Grayhorse.

Superintendent Ritchie has suggested night classes, but there doesn't seem to be anything on its website or in its policies that addresses the educational options for suspended students.

Then there's this detail, which may have some crying "#notallsuperintendents!" -- according to both the student's father and investigating officials, the student claimed to have had drugs in her possession, if only temporarily.

Grayhorse claims his daughter didn't have the drugs, even though she admitted to a school officer that she did.

"She'd confess to almost anything, within reason, just to get [the questioning] over with. Somehow she allegedly had some [marijuana]. And she ate it and swallowed it and that took care of it and it was gone."

So, that would explain the "drug possession" named in the suspension report… except for this fact.

[Grayhorse] said [his daughter] was not tested for drugs.

Well, why not? And why didn't the school exercise some of the other options it offers students with drug issues, rather than pull the trigger on a lengthy suspension?

[Superintendent] Ritchie said the hypothetical discovery of a first-person story involving the use of a controlled substance, even at school, would "not necessarily" trigger a suspension. She added that school counselors have been trained to direct families to resources in the community if there's any hint of alcohol or drug use in a student.

The superintendent, while refusing to address specifics, says that the student's written "drug possession" wouldn't necessarily trigger a suspension and that the family could have been approached first about the theoretical drug problem. But the school didn't do any of this and Ritchie's noncommittal, non-specific statements back this up. She claims it all runs through her. So, the extended suspension, as well as the avoidance of less punitive actions, were OKed by her.

Devil's advocate says that if the student truly had drugs in her possession, this would all have been uncovered much more quickly and never would have become another quickly-circulating example of stupid school administration behavior. But withholding the evidence from the parent, as well as the lack of other verification like a drug test, points to a zero tolerance hammer converting another student into a more compliant nail.

Filed Under: creativity, drug use, schools, writing, zero tolerance

Student's Story About Shooting A Pet Dinosaur With A Gun Ends In Suspension, Arrest

from the due-to-administrative-actions,-this-year's-class-reunion-will-be-held-at-the dept

Another school weapons policy results in another ridiculous outcome. Dinosaurs -- pet dinosaurs -- are involved. As are lawyers, a defensive police captain and a silent set of school administrators. (h/t to Techdirt reader Violynne, who sent this in with the note "Tim's going to love this one: guns and dinosaurs!" And I do. Even though I might be the wrong Tim.)

Police were summoned to a high school after a boy wrote a story about using a gun to kill a dinosaur. The boy was searched, suspended from school, and subsequently handcuffed and arrested when he did not handle the interrogation calmly.

The boy is 16, so not quite as young as that sentence makes it sound. He also suffers from a unspecified learning disorder and the "story" was written in a resource class that was supposed to aid him with that problem. Here's a few more details about the creative writing project gone stupidly wrong.

Alex Stone, 16, said he was assigned to come up with a fictional story for a creative writing assignment at Summerville High School on August 19, 2014. The brief assignment involved writing a few lines that were supposed to mimic a social media post; a “status update” drafted on paper.

Stone’s submission discussed himself and a fictitious dinosaur that lived next door to him. He wrote that he used a gun to kill the dinosaur.

“I killed my neighbor’s pet dinosaur, and, then, in the next status I said I bought the gun to take care of the business,” Stone said to NBC 12.

As is the case with most stories involving non-threats being portrayed as threats, those reading Stone's words as a threat removed the context around them. This was quite a feat, considering the teacher who expressed concern to administrators had all the context right in front of her. It's just that she stripped it away when emailing school officials.

According to an incident report, a resource teacher identified as Jessica Lewis emailed Assistant Principal Preston Giet on Monday evening to tell him she discovered a reference to a gun while going over students' assignments.

"The email stated that the suspect had written in a classroom assignment that he had 'bought a gun to take care of business,'" the report said.

A "school resource officer" was summoned (which basically means a moonlighting/specially-assigned police officer was summoned). School officials then passed on the information to the rest of the police department, which arrived to question Stone, search his locker, his book bag and his person. His mother wasn't informed of this until after it happened. In addition, Stone, despite proving to be no threat, was arrested and suspended for the rest of the week.

It looks like the police arrested Stone for his supposed gun threat, but the Summerville PD claims that isn't true.

"The information that is being reported is grossly incorrect in reference to what led to the juvenile being charged," said Capt. Jon Rogers in a Summerville police statement released on Thursday."The charges do not stem from anything involving a dinosaur or writing assignment, but the student's conduct."

OK, then. Here's the extent of Stone's "conduct," according to the police themselves.

According to police, when Stone was asked by school officials about the comment written on the assignment, he became "very irate" and said it was a joke.

