Kindergartener Suspended for Mohawk

A kindergartener in Parma, Oh outside Cleveland has been suspended for his Mohawk. The Cleveland Plain Dealer has the story and a picture. The school said the boy's haircut caused a disruption.

Andrew Paulson at BoardBuzz, um, sort of defends the school and attacks the parent.

Also, Jonathan Adler picked up the story and the comments at the Volokh Conspiracy are sort of funny. But, some of the commenters have a point. A lot of people these days are sporting Mohawks (it's not my taste, but hey, I am sort of a nerd anyway so who am I to speak to fashion). It is becoming (again) a part of society. No longer is it only the deviants of society that are sporting this look. Lots of athletes and musicians are doing it now (Sean Combs - Diddy - even sported one when he ran the N.Y. marathon for charity and just a couple days ago Greg Oden, the #1 pick in last years NBA draft, broke out his). The point is that school authorities have to be hip (sorry for the pun) to society - as least as much as they can. Society moves at a quick pace these days and stuff that was deviant two years ago is now mainstream.

Thoughts on Misconduct and Police in Schools

I just wanted to point you all to a thoughtful post at Teaching in the 408 on police patrolling in schools. TMAO reflects on the first year of the police presence in his school. I am going to post a lot of it here (with my thoughts after) because I want you to read it, but do me a favor and click over into his blog and finish it. I think a lot of my teacher-readers will really like his blog.

The myopic, seemingly p.r.-driven decision was made to install police
officers on middle school campuses this year. About this atrocity, I wrote:

When
you bring an officer onto campus, you undermine [the teachings of
inclusion and full adult control]. Rather than sending the message to
kids that adults expect your best and are fully in control of the
school environment, the patrolling presence of police sends the message
that we expect your worse and are not in control. Rather than sending
the message that you will do the right thing because strong, successful
people do so naturally, we are sending the message that you will do the
right because we will punish you otherwise. We once used the phrase family to describe the school environment we sought to create. External controlling agents are no part of any family
I know. Instead of kids hearing a message of inclusion and warmth, one
that softens that self-defeating mantle of hard so many reach for, we
are sending a hardening message that this is a place for thugs, a
ghetto place where the kids are so bad actual armed police officers are
needed to ensure control.

Every word of that has been
born out and proved accurate this year. Every word has been driven home
not only by the presence of the police, but through the actions of an
unsettled first-year administrator, who has consistently and
obstinately brought a police presence into areas of school function in
which they can serve no beneficial purpose. This isn't even about the
absurd rate of suspension, the removal of dignity in discipline
situations, or just the daily unpleasantness that has arisen on campus.
This is about how the police have been used to undermine and chip away
at the very core of what it was that made our school a successful and
special place.

This year, officers have been brought into
discipline scenarios time and time again in defiance of our norms,
understandings, and wishes, but apparently in compliance with the
wishes of district leadership. The inclusion of police represents a
continued gross escalation and over-reaction. We're not talking about a
kid selling drugs or using a weapon in an assault. Those are crimes.
Our kids are being put into the system, cited and arrested over actions
that, while unacceptable, are nevertheless not criminal. A playground
fight is not a crime. Yelling things at someone is not a crime. Being a
jerk to a 6th grader is not a crime. Having a Sharpie in your posession is not a crime.

Students at my school have received citations and court dates for all these actions.

It's
awful. We do not need more black and brown kids in the criminal justice
system. We do not need kids with booby-trapped cumulative files, rigged
for explosion the first time they step out of line, because suddenly
it's a pattern and a repeat offense. We do not need to set so many kids
up for failure in navigating legal whitewater (as if it's so out of the
realm of possibility that we're handing out court dates to families who
lack the money, social capital, immigration status, or plain
with-it-ness to get themselves through something like that in an
acceptable way). We do not need to function this way to have an
orderly, safe campus.

This is what we do now. Kid gets sent to
the office, there's almost no chance they escape interaction with a
police officer, no matter how piddling the offense. Citations are
written at such a mind-boggling rate that teachers have been told
officers are too encumbered with paperwork to remove trespassers from
campus. I hate it. I see the reliance on, and the acceptance of, a
police role in routine matters of discipline and I want to vomit. But
this is what we do now.

This is never what we have done.

Continue Reading ...

These are very legitimate points and something I struggle with in teaching ed. law. Just because you can legally have police in the hallways, doesn't mean it is a good idea everywhere (or possibly anywhere). I also think Kilian has a good point regarding the role of the administrator. I don't know the situation in question so I am not going to speak specifically, but the reason we give administrative discretion to administrators ... is to use it. We (and the law) want administrators to use their judgment. I think when some people think of the law, they think of cut and dry and black and white. Commit offense X and there is a 3 step discipline process ... kind of thing. That is not really accurate. The law actually builds quite a bit of discretion in the system on purpose because we want educators to use student discipline as a way to help students learn. Ninety-five percent or more of student discipline is fairly innocuous. When student misbehavior arises to the level of a crime, I agree the police should be involved. But, otherwise, the primary purpose of the discipline is to help the student learn. Police, and most of the criminal justice system, are not trained for the purpose of learning, especially student learning. So, why are they there?

