Gay teen faces expulsion for defense via stungun

[morriswalters]

Lets see, schools can't perform their primary function, Teaching, very well. They can't control bullying. They discriminate against gays and almost every other minority A UNESCO reports a large number of children don't want to be there and are bored with school overall. I have a solution. Let's go totally private. Get rid of the public schools. We can then get rid of property taxes. Parents can assume greater control over their child's school because if they don't like it they can choose another school anywhere else they like. Schools can gain better control of their students because they can refund mom and dad's money if they can't control a student and eliminate the problem without expelling anyone. LGBT students will be able to cluster without having to run afoul of any legislation which would require them to deal with students who bully them by being able to legally exclude those students. We can have the George Orwell Memorial School where it's all cameras, all of the time. We can have the Animal House school, a student operated school. No busing because discrimination would be legal. Parent provided transportation only. Lets see have I missed anything? No Title X.(is that right) Therefore no Federal intervention in purely private schools by being able to manipulate the purse strings. No mainstreaming of developmentally disadvantaged students.(hell it isn't needed anyway). Atheists can have their own schools, theist can have theirs. All control to regulate removed from the government, since Local School Boards don't care and come up with programs like Zero Tolerance because they are lazy, corrupt, and generally don't care about at all about minorities. In one fell swoop we have solved a number of complex and difficult issues by letting the marketplace control it and that is always more efficient.

Let me recap. Public Schools don't work. They are not able to deal with the complex mix of minorities, languages, non existent parental involvement, children damaged by any number of situations in their homes, and competing funding priorities. My solution, take it private. Every parent for themselves. Government is not able to do it evidently. Has this summed up what I have been hearing and is it not a valid solution that addresses everyone views.

[The Great Hippo]

Lets see, schools can't perform their primary function, Teaching, very well. They can't control bullying. They discriminate against gays and almost every other minority A UNESCO reports a large number of children don't want to be there and are bored with school overall. I have a solution. Let's go totally private. Get rid of the public schools. We can then get rid of property taxes. Parents can assume greater control over their child's school because if they don't like it they can choose another school anywhere else they like. Schools can gain better control of their students because they can refund mom and dad's money if they can't control a student and eliminate the problem without expelling anyone. LGBT students will be able to cluster without having to run afoul of any legislation which would require them to deal with students who bully them by being able to legally exclude those students. We can have the George Orwell Memorial School where it's all cameras, all of the time. We can have the Animal House school, a student operated school. No busing because discrimination would be legal. Parent provided transportation only. Lets see have I missed anything? No Title X.(is that right) Therefore no Federal intervention in purely private schools by being able to manipulate the purse strings. No mainstreaming of developmentally disadvantaged students.(hell it isn't needed anyway). Atheists can have their own schools, theist can have theirs. All control to regulate removed from the government, since Local School Boards don't care and come up with programs like Zero Tolerance because they are lazy, corrupt, and generally don't care about at all about minorities. In one fell swoop we have solved a number of complex and difficult issues by letting the marketplace control it and that is always more efficient.

Let me recap. Public Schools don't work. They are not able to deal with the complex mix of minorities, languages, non existent parental involvement, children damaged by any number of situations in their homes, and competing funding priorities. My solution, take it private. Every parent for themselves. Government is not able to do it evidently. Has this summed up what I have been hearing and is it not a valid solution that addresses everyone views.

Man, the person your posts are addressed to sounds like a dick. I'm glad he's not here.

[morriswalters]

That wasn't addressed to anyone, that was simply my suggestion a solution to all the problems that have been pointed out here. Such as Schools are totally responsible for their students safety, absolutely. This would address that. Or that the IPS is failing gay students through the callous and uncaring administrators and teachers and teachers aids and school board members. This would fire all of them. By giving absolute choice to parents they could certainly place their children where they felt it was safe for them. Parents could have as many or as few camera to monitor the students as they were prepared to pay for. For instance if parents wanted to arm their children to protect them then they could form a school for that. Hey is that a play on "there's an app for that". I mean infinite diversity at absolutely no cost to the taxpayer. But anyway I'm just saying.

[Chen]

Those kind of things fall within the "freak acts of nature" realm though -- schools aren't expected to keep students safe from alien invasions or psychic polar bears or WW3. They are expected to keep them safe from bullying. The type of infringement on expectations of safety was being done in a manner that the school is tasked with preventing, that's why the responsibility is theirs --they are specifically expected to prevent it.

The argument was there are aspects to that protection they cannot be reasonably held accountable for. One student stabbing another in class is not a freak accident, but I hardly see a reasonable way to prevent it from happening. Sure you can punish afterwards, but that doesn't change the fact a student could be severely injured because of it. And in such a case its clearly not the school's fault. Along those lines, I find it hard to believe the school can be reasonably expected to stop all bullying and hence its not reasonable to hold them responsible for all bullying.

This I disagree with. We don't have 100% concrete evidence, but we do have not-insignificant evidence that they didn't -- when asked about the bullying, the principal only listed what they had done about the situation as "we couldn't identify the bullies, so we couldn't stop them". If they had decided to add more cameras or tried to implement better anti-bullying programs or whatever, it's almost certain those would have been mentioned.