A Summerville Police Department report states that Stone continued to be disruptive and was placed in handcuffs, and was told that he was being detained for disturbing schools.

It would appear that Stone was only "disturbing" school officials who seemed intent on finding some evidence of his desire to shoot people and was understandably frustrated that they wouldn't believe it wasn't some sort of threat. Whatever disturbance Stone caused was limited to a single office. There was no reason for anyone to claim, much less believe, that his written assignment, or his behavior inside that office, was "disturbing" his classmates, other classes or anyone else not directly involved.

This is the totality of the school's response to the situation.

Pat Raynor, spokeswoman for Dorchester District 2, said on Thursday she could not comment on the circumstances surrounding the incident on the advice of the school district's attorney.

Good advice, considering the situation has now expanded to include the media and Stone's lawyer, who plans to challenge both the suspension and the legality of the school and police department's actions.

More commentary was provided by Ken Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, who trains school administrators in emergency preparedness.

"There is a point for discretion in the consequences for what you find in your investigation," Trump said. "That's when you have to factor in age and developmental issues and the context in which the comment or threat was made."

Discretion is the better part of valor emergency preparedness, but Trump doesn't actually mean what he says here. What he actually means is discretion is the better part of having your school shot up because you failed to overreact properly.

"Comments that were made by children a couple decades ago pre-Columbine, pre 9/11, pre-Sandy Hook would never rise to a suspension expulsion or prosecution," he said. "Parents see this as criminalizing the behavior but the other side of it is security and school officials can't afford to make one mistake and have a credible plot slip through the cracks that leave people killed."

Better safe than sorry, no matter how many non-threatening students you have to suspend and/or arrest. And if these students aren't thrilled with being searched and interrogated over written words deliberately robbed of context, you can just toss them to local law enforcement and let them flip through the law books until they find a charge that can be beaten to fit and painted to match.

Once again, I'm not saying even questionable incidents like these shouldn't be investigated. But the end result of the investigation shouldn't be a suspension or an arrest when nothing incriminating turns up. And there's certainly no excuse for not contacting parents when something like this happens. Deliberately excluding them is not only dishonest, but it's cowardly. It gives the appearance that the school would rather steamroll students than allow another possibly adversarial viewpoint into the "discussion."

Filed Under: alex stone, dinosaurs, guns, stories, students, zero tolerance
Companies: summerville high school

4th Grader Suspended For Properly Completing Assignment With A Nerf Gun

from the right-on-target dept

Given the stories we've covered in the past in which schools and their administrators massively overreact in the name of children's safety, I suppose these stories really shouldn't surprise me as much as they do. I mean, given that we've seen administrators lose their minds over pop tarts, fingers, and even drawings, should I really be shocked that a fourth grader was suspended from his Georgia elementary school for bringing in a nerf gun? No, probably not, but a lack of surprise doesn't mean I can't get angry that a kid that properly completed his damned assignment was suspended for it.

So why did young Ramsey McDonald bring the nerf gun, which shoots terrifying soft little foam balls out of it, to class? Because he was told to, that's why.

After a couple of days into the school year, fourth grader Ramsey McDonald of Warner Robins was given what he thought was a fun assignment. Bring in some of your favorite toys to talk about.

"They were trying to get the kids to know each other," his father, Scott McDonald said.

Well, bang up job, Warner Robbins Elementary, because Ramsey dutifully completed that assignment, but it's going to be pretty hard for his classmates to get to know him now that he's serving a 3 day in-school suspension. For bringing in a toy, mind you, that is rated for six-year-olds and up, since it is about as harmful as a really tiny pillow covered in a newborn puppy's love. It's a toy. He was told to bring in a toy. Hell, it could have even served as a simple teaching moment for Ramsey about thinking of the larger context of things before making a decision. Instead, all he's learned is that bureaucracy breeds this kind of overprotective nonsense. Well, that plus he learned that he has more common sense than the adults at his school.

"He told me he didn't know they would think it was a weapon or he wouldn't have brought it to school," McDonald said.

Well, of course not, because it's not a freaking weapon, it's a toy, which is exactly what he was asked to bring in. Sitting this kid outside of his class on suspension for three days for properly completing his assignment is crazy-pants.