Nebraska Legislature Passes Anti-Bullying Bill

The Nebraska Legislature has passed an anti-bullying bill, which will be sent to the governor. The Lincoln Journal Star has a small story on it. If passed, Nebraska would join over 30 other states in taking legislative action to try to stop bullying in K-12 schools. You can find a link to the laws in other states here.

The 9th Circuit Rehearing Redding v. Stafford (13 Year Old Strip Search Case): Congrats Savana

I was sort of happy to see Mark Walsh's scoop at the School Law Blog that the 9th Circuit has decided to rehear the Redding v. Stafford decision en banc (as a full court - or at least more - instead of just 3 judges, essentially setting aside the 3 judge's decision). The Edjurist sort of has a personal interest in this case. I disagreed with the 3 judge panel's decision initially when they ruled that strip searching the 13 year old Redding was constitutional (read the facts here). Later, Sarah Redding herself (the student that was searched) posted a comment on the blog post thanking me and directed us to her compelling editorial in the Eastern Arizona Courier.

At the time I had this to say about the case:

How can a strip search of a 13 year old be considered reasonable in
scope when searching for Ibuprofen? Sure, having and passing out
prescription drugs is wrong and the search of the backpack was fine.
But was it necessary to strip search her? How about searching her
locker first or calling her parent ... or calling the cops? Any of
these methods would have been more reasonable in scope and likely more
productive in obtaining any illegal drugs and/or reprimanding the
offending student. I personally feel this is clearly outside the bounds
of the Constitution and even further outside the bounds of common sense.

Well, congratulations Savana. It is not a win yet, but I think their decision to rehear the case bodes well for you. If nothing else, it shows the delicacy of this issue of strip searching young students. It should only be used, if at all, as a last resort and only in the most dire of circumstances (weapons, perhaps). Ibuprofen, the equivalent of 2 over the counter Advils, hardly qualifies as a dire circumstance to stretch the bounds of the Constitution this far.

Kiss and Expel

My South Carolina readers will love this one. Two students were expelled for kissing (or allegedly perhaps more) on a school bus in Columbia, SC. We don't have all the facts so it is hard to form an opinion on this one, but if it was just kissing ... it does sound a bit severe for what appears to be otherwise stand-up students.

Any readers in the district or around there care to share the latest rumors (and/or facts) floating around this one?

UPDATE: According to the ABA Journal, the parents of the expelled students are going to challenge the school board's decision in Court. So, we should be hearing more from this case.

Ohio the Next to Ban Corporal Punishment?

A bill in the Ohio General Assembly would do just that. The bill has bi-partisan sponsors and may have a good shot at passage. If it is passed, it would make Ohio the 30th state to ban corporal punishment and would be the first new law on this issue since Pennsylvania banned it in 2005. As the map below shows (thanks to the Center for Effective Discipline), a clear majority of states are now on the side of making corporal punishment illegal in schools. Perhaps this bill will cause some other states (ahem, Indiana, Florida, Colorado I am talking to you) to also consider legislation banning corporal punishment. I can't tell you how appalled my pre-service teachers are here in Indiana when I tell them spanking children is legal in this state. The momentum of the 1980's for this prohibition has long since passed, but in the 20 subsequent years many of the older teachers that were fond of this practice have retired. For the current generation of teachers corporal punishment is an embarrassment to the teaching profession. It is time the legislation reflected the morals of the majority of teachers.

Crossposted: At the Schoolhouse Gate

Drunk Photos and Facebook

Well, Facebook just continues to generate educational law news ... or in this case buzz. Andrew Paulson over at Board Buzz has an interesting account of students being disciplined and questions over photos of them on Facebook which showed them partying with alcohol. The incident even generated a walkout by some students at the school.

Andrew's questions in the BoardBuzz post are interesting, however, and worth an examination. Here is the quote:

"Is it the job of the administration to look at Facebook regularly and
be the Internet police for the students in their school? ... Or is it a matter of free speech since the photos were taken off
school property and parents should be aware of what their children are
posting on Facebook and they should handle discipling their children for underage drinking?"

First, the easy question ... free speech. Likely, in these cases of photos being posted on Facebook or other social networking sites, there will not be a First Amendment issue because the speech does not amount to an expression that has meaning (See, Jarman v. Williams, 753 F.2d 76 (1985)). Now, that is not to say that all Facebook posts do not amount to expression, certainly some can, but they must convey a clear meaning that is likely to be understood by a third party and it is hard to see how drunk photos do that.