I'll agree with the adding more cameras, but considering the size of that campus I can certainly see a limit on camera placement. And if they already had anti-bullying programs which morris' CNN link seems to say (http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/08/us/indian ... ?hpt=hp_t3) I don't imagine they'd create a brand new program for a single student still being bullied, nor would I really expect them to.

[The Great Hippo]

That wasn't addressed to anyone, that was simply my suggestion a solution to all the problems that have been pointed out here.

Oh, okay. In that case.

ahem

"No, morriswalters. Running our school system as if it were Somalia is not a good idea. But thank you for the suggestion."

Now, moving on...

[Ghostbear]

Spoiler:

All portrayals of Freddie Mercury are flawed, because all portrayals rely on a proxy to carry the essence of Freddie Mercury. Pictures of Mercury, recordings of his music, explanations of who he is--these are all several times removed from the actual experience of Freddie Mercury.

But the nature of Freddie Mercury allows us to, in part, transcend these limitations. Take your average piece of musical schlock, for example. Absolute drivel! Clearly, whoever wrote this musical diarrhea will never have a career in the industry--not until they learn a thing or two about composition.

But now 'pretend' that, rather than the sort of song you play to clear out drunken guests at a wedding party, this song represents an attempt--a flawed, pathetic, miserable attempt, yes, but an attempt--to emulate the greatness of one of Queen's countless masterpieces?

Spoiler:

Exactly what I'm getting at! The flawed portrayals are all a certain number of steps removed from him. Those that we, with our sight and hearing intact, can experience are less steps removed from him. What if the degrees of separation for the mediums that some must experience are so significant that they are unable to experience the wonder of his essence? Not having experienced it properly, they are only able to see the "flawed, pathetic, miserable attempt" without seeing the greatness that is being reached for. We are lucky, because we are able to know what is being aspired to, so we will judge weaker attempts in a more positive light, being carried by the nostalgia of what we know is being searched for. Not all have that benefit, and it is up to us to remember our own advantages.

Lets see, schools can't perform their primary function, Teaching, very well. They can't control bullying. They discriminate against gays and almost every other minority A UNESCO reports a large number of children don't want to be there and are bored with school overall. I have a solution. Let's go totally private. Get rid of the public schools. We can then get rid of property taxes. Parents can assume greater control over their child's school because if they don't like it they can choose another school anywhere else they like. Schools can gain better control of their students because they can refund mom and dad's money if they can't control a student and eliminate the problem without expelling anyone. LGBT students will be able to cluster without having to run afoul of any legislation which would require them to deal with students who bully them by being able to legally exclude those students. We can have the George Orwell Memorial School where it's all cameras, all of the time. We can have the Animal House school, a student operated school. No busing because discrimination would be legal. Parent provided transportation only. Lets see have I missed anything? No Title X.(is that right) Therefore no Federal intervention in purely private schools by being able to manipulate the purse strings. No mainstreaming of developmentally disadvantaged students.(hell it isn't needed anyway). Atheists can have their own schools, theist can have theirs. All control to regulate removed from the government, since Local School Boards don't care and come up with programs like Zero Tolerance because they are lazy, corrupt, and generally don't care about at all about minorities. In one fell swoop we have solved a number of complex and difficult issues by letting the marketplace control it and that is always more efficient.

Let me recap. Public Schools don't work. They are not able to deal with the complex mix of minorities, languages, non existent parental involvement, children damaged by any number of situations in their homes, and competing funding priorities. My solution, take it private. Every parent for themselves. Government is not able to do it evidently. Has this summed up what I have been hearing and is it not a valid solution that addresses everyone views.

That is a wonderful collection of logical fallacies and examples of how not to discuss things you have shown us. It's a good thing nobody here would sink to such low levels of discourse.

The argument was there are aspects to that protection they cannot be reasonably held accountable for. One student stabbing another in class is not a freak accident, but I hardly see a reasonable way to prevent it from happening. Sure you can punish afterwards, but that doesn't change the fact a student could be severely injured because of it. And in such a case its clearly not the school's fault. Along those lines, I find it hard to believe the school can be reasonably expected to stop all bullying and hence its not reasonable to hold them responsible for all bullying.

An eyeball stabbing is like a "freak accident" in the sense that I was trying to convey -- I was hoping to avoid the phrase "acts of god" (since I dislike the intrusion of religious belief into basic communication), but that's what I was going for. It's not something you can prepare for, or plan for, react to, or prevent. It just "happens". Bullying is not one of those things. A school can prepare for it, it can plan for it, it can react to it, it can work to prevent it. The short of it is that preventing the bullying is their responsibility, it is one of the tasks specifically assigned to the school. They will receive credit when they succeed just as they will receive responsibility when they fail.