Filed Under: elementary school, nerf gun, toys, zero tolerance
Companies: warner robbins elementary

NSA On Snowden's Claims Of Passing Around Nudie Pics: We Totally Wouldn't Allow That... If We Knew About It

from the but-they-don't,-so dept

Following on the news that Ed Snowden told the Guardian how NSA employees routinely passed around pictures they had intercepted of "extremely attractive" people who were naked, the NSA has issued one of its typical non-denial denials. In an email to Forbes' Kashmir Hill, NSA spokesperson Vanee Vines basically said, "If we knew about it, that wouldn't be allowed":

“NSA is a professional foreign-intelligence organization with a highly trained workforce, including brave and dedicated men and women from our armed forces,” said spokesperson Vanee Vines by email. “As we have said before, the agency has zero tolerance for willful violations of the agency’s authorities or professional standards, and would respond as appropriate to any credible allegations of misconduct.”

Except, of course, what nearly every story talking about this has left out is that this is hardly the first such revelation. The NSA has a history and pattern of this kind of thing. Back in 2008, it was revealed that NSA analysts had been listening in on and passing around tapes of Americans having phone sex:

Not only were calls between Americans listened to and recorded on a regular basis, the "good parts" (i.e., phone sex) were sent around to other operators to listen to as well. One of the operators said that on a regular basis messages would be sent around with messages like: "Hey, check this out. There's good phone sex or there's some pillow talk, pull up this call, it's really funny, go check it out."

Even if we take the NSA at its word that it has a "zero tolerance" policy for this kind of thing, that actually makes the story even worse. Because it just shows how weak (to non-existent) the NSA's "100% auditability" really is. Keith Alexander insisted that everything done by people with access to these databases was tracked and audited. But it's becoming increasingly clear that that's not true at all. And it makes you wonder just how much abuse is going on that the NSA has no idea about -- potentially for things even worse than listening in on phone sex or passing nudie pics around the office.

Filed Under: abuse, auditability, audits, ed snowden, nsa, nudie pics, surveillance, zero tolerance

Florida Lawmakers Aim To Restore Childrens' Rights To Openly Carry Pop Tart 'Guns' On Campus

from the 2nd-(grade)-Amendment dept

It seems to me that if it takes a new law to force school policies to more closely resemble common sense, then there's definitely a problem with those policies. The question remains as to why this couldn't be changed at a school administration level. Zero tolerance weapons policies are somewhat mandatory, seeing as they're tied to school funding. But there's nothing in that stipulating that situations not involving actual weapons need to be handled in the most asinine fashion possible.

Since the story broke about the suspension of a 7-year-old student for biting his breakfast pastry (a Pop-Tart, for all intents and purposes) into a gun-like shape and making gun-like motions, legislation has been introduced twice to address this incredibly stupid problem.

The first bill was passed in Maryland, the state in which the dangerous Pop-Tart gun was first brandished. Florida is now the second state attempting to step up and reaffirm its schoolchildren's right to carry (and deploy) non-functioning, non-weapons that may or may not resemble actual weapons, depending on your level of paranoiac imagination and/or adherence to zero tolerance policies. Its unofficial name is the "Pop-Tart bill," and it aims to ensure that the Anne Arundel, MD school will never live down its brush with deadly pastries.

Here's the text that specifies exactly what administrators won't be allowed to portray as policy-violating weapons in the future.

Simulating a firearm or weapon while playing or wearing clothing or accessories that depict a firearm or weapon or express an opinion regarding a right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is not grounds for disciplinary action or referral to the criminal justice or juvenile justice system under this section or s. 1006.13. Simulating a firearm or weapon while playing includes, but is not limited to:

1. Brandishing a partially consumed pastry or other food item to simulate a firearm or weapon.

2. Possessing a toy firearm or weapon that is 2 inches or less in overall length.

3. Possessing a toy firearm or weapon made of plastic snap-together building blocks.

4. Using a finger or hand to simulate a firearm or weapon.

5. Vocalizing an imaginary firearm or weapon.

6. Drawing a picture, or possessing an image, of a firearm or weapon.

7. Using a pencil, pen, or other writing or drawing utensil to simulate a firearm or weapon.

This would seem to cover a majority of incidents covered here and elsewhere. It still gives the schools leeway to make dumb decisions if they feel "learning" has been "disrupted" enough, and it also allows them to implement school uniform policies if the thought of screenprinted guns wandering the campus is too terrible to contemplate.

As for the kid who originally drew the suspension for his Pop-Tart gun, he's still dealing with the outcome of that school's suspension decision, as Katherine Mangu-Ward at Reason points out.

But the boy at the center of that controversy is still caught in the zero tolerance web. The Washington Post reports that school officials in that case are saying the suspension was really about general disciplinary problems, despite the fact that the brief citation includes the word gun four times and the parents say administrators made no mention of other concerns at the time of the suspension:

For more than a year, the Anne Arundel boy’s family has been asking school officials to clear the episode from his boy’s records, saying that it unfairly tarnishes his file with a gun-related offense....