Now, the harder question ... should school authorities consider it part of their job to search Facebook? First, the law considers Facebook (and the Internet in general) to be a public space (even if student's hold to the misconception that it is private) so the old rules of reasonable, individualized suspicion probably don't apply in a legal sense. So, can school authorities legally search Facebook? ... sure. Okay, with that out of the way, we can consider the "should" question. Should school administrators randomly be searching Facebook on their students? Here is the advice I have been giving when asked this question. Even though the traditional rules of reasonable, individualized suspicion probably don't apply to Internet and Facebook searches ... pretend that they do. What I absolutely don't want is a principal spending 4 hours a day randomly searching the net. While I promise that if they search in this manner they will find things to punish students for, they have far more important things to do like improving curriculum and evaluating teachers. But, if there is an individualized suspicion of a student that is reasonable, why not take 5 min. and see if that student has a Facebook page and run a few Google searches? If you find what you are looking for, go ahead and proceed with disciplinary action. If you find some other transgression in the process that you were not looking for, such as pictures of students drinking, well ... use your discretion - there is no rule saying you have to punish everything you see. The law gives principals discretion because we want them to use it. There are lots of bad things and lots of good things happening on the net, just as in classrooms. After a couple hundred years of education in this country we have determined that a reasonable, individualized suspicion standard is a good standard for searching in classrooms, so I don't see why it should be any different for the Internet. The Internet is becoming part of our schools, whether we like it or not. We can't just try to block everything all the time because students will always find ways around the boundaries we erect (again, this is no different than classrooms). We need to be honest with students and establish clear precedents regarding the school administration's relationship with the Web. I think a good standard that both school authorities and students can live with is a reasonable, individualized suspicion standard. Students should know the Internet and Facebook are not private places immune to searching by school authorities, but students should also know that school authorities are not "out to get them" and that they will only be searching the Net for information on their students if there is a reason to do so.     

Also see Mike Tully's recent entry at the Gate about the settlement of a facebook dispute in Ohio after the school overreacted and didn't use their discretion wisely.

Suspended for Hate List

A student in Colorado composed a "hate list" of less than 5 students at Sagewood Middle School.
The list contained "no threat or intent to harm anyone" but was
apparently just a list of peers the student in question disliked.
Nevertheless, the student was suspended.



Joanne Jacobs wonders what the district would do if it got its hands on Santa's naughty list.



Crossposted At The Schoolhouse Gate

PDA, Sexual Harassment and Bullying - Where are the lines?

Interesting story in the Dallas Morning News this morning on public displays of affection among students (PDA).

Schools take hard line against public displays of affection

Critics say bans on hugging, touching go too far in bid to prevent sexual harassment suits

04:51 AM CDT on Friday, October 19, 2007

By STELLA M. CHAVEZ / The Dallas Morning News

schavez@dallasnews.com

A 7-year-old boy in
Duncanville gets in trouble for telling a classmate to wear a darker
shirt because he can see her bra strap. The school suspends him and
labels the incident as sexual harassment.

In Keller ISD, school officials catch an eighth-grade girl holding hands with a friend and tell her to stop.

   

From bans on hugging to labeling comments as sexual harassment, schools
are cracking down on anything that smacks of sex. Critics say teachers
and administrators have become too fearful of lawsuits and have stopped
letting kids be kids.

Recent precedent-setting lawsuits
have made it clear that school officials must respond to complaints of
student-on-student sexual harassment or face possible court action.

"I think it's the kind of world we live in today, but you would hope
that common sense would prevail," said Jeff Horner, a Houston attorney
who represents school districts.

Experts liken the
crackdown on student behavior to the way districts responded to safety
and security issues after the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School
in Colorado.

Archie McAfee, executive director of the
Texas Association of Secondary School Principals, said school
principals and administrators are caught in the middle.

If a school district punishes a student for what parents say is a minor
offense, it faces scrutiny. But if a district doesn't take a complaint
seriously, it could be held responsible.

The Supreme
Court ruled in 1999 that school districts can be held liable for
ignoring complaints of student-on-student harassment or failing to
protect students.

In that case, Davis vs. Monroe County School Board of Education,
the parent of a fifth-grade female student sued the school district for
failing to intervene when a fellow fifth-grader harassed the girl for
several months. In the court's eyes, the district had been negligent.

Jim Walsh, an Austin lawyer who specializes in school law, said the
case proved that sexual harassment is a legal concern – not just a
moral and educational one.

Continue Reading ...