I'll agree with the adding more cameras, but considering the size of that campus I can certainly see a limit on camera placement. And if they already had anti-bullying programs which morris' CNN link seems to say (http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/08/us/indian ... ?hpt=hp_t3) I don't imagine they'd create a brand new program for a single student still being bullied, nor would I really expect them to.

Cameras are just one example -- they can always expand it, even if the school is huge. Or they can work to consolidate the amount of space the campus is on. Or they can try to work with a bullied person's schedule so they spend less time between buildings (many classes will have multiple sections being taught simultaneously, after all), or just changed their schedule around so they were on a different schedule -- unless it's a huge number of bullies, then just switching things around might reduce or remove the chances of encountering them. As for anti-bullying programs and updating when someone gets bullied -- why not? If they're shown that their current anti-bullying program has not only failed, but apparently failed rather abjectly, it would behoove them to look for flaws in their current program. See what they can do to improve it to prevent this case, or if it's not very good at all and should be replaced completely, or if it works well but could use a second program working in conjunction, or...

The point is, there are a huge number of options available to them. They saw that keeping things the same as they were was failing -- they should have looked into and decided on some of those alternatives instead of letting the situation continually get worse.

[Chen]

An eyeball stabbing is like a "freak accident" in the sense that I was trying to convey -- I was hoping to avoid the phrase "acts of god" (since I dislike the intrusion of religious belief into basic communication), but that's what I was going for. It's not something you can prepare for, or plan for, react to, or prevent. It just "happens". Bullying is not one of those things. A school can prepare for it, it can plan for it, it can react to it, it can work to prevent it. The short of it is that preventing the bullying is their responsibility, it is one of the tasks specifically assigned to the school. They will receive credit when they succeed just as they will receive responsibility when they fail.

I can concede that systemic bullying is something that school needs to be responsible for. Individual acts of bullying are almost certainly not all going to be able to be caught. Someone walks into a non-camera viewed area and gets jumped by 3-4 bullies and beaten. Is this the school's fault? Again unless we put cameras everywhere there will be places cameras and/or security will not see and things will happen there. Can we consider things like this under the "freak incident" category?

Cameras are just one example -- they can always expand it, even if the school is huge. Or they can work to consolidate the amount of space the campus is on. Or they can try to work with a bullied person's schedule so they spend less time between buildings (many classes will have multiple sections being taught simultaneously, after all), or just changed their schedule around so they were on a different schedule -- unless it's a huge number of bullies, then just switching things around might reduce or remove the chances of encountering them. As for anti-bullying programs and updating when someone gets bullied -- why not? If they're shown that their current anti-bullying program has not only failed, but apparently failed rather abjectly, it would behoove them to look for flaws in their current program. See what they can do to improve it to prevent this case, or if it's not very good at all and should be replaced completely, or if it works well but could use a second program working in conjunction, or...

The point is, there are a huge number of options available to them. They saw that keeping things the same as they were was failing -- they should have looked into and decided on some of those alternatives instead of letting the situation continually get worse.

They saw that things were failing for this one student. At what point do we have limit the resources we can expend on one student? I mean they told him to "tone it down" to avoid attention. Most people found this unacceptable. Would telling him to walk a different route to his classes have been considered acceptable? Its still somewhat victim blaming in that the victim is the one that is being asked to change their behaviour to resolve the issue. But considering scarcity of resources, this might have been the most effective way they had. My point in saying they had programs and cameras in place was a more general point in that they have already expended the resources they could to try and prevent bullying. All we know is that it failed in one student's case. Is it a systemic problem? Perhaps. Perhaps their measures are completely ineffective, but there are measures in place. It goes back to my first point. You're not going to ever catch and prevent every act of bullying unless you expend enormous resources. Depending on that expenditure and how effective the existing programs are over the rest of the student body, I can't necessarily demonize them for their situation.

[Ghostbear]

I can concede that systemic bullying is something that school needs to be responsible for. Individual acts of bullying are almost certainly not all going to be able to be caught. Someone walks into a non-camera viewed area and gets jumped by 3-4 bullies and beaten. Is this the school's fault? Again unless we put cameras everywhere there will be places cameras and/or security will not see and things will happen there. Can we consider things like this under the "freak incident" category?

This was systematic bullying of an individual -- they weren't once off occasions. When someone once off stabs someone in the eye, yeah it's a bit harsh to give the school 100% blame for it. When the victim of the first eye stabbing gets their other eye stabbed, then their fingers, then their ears, it's not unreasonable to assign them the blame for it. If this had just happened once, out of nowhere, sure, I'd agree with you. It didn't -- it kept happening, and the student and his parent kept reporting it. Again, and again, and again. It was not an unknown, unforeseeable issue. According to an article on it, the bullying started in October. They've had half a year of this problem existing and not going away. It does not fall under the category of "freak acts of nature" because they could have predicted it would continue with near 100% certainty.