At Tuesday’s hearing, school officials said the boy also had nibbled his pastry into a gun shape a day earlier. But his teacher, Jessica Fultz, testified that on that day he was more compliant when admonished. On the day he was suspended, she said, he was not responsive when she told him to stop.

The policies are not only bad, but they're enforced inconsistently. So, a kid who defiantly chews a Pop-Tart into a gun shape is treated as just as much of a problem as someone with an actual weapon in their possession. The school has yet to back down from its decision, proving it's still trying to portray itself as the real victim.

Oh, and it has a real problem with the media's inaccurate portrayal of this event.

Laurie Pritchard, Anne Arundel’s director of legal services, said that the object central to the case had been misportrayed, as well as the reason for the discipline.

“First of all, it wasn’t a Pop-Tart,” she said. “It was a breakfast pastry."

Well, that's what happens when you blow the budget on legal assistance rather than food. You can't afford name-brand goods. And shame on all of us for believing that the object cited the most in the suspension report was the actionable cause, rather than the barely-mentioned and overly vague "general disciplinary problems" the writeup couldn't even be bothered to enumerate.

Filed Under: florida, guns, maryland, pastries, pop tarts, zero tolerance

The Logical Conclusion Of Zero Tolerance: College Prof Suspended Because Daughter Wore A GoT Tshirt

from the tolerating-stupdity dept

When we talk about the stupidity that is school-affiliated zero-tolerance policies, the stories usually revolve around an administration's inability to marry common sense with their reactions to non-issues. This can produce somewhat varied results, from really dumb stories about children being children and ending up in serious trouble, to a far more angering practice of victim-blaming. What it all boils down to, though, is an overreaction to certain tragic situations that results in bureaucratic lunacy on a level I never would have thought possible. School shootings and violence are the impetus in these cases, but we see this elsewhere as well. 9/11 resulted in the s#!*-show we know as airport security and NSA surveillance. The Boston Marathon bombing has resulted in the kind of militarized protection and media-blitzkrieg that would likely have other world nations that deal with far more terrorism shaking their heads. And, in each of these cases, we learn a simple truth that we should have seen coming all along: reactionary policies breed stupidity, corruption, and trouble.

So let's get back to zero-tolerance policies in schools and witness the logical conclusion they offer: a college professor who had recently been at odds with his school's administration was just suspended for posting a picture of his child wearing a Game Of Thrones t-shirt.

A popular community college professor was suspended after posting a photo of his daughter wearing an oversized T-shirt bearing a tagline from this season of Game of Thrones—Daenerys Targaryen's "I will take what is mine with fire and blood." Francis Schmidt, who teaches art and animation at Bergen Community College in New Jersey, shared the photo on Google+, where it was seen by several of his work contacts. One of them, a dean, decided the shirt was a veiled threat of some kind.

In case you can't see the image, it's of Schmidt's daughter doing a handstand while wearing a Game of Thrones t-shirt that includes the tagline: "I will take what is mine with fire & blood." In case you think it's reasonable that such a picture being shared on social media could be interpreted as a threat to commit violence at a local community college, stop thinking that because that's a stupid thought. I imagine Schmidt said as much when he was called in to meet with the administration to explain why he'd sent a "threatening email", despite the fact that no email had been sent.

At the meeting, Schmidt explained the shirt in the context of Game of Thrones and showed Miller that the "fire and blood" tagline has 4 million results on Google. The professor asked why his photo had caused such a reaction, and was told that "fire" could be a metaphor for "AK-47s." Schmidt was placed on administrative leave without pay later that week, and told he would have to pass a psychiatric evaluation before he could return.

Now, like me, you should be even more confused. There's no way you could somehow interpret "fire" to mean "AK-47" any more than you could interpret "fire" to mean "Easter ham." They aren't related. And if you're thinking that there's so little sense being made here that there must be something more to this story, there sure as hell is. The head of the school's administration had just been delivered a vote of no confidence by the staff, including Schmidt, who had also filed a grievance recently for being denied a request for a sabbatical. You don't need to read between the lines much to understand that this is probably a trumped-up charge serving to punish a member of the teacher's union.

Which brings us nicely back to my original point: it isn't just the stupid you have to worry about when it comes to zero-tolerance policies, it's also the corrupt. When we overreact to admittedly tragic occurrences, we almost invariably open up the possibility for abuse through that overreaction.