This is one of the areas I see a lot of confusion about among school administrators and teachers. I can understand schools over-regulating in this arena, but it is really unnecessary. There are a lot of horror stories floating around where schools were inactive in stopping some form of student-to-student abuse and there is a suicide or a million dollar judgment against the school. Still, those instances are extremely rare. Thus, it is important for school personnel to understand what Davis v. Monroe said. Here is the slide I use in teaching this material:

So, let me say a couple things about it. First, school personnel can be school officials, so this implicates everyone. Second, deliberate indifference is more akin to purposefully ignoring than it is to simple lack of oversight. Further, cases have found that some reasonable action toward stopping the harassing treatment gets school authorities off the hook for deliberate indifference. So taking some action to resolve the behavior may be enough; it is not necessary to suspend a student to avoid lawsuits under this standard, simply acknowledging that such harassment exists and asking students to stop may be sufficient based on the circumstances. As if those two prongs of this test were not enough, the Supreme Court added a third prong to protect school officials even more, the severe, persistent and objectively offensive prong. What is severe, persistent and objectively offensive? Well, it varies from case to case, but simple instances of a PDA would probably not qualify. The Supreme Court intentionally added this prong to protect schools and school authorities from all but the most blatant instances of student-to-student harassment.

Just like most things in schools, we rely on the judgment of the school authorities. When school authorities are making rational and reasonable judgments about stopping harassment, more often than not they will be protected by the Davis v. Monroe test. It is only when teachers and administrators get outside the bounds of reasonable judgment that they subject themselves to liability.

Edit: Found this today and thought it applied. From Slate.Com:
              

Teacher Suing to Carry Gun in School

Sort of a shocking story out of Oregon yesterday:

MEDFORD, Ore. - High school English teacher
Shirley Katz insists she needs to take her pistol to work because she
fears her ex-husband could show up and try to harm her. She’s also
worried about a Columbine-style attack.

But
Katz’s district has barred teachers from bringing guns to school, so
she is challenging the ban as unlawful, since Oregon is among states
that allow people with a permit to carry concealed weapons into public
buildings.

“This
is primarily about my Second Amendment right and Oregon law and the
simple fact that I know it is my right to carry that gun,” said Katz,
44, ...

          Continue Reading.

I almost don't even know where to begin with this. For one, she cites the Second Amendment in support of her claim. Really? After Garcetti, teachers in the employment of a public school barely have First Amendment rights! That is a pretty ridiculous argument. There are so many reasons why the government would have a compelling interest in limiting her Second Amendment right to bear arms that I am not even going to get into them all.

Next, if we say schools are a safe environment for kids (and we do), why is she worried about her ex-husband somehow breaking into the school and bullying her. What is that saying to the parents of the community? This school is so unsafe that I need my own personal weapon to protect me ... but please, continue sending your children.

                                                                 

Finally, I have to seriously question the fitness to teach of any individual who would want to bring a gun into school. What is the purpose of a gun in this situation if not to kill people? The gun she intends to carry is pictured and if she ever brought that to school, as a principal or superintendent I would immediately fire her.

Odd Search & Seizure Case from Illinois: Dean Enters Home Looking for Evidence with Mother in Shower

This is one of the odder search and seizure cases I have
seen. The case comes from Illinois. Apparently, a school Dean was looking for
evidence from a previous incident at school. To obtain this evidence, the Dean
had one of his students take him to the student's house and let him in. While
the student's mother was in the shower, the Dean found the knife he was looking
for, took it, and left. All without notifying the student's mother. Here is the
Sun-Times account of the facts:

He was looking for a knife Tyler
D'Allesandro, then 12, said he had inadvertently taken to school in 2006. Tyler
said he doesn't know how the knife from his father's workshop got into his
school bag.

But the Indian Trail Junior High
student noticed it there and pointed it out to his friend. The friend took it,
and then a third boy, whom Tyler did not know, grabbed it and brandished it
toward other students "in a menacing manner," according to a federal
lawsuit the family filed.

Tyler's friend put the knife back in
the school bag. Tyler went home thinking the incident was over. That was on
Friday, Sept. 22, of last year.

But on the following Monday morning,
a parent complained to the school's dean, Michael Brumbaugh. According to the
lawsuit, Brumbaugh drove Tyler home and told Tyler to let him in. Tyler's
mother, Kelly D'Allesandro, was inside taking a shower, and Brumbaugh knew
that, the suit said.

Continued: Here is the URL of the Sun Times Story (sorry, hyperlinking to this
article did not work, copy and paste): http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/548369,CST-NWS-knife09.article




What an odd search on the part of the school Dean. Even with the student's
permission, entering the student's home (even if no one was home) seems clearly
out of line (so much so, I would imagine immunity would be out of the question,
as may indemnity). I know we have zero-tolerance policies against knifes, but
this is over the line. If he wanted that knife that badly, how about calling
the cops and getting a warrant? Or, here is a radical idea, how about calling
the student's parents first and asking them?