They saw that things were failing for this one student. At what point do we have limit the resources we can expend on one student? I mean they told him to "tone it down" to avoid attention. Most people found this unacceptable. Would telling him to walk a different route to his classes have been considered acceptable? Its still somewhat victim blaming in that the victim is the one that is being asked to change their behaviour to resolve the issue. But considering scarcity of resources, this might have been the most effective way they had. My point in saying they had programs and cameras in place was a more general point in that they have already expended the resources they could to try and prevent bullying. All we know is that it failed in one student's case. Is it a systemic problem? Perhaps. Perhaps their measures are completely ineffective, but there are measures in place. It goes back to my first point. You're not going to ever catch and prevent every act of bullying unless you expend enormous resources. Depending on that expenditure and how effective the existing programs are over the rest of the student body, I can't necessarily demonize them for their situation.

Resource balancing is always going to be an issue, I agree. They can't afford to hire a pair of bodyguards for each individual student, or teach them all self defense, or blanket the school in anti-bullying police bots. They were still fundamentally failing the needs of one of their students though, and I don't think for a moment that rectifying it would have required such extensive resources. All the articles I read painted a picture of an administration that was completely unwilling to do one iota of extra work to rectify this situation. At the very least, if they determined that they were unable to dedicate the resources to this problem to fix it themselves, they should have gone over options available to them with the student -- transferring him to a different school, giving him different classes, and yes, even "toning it down" would have been acceptable to mention as one of many options -- instead of as only solution that it was presented as.

In the end, it was a systemic, recurring problem, it was the type of problem they are expected to solve, and they choose not to solve it. The responsibility is theirs.

[BattleMoose]

Those kind of things fall within the "freak acts of nature" realm though -- schools aren't expected to keep students safe from alien invasions or psychic polar bears or WW3. They are expected to keep them safe from bullying. The type of infringement on expectations of safety was being done in a manner that the school is tasked with preventing, that's why the responsibility is theirs --they are specifically expected to prevent it.

I agree with you on what you describe. The difference is that the student has complained about 10 times of being bullied. If a student alerted the school that the people around him were trying to stab him, freak accident or not, and it happened, there is serious culpability on the schools side in ignoring the danger that has been brought to their attention. Similarly if students complained, albeit somehow credibly about the dangers of psychic polar bears.

[Ghostbear]

I agree with you on what you describe. The difference is that the student has complained about 10 times of being bullied. If a student alerted the school that the people around him were trying to stab him, freak accident or not, and it happened, there is serious culpability on the schools side in ignoring the danger that has been brought to their attention. Similarly if students complained, albeit somehow credibly about the dangers of psychic polar bears.

Yeah, I agree. Though I guess my prior post counts as a ninja reply.

[Chen]

Resource balancing is always going to be an issue, I agree. They can't afford to hire a pair of bodyguards for each individual student, or teach them all self defense, or blanket the school in anti-bullying police bots. They were still fundamentally failing the needs of one of their students though, and I don't think for a moment that rectifying it would have required such extensive resources. All the articles I read painted a picture of an administration that was completely unwilling to do one iota of extra work to rectify this situation. At the very least, if they determined that they were unable to dedicate the resources to this problem to fix it themselves, they should have gone over options available to them with the student -- transferring him to a different school, giving him different classes, and yes, even "toning it down" would have been acceptable to mention as one of many options -- instead of as only solution that it was presented as.

In the end, it was a systemic, recurring problem, it was the type of problem they are expected to solve, and they choose not to solve it. The responsibility is theirs.

I had meant systemic in that changing their overall policies and/or adding new awareness seminars or whatever was not justified for one student's bullying (especially if other instances of bullying had gone down). Now, trying to help him change classes or school I suppose could have been options. If no one had even contemplated those then I can agree they didn't do all they can.

This doesn't really seem to be an issue that occurred in class (since it mentions one incident was actually punished when it happened in class) so I don't know how much that would help. Him not being able to identify his bullies leads me to believe they weren't people from his class/grade anyway. I'm not really sure if shipping off bullied students to other schools is a good idea either, but I suppose you're right in that it at least should have been an option. That said isn't there an issue in US where you need to go to certain schools in your district and cannot go to others?

[Aceo]

I think a few zero tolerance policies are okay. A zero tolerance policy on cannibalism, for instance. Or necrophilia. Or not loving Queen.

I know this was a page back but couldn't let it go unanswered. How would you apply the zero tolerance policy to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_Air_Force_Flight_571? I think a blanket statement of 'no zero tolerance policies' would be much easier to uphold.

[Ghostbear]

I had meant systemic in that changing their overall policies and/or adding new awareness seminars or whatever was not justified for one student's bullying (especially if other instances of bullying had gone down). Now, trying to help him change classes or school I suppose could have been options. If no one had even contemplated those then I can agree they didn't do all they can.

It was still a recurring problem in this case. If their prior policy reduced other instances of bullying, but did not reduce this one, there is probably insufficient data available to them to declare that their policies were the result of the other people seeing reduced bullying. Moreover, bullies derive part of their power from the fact that others that aren't involved won't stand up against them. Unless all of the bullying was occurring away from all other students (which the stories imply otherwise), then it still represents a failure of their policies, because the policies have caused other students to help stop bullying only if it isn't against gay minorities.