Filed Under: francis schmidt, game of thrones, suspension, zero tolerance

Kid Bullied For My Little Pony Backpack Told Not To Bring It To School Anymore

from the blaming-the-victim dept

In the ongoing idiocy that is schools employing zero tolerance policies, the admittedly misguided overbearing results at least tend to have some pretend logic behind them. The school is afraid of guns, so ban everything that remotely looks like a gun, even if we're just talking about some kid's fingers. The school wants to curtail bullying, so they go nuclear at anything even remotely resembling bullying. Yes, it's misguided, yes, it's stupid, but you can at least follow along the logical path they walked before jumping off the cliff.

But where one California North Carolina grade school got the stones to blame Grayson Bruce and his backpack for the bullying he's endured is beyond me.

A mother and her 9-year-old son say school officials won't let him bring a My Little Pony bag to school. The boy and his mother say he's getting shoved around because bullies think his pick of a favorite toy is for girls.

My Little Pony, which has enjoyed something of a resurgence lately, is a show about friendship. One would have to work extremely hard after being hit in the head with a hammer in order to find anything offensive within it. The only explanation anyone has offered for banning Grayson from bringing his damned backpack to school has been that it sets off the bullies to go about their bullying ways. This, in case you're dense, is about as pure a form of blaming the victim as one can find. Fortunately, while the school in question decided to paint a damned backpack as the culprit in this scenario, the power of social media has risen to support Grayson.

Since it aired, the story has been picked up by websites, blogs and television stations across the nation. Tuesday it was one of the top stories trending on social media. The Facebook page 9-year-old Grayson Bruce's parents have set up for him now has more than 3,700 "Likes". Grayson has developed a following on Facebook after a friend made a support page for him. Grayson stands by his favorite cartoon and the message he says it sends. His mother says, why not?

But Noreen says Thursday the school asked him to leave the bag at home because it had become a distraction and was a "trigger for bullying."

This is absurd. In a world where too many schools are embracing too many zero tolerance policies, this one is actually going down the road of removing the subject of the bullying instead. What fun! What if the young man was gay? Or black? Mexican? What if he liked a certain kind of music, or was a huge fan of the wrong sports team? What if he had a medical condition? Sorry, sport, but you have to leave your crutches at home, 'cuz the kids just ain't down with them.

No, the proper response to is to pull those bullying Grayson aside and explain to them in stark terms why their actions aren't acceptable. Banning MLP backpacks can't be the answer, lest we allow all those children to learn the exact wrong lesson in their place of learning.

Filed Under: bullying, my little pony, victim blaming, zero tolerance

Student Points Finger Like Gun, Gets Suspended Under Zero Tolerance Rules

from the zero-intelligence dept

If one were looking to find a singular, widespread example of the American people's abdication of common sense, the best of the available examples would have to be zero tolerance policies in schools. Think about it for a moment. Here we have a population consisting entirely of incomplete members of society, those that are still undergoing the learning and growth required to become fully functional members of our union. To treat that still-learning population with any measure of "zero tolerance" is antithetical in the extreme. These are the very people you would expect to make mistakes, to lack a full understanding of their surroundings and situations. They're the people in our culture most in need of tolerant learning opportunities, rather than the iron fist of bullshit justice.

Take the story reader kenichi tanaka writes us about, in which a youngster making the universal gun-symbol with one hand has ended up suspended from school. Keep in mind that Nathan Entingh is ten years old, was playing around with one of his friends, and that roughly every kid on the planet everywhere has done this exact same damned thing.

"He was pointing it at a friend's head and he said 'boom.' The kid didn't see it. No other kids saw it. But the teacher saw it," he said. "It wasn't threatening. It wasn't hostile. It was a 10-year-old kid playing."

The next morning Paul Entingh escorted his son Nathan to the principal's office, where they met with Devonshire Alternative Elementary School Principal Patricia Price.

"She said if it happened again the suspension would be longer, if not permanent," said Entingh, who also received a letter explaining the reason for Nathan's suspension as a "level 2 look alike firearm."

A level 2 look alike firearm? What the sweet hell does that mean? I'm just saying, I can make up nonsense levels about stuff, too, such as the policy on display here is a level 30 kind of stupid, with no save rolls for intelligence.

Look, I think the American people have been pretty patient with this kind of BS, but enough is enough. To take a common pantomime like this and use it to suspend a confused ten year old for three days from his place of education doesn't make a lick of sense. Worse, what could have been a learning moment about why we might not want to see kids doing that kind of thing in school was instead turned into a learning moment about the injustice of zero tolerance laws. Well done all around, Ohio educational system!

When asked what has Nathan learned from this incident, Entingh paused, then scoffed: "He's learned never to make his fingers like a gun a school again. I don't know if you consider that a life lesson."

In other words, no reason or context was taught, only uninformed respect for the power of authority. Yup, sounds about right.

Filed Under: devonshire alternative elementary, school, zero tolerance