This doesn't really seem to be an issue that occurred in class (since it mentions one incident was actually punished when it happened in class) so I don't know how much that would help. Him not being able to identify his bullies leads me to believe they weren't people from his class/grade anyway. I'm not really sure if shipping off bullied students to other schools is a good idea either, but I suppose you're right in that it at least should have been an option. That said isn't there an issue in US where you need to go to certain schools in your district and cannot go to others?

The point in changing classes is so that he's less likely to encounter them on his way between classes. If he has to take route A at time X to go from class 1 to class 2, and that's where he encounters the bullies, then changing his classes so that he's taking route B at time X to go between classes could have helped avoid the problem altogether -- you can't bully people you don't encounter. School rules vary a lot from state to state, so switching might not have been a viable option in Indiana, but I believe some states have it required that schools find new placement for students they expel, and other districts will have student swapping agreements with neighboring schools. Since it was in the city of Indianapolis, I suspect there were various schools within somewhat reasonable distances, though I'm not familiar with the area so that might not be true.

From all the articles I read, the school's specific solutions offered for this individual case were: "Tone it down" and "Sorry, that was our only offered solution".

EDIT:

I think a few zero tolerance policies are okay. A zero tolerance policy on cannibalism, for instance. Or necrophilia. Or not loving Queen.

I know this was a page back but couldn't let it go unanswered. How would you apply the zero tolerance policy to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_Air_Force_Flight_571? I think a blanket statement of 'no zero tolerance policies' would be much easier to uphold.

A perfect example of how even things that seem like we can't come up with an extenuating circumstance could very well have them anyway.

[The Great Hippo]

I know this was a page back but couldn't let it go unanswered. How would you apply the zero tolerance policy to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_Air_Force_Flight_571? I think a blanket statement of 'no zero tolerance policies' would be much easier to uphold.

I was just being silly (except for the Queen part. I'm never silly when it comes to Queen).

[Griffin]

I can concede that systemic bullying is something that school needs to be responsible for. Individual acts of bullying are almost certainly not all going to be able to be caught.

Is this, like, actually a view that real people hold? That if something is difficult, then somehow you are not responsible for it?

Sure, some responsibilities may be really hard to fill, and they may be beyond your funding and capabilities, and they may clash with other responsibilities.

You are still responsible for it. Whether you can catch them all or not. If your resources and abilities aren't up to par, you can accept that you will fail to meet your responsibilities at least some of the time, but you aren't just allowed to say "we didn't fail, it wasn't our responsibility" when it clearly was.

You /can/ say "We did the best we could with the tools available to us, and came as close as possible to meeting these responsibilities"

[HungryHobo]

I know this was a page back but couldn't let it go unanswered. How would you apply the zero tolerance policy to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_Air_Force_Flight_571? I think a blanket statement of 'no zero tolerance policies' would be much easier to uphold.

And that's the problem with ZT policies.

they tend to be well meaning yet they also tend to be simple and ignore hard situations or in some cases easy situations depending how stupid the person making the ZT policy was.

Like ZT drug policies which sound good on paper: no drugs.
then they get applied blindly... no drugs, including prescription drugs, justified by the claim that kids will sell their medications.
then gets applied really stupidly... no drugs, including epi pens.

Or ZT weapons policies . No weapons.... knives are weapons.... no knives.... plastic knives are still knives...

A first grader at Struthers Elementary school in Youngstown, OH, was suspended for ten days for taking a plastic knife home from the school cafeteria in his book bag. The six-year-old wasn't threatening anyone; he just wanted to show his mother he had learned how to spread butter on his bread.

A third grader at O'Rourke Elementary School in Mobile, AL, was given a five-day suspension for violating the substance abuse policy after classmates reported that he took a "purple pill." His offense was taking a multivitamin with his lunch.

At LaSalle Middle School in Greeley, CO, three 13-year-old boys were given one-year suspensions because one of the students brought to school a key chain from which dangled a 2½" laser pointer. The school called it a "firearm facsimile" and sent one of the boys (a good student who had never before been in trouble) to an alternative program where he is taking classes with young criminals and juvenile delinquents in "anger management," "conflict resolution" and gangs.

Four kindergartners at Wilson Elementary School in Sayreville, NJ, were suspended for three days for playing a make-believe game of cops and robbers during recess, using their fingers as guns. This case is now before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

When seven 4th-grade boys (who had never previously been in trouble) at Dry Creek Elementary School in Colorado were discovered pointing "finger guns" at each other while playing a game of soldiers and aliens during recess, the principal found them in violation of the school's zero tolerance policy. After quizzing them about whether their parents owned guns, she required them to serve a one-week detention during lunchtime, sitting in the hall where they were teased and taunted by other students.

An eight-year-old at South Elementary school in Jonesboro, AR, was punished with detention for pointing a chicken strip at another student in the cafeteria while saying "pow, pow, pow."

A seven-year-old at the Edgewood Independent School District in San Antonio, TX, was banished for eleven days to an "alternative school" for troubled students when he was caught bringing a pocket knife to school. For three days, he was the only first grader at the facility among older students guilty of serious offences.

A 12-year-old at Magoffin Middle School in El Paso stuck out his tongue at a girl who declined his invitation to be his girlfriend. School administrators called this sexual harassment and suspended him for three days.

When the Fred A. Anderson Elementary School in Bayboro, NC, held a Camouflage Day, a nine-year-old proudly came in his new duck-hunting outfit. His joy was smashed when the teacher discovered an empty shotgun shell in his pocket left over from a weekend outing with his father, and punished the straight-A kid with a five-day suspension.

In Hurst, Texas, a 16-year-old honor student was expelled from high school after a security guard found a butter knife in the bed of his pickup truck parked on the school grounds. The knife apparently fell out of a box of household items he and his father had transported the previous day from his grandmother's home to a local Goodwill store.

School officials claimed that the butter knife was a danger to other students and placed him in a disciplinary alternative school for five days

Two eight-year-old boys who pointed paper guns at classmates in Irvington, NJ were charged with "making terrorist threats." A judge ultimately dismissed their case, but the incident may remain on court records until the boys are 18.

In a North Carolina pre-school called Kids Gym Schoolhouse, the state evaluator deducted five points from its high rating because plastic soldiers were found in the play area. The toys were said to "reflect stereotyping and violence and can be potentially dangerous if children use them to act out violent themes."

[Chen]

It was still a recurring problem in this case. If their prior policy reduced other instances of bullying, but did not reduce this one, there is probably insufficient data available to them to declare that their policies were the result of the other people seeing reduced bullying. Moreover, bullies derive part of their power from the fact that others that aren't involved won't stand up against them. Unless all of the bullying was occurring away from all other students (which the stories imply otherwise), then it still represents a failure of their policies, because the policies have caused other students to help stop bullying only if it isn't against gay minorities.

I don't really see a reasonable way to force others to help except via some sort of forced good samaritan law ala Seinfeld finale episode. And that clearly has issues. This is more of a fundamental problem with bullies or any group of people who use force to get their way. Unless you can come at them with more overwhelming force, you risk becoming a victim yourself if you oppose them. I mean we see it all the time in the regular criminal justice system whereby people are intimidated into not testifying and the like. Now, that said that's probably another aspect they need to look into. Still its small consolation to the person who gets beaten up (or worse) that the people who beat him up might get in trouble which is why its still an issue.

The point in changing classes is so that he's less likely to encounter them on his way between classes. If he has to take route A at time X to go from class 1 to class 2, and that's where he encounters the bullies, then changing his classes so that he's taking route B at time X to go between classes could have helped avoid the problem altogether -- you can't bully people you don't encounter. School rules vary a lot from state to state, so switching might not have been a viable option in Indiana, but I believe some states have it required that schools find new placement for students they expel, and other districts will have student swapping agreements with neighboring schools. Since it was in the city of Indianapolis, I suspect there were various schools within somewhat reasonable distances, though I'm not familiar with the area so that might not be true.

From all the articles I read, the school's specific solutions offered for this individual case were: "Tone it down" and "Sorry, that was our only offered solution".

I'm not familiar with how high school classes are set up. When I was in high school they were fairly regimented in that everyone had X amount of Y duration blocks, so just moving from class to class wouldn't have done much if the bullies weren't in the same class, but I suppose if everyone's schedule is more like a university type thing with free blocks and the like that does make sense. It does seem to imply it was a lot of different people bullying him (since presumably if the same person bullied you 10 times you'd probably be able to give a decent enough description in the end) which again seems somewhat odd to me. Bullies in my high school would definitely target the people who were different, but it was generally restricted to people in the same grade which generally meant you had at least an idea of who the people were. Perhaps I was just lucky in my high school though.

As for the articles they all read with somewhat of a bias towards the school's presentation of what they offered to do, notably because its rarely the school's words. A lot of the articles have the mother (or author) paraphrasing the school's actions. The principal does admit to asking him to "tone it down" but its generally defensive response to someone saying he's victim blaming. The articles are all extremely vague on what the school was actually doing, with them usually mentioning something like "they said they were doing everything in their power" which really could be bullshit for all we know. Or it could be the truth in that they had looked to changing schools/classes/walking routes but determined they were not acceptable/feasible/useful.

[morriswalters]

ok. Schools can never be absolutely responsible for students. Certainly they can be negligent, but nobody has shown that in any credible fashion. At no point in time has it been established that the student was in absolute danger, or in any serious danger per se, no physical evidence of assault, and no witness evidence from anyone other than the student involved, and that speaks to the severity not the issue of did it happen in some fashion. In a school of 2000 it should not come as a surprise that he was never able to identify his assailants. Would you suggest the administration do a lineup of all the males in school? And if they did what would be the ramifications?

On the matter of cameras, to cover a large space like Arsenal High School and to do it well enough to actually do any significant good would be so intrusive that I am fairly certain that the student body would go nuts. The cameras and their installation would have to be paid for and that could be very expensive. Camera systems either record in real time or take a snapshot every few seconds. And even if you opt to do real time monitoring than the data generated has to be stored in any case for the resulting legal challenges, so in addition now you have a data storage problem since storage is expensive, not to mention the costs for the personnel to do the monitoring. I'll be conservative and say 1 person per 10 cameras. Multiply that by the number of schools. Pay for it. In this environment. And what does this do to solve problems that may not have an obvious visual component?

Suggest to me how you expect to find sufficient numbers of teachers and administrators who are different than the cross section of the population that they are drawn from. The problems faced at Arsenal reflect society generally, they are not occurring in isolation.

There is not a Zero Tolerance Policy for Bullying in the discipline grid for Arsenal. I never found a clearly explained definition of what constitutes it, and I looked.

People who suggested things that might have mitigated some of the issues and allowed him to remain in school where generally dismissed as being victim blamer's. While this is convenient it certainly is pretty pointless as mitigation is a commonly used strategy when you can't control all the variables. In the extreme case people in the Witness Protection program are made to give up their life to be safe. Everyone needs to assume part of the burden for their personal safety, no matter how distasteful it may seem.

I could go on and on, but I think I have covered my points. Now as to the logical fallacies in my previous two posts. Horseshit. The previous two posts were ridicule and sarcasm, and as such are not an argument at at, they are outrageous and exaggerated and basically meant to make fun of this whole thread and it's one dimensional thinking. The whole thread is littered with them though and I certainly have my share. But it serves to point out that no matter what you think that in most cases as used here, they are mostly used to say, bad boy, you shouldn't post. In academic discussion they would have been no less open to debate which is why there is generally a series of assertions, counter assertion, rebuttals and and so on to the point of exhaustion. The two I would say that I see the most are oversimplification and arguing to the extreme.

One dimensional should be interpreted to mean that there has been no serious discussion of any of the ramifications of attempting to do more than what is now being done without reference to ability to fund, staff, and overall manage those changes, not to mention how to do so in an environment that is highly politically charged. Or how to ascertain that the cure isn't worse than the disease. When that discussion happens I won't involve myself at all.

Toodles

[The Great Hippo]

ok. Schools can never be absolutely responsible for students. Certainly they can be negligent, but nobody has shown that in any credible fashion. At no point in time has it been established that the student was in absolute danger, or in any serious danger per se, no physical evidence of assault, and no witness evidence from anyone other than the student involved, and that speaks to the severity not the issue of did it happen in some fashion. In a school of 2000 it should not come as a surprise that he was never able to identify his assailants. Would you suggest the administration do a lineup of all the males in school? And if they did what would be the ramifications?

I'd suggest a thorough investigation by a third party to analyze what the school is doing to curtail bullying, make a determination if they're doing all that can be reasonably done, and if not, implement more aggressive (but reasonable) anti-bullying measures.

On the matter of cameras, to cover a large space like Arsenal High School and to do it well enough to actually do any significant good would be so intrusive that I am fairly certain that the student body would go nuts. The cameras and their installation would have to be paid for and that could be very expensive. Camera systems either record in real time or take a snapshot every few seconds. And even if you opt to do real time monitoring than the data generated has to be stored in any case for the resulting legal challenges, so in addition now you have a data storage problem since storage is expensive, not to mention the costs for the personnel to do the monitoring. I'll be conservative and say 1 person per 10 cameras. Multiply that by the number of schools. Pay for it. In this environment. And what does this do to solve problems that may not have an obvious visual component?

...why do we need to have an observer on-hand at all times to monitor the cameras? I thought the point was to have a record of events so we could better analyze those events after the fact, not formulate an on-the-go response.

Also, storage--expensive? Not a computer tech guy, but last time I checked, data storage is the cheapest part of digital security cameras. Maintenance is where it can get murderously expensive, particularly when you've got a lot of cameras. And, y'know, digital cameras come with motion detectors so you don't have to store anything when nothing's actually happening. And you erase the storage at the end of the school year (or hell, every month if you want to be frugal--set up an 'incident report' system so we can preserve the important bits and delete the rest), so we're talking about a one-time cost (except, of course, maintenance fees--which can get murderous, particularly when you got a lot of cameras).

I've used digital security cameras before, but I'm no where near an expert on them--still, I getting the feeling you aren't either--and I'm also getting the feeling you have no idea what you're talking about.

Suggest to me how you expect to find sufficient numbers of teachers and administrators who are different than the cross section of the population that they are drawn from. The problems faced at Arsenal reflect society generally, they are not occurring in isolation.

Right. Okay. So, these problems are much deeper, and bullying--and apathy toward bullying--are just symptoms. But we should still treat those symptoms, right? So what's the relevance?

There is not a Zero Tolerance Policy for Bullying in the discipline grid for Arsenal. I never found a clearly explained definition of what constitutes it, and I looked.

We know. It was a tangent.

People who suggested things that might have mitigated some of the issues and allowed him to remain in school where generally dismissed as being victim blamer's. While this is convenient it certainly is pretty pointless as mitigation is a commonly used strategy when you can't control all the variables. In the extreme case people in the Witness Protection program are made to give up their life to be safe. Everyone needs to assume part of the burden for their personal safety, no matter how distasteful it may seem.

We've already covered this. There's a difference between "If you do X, you increase the chances of Y happening" and "You shouldn't do X, because you increase the chance of Y happening".

Describing risk-aversion behavior is fine. No one here seriously believes that students shouldn't make informed choices, and telling the students what the risks of those choices are is part of that process. If wearing frilly clothing might get you beat up, and you don't know that, I, as an administrator, should make it clear to you. But--again--in the very next breath--I should tell you what I can do to help protect you from that risk, deal with that risk, mitigate that risk.

That's the difference between 'victim-blaming' and 'informing'. Rather than telling people 'You should make choices that don't put you at risk', we say 'This is a choice that puts you at risk, here's what we can do to mitigate that risk, do you still want to do it?'. This is how we treat people like people rather than machines that are exhibiting incorrect behavior.

I could go on and on, but I think I have covered my points. Now as to the logical fallacies in my previous two posts. Horseshit. The previous two posts were ridicule and sarcasm, and as such are not an argument at at, they are outrageous and exaggerated and basically meant to make fun of this whole thread and it's one dimensional thinking. The whole thread is littered with them though and I certainly have my share. But it serves to point out that no matter what you think that in most cases as used here, they are mostly used to say, bad boy, you shouldn't post. In academic discussion they would have been no less open to debate which is why there is generally a series of assertions, counter assertion, rebuttals and and so on to the point of exhaustion. The two I would say that I see the most are oversimplification and arguing to the extreme.

One dimensional should be interpreted to mean that there has been no serious discussion of any of the ramifications of attempting to do more than what is now being done without reference to ability to fund, staff, and overall manage those changes, not to mention how to do so in an environment that is highly politically charged. Or how to ascertain that the cure isn't worse than the disease. When that discussion happens I won't involve myself at all.

Man, I'd love to hear someone with an informed opinion weigh in on this thread and talk to us about why a lot of our assumptions here are bullshit.

But you obviously aren't that person. I don't think you're adding anything useful except a bunch of hyperbolic nonsense. I don't even know what you're arguing. Or who you're arguing against. You just seem to be throwing your hands up and yelling a lot about random, extreme points you've somehow extrapolated from other people's posts.

I'll keep an eye out for that informed opinion.

[HungryHobo]

On the matter of cameras, to cover a large space like Arsenal High School and to do it well enough to actually do any significant good would be so intrusive that I am fairly certain that the student body would go nuts. The cameras and their installation would have to be paid for and that could be very expensive. Camera systems either record in real time or take a snapshot every few seconds. And even if you opt to do real time monitoring than the data generated has to be stored in any case for the resulting legal challenges, so in addition now you have a data storage problem since storage is expensive, not to mention the costs for the personnel to do the monitoring. I'll be conservative and say 1 person per 10 cameras. Multiply that by the number of schools. Pay for it. In this environment. And what does this do to solve problems that may not have an obvious visual component?

back when i was in school they built us a brand spanking new school with lots of security cameras.
Most of the time nobody was actually watching them. they're only really looked at in case of serious incidents and I'm fairly sure they only spool for a week or so unless someone wants to save some particular footage so storage isn't so bad.
There were lots of blind spots and they were only in the corridors.
It did have an odd effect: back when there were no camera people just acted normal.
when there were cameras the day the power went off and everyone knew the cameras were down lots of people went mental.
though that issue is one for the psychologists.

cameras don't really solve much in the way of everyday nastiness between students and to a certain extent they may even cause even more tension and anger in the school. Administrators rarely distinguish between simple fights: a conflict where 2 kids just get pissed off at each other and choose to fight each other about something and bullying where one student is being picked on or tortured.
when pressure can't be released in the former case due to constant surveilance and ZT policies the atmosphere can get bad in the school.

[The Great Hippo]

I actually don't know if cameras are a good idea, by the way--again, not an expert on this stuff. I just found a lot of morriswalter's points against them baffling.

[Ghostbear]

Can we get a thread-wide agreement to ignore morriswalters? I think they've gone into full on delusional.

Is this, like, actually a view that real people hold? That if something is difficult, then somehow you are not responsible for it?

Sure, some responsibilities may be really hard to fill, and they may be beyond your funding and capabilities, and they may clash with other responsibilities.

You are still responsible for it. Whether you can catch them all or not. If your resources and abilities aren't up to par, you can accept that you will fail to meet your responsibilities at least some of the time, but you aren't just allowed to say "we didn't fail, it wasn't our responsibility" when it clearly was.

You /can/ say "We did the best we could with the tools available to us, and came as close as possible to meeting these responsibilities"

Dammit, you just had to say what I've been trying to say, except in much simpler terms.

I don't really see a reasonable way to force others to help except via some sort of forced good samaritan law ala Seinfeld finale episode. And that clearly has issues. This is more of a fundamental problem with bullies or any group of people who use force to get their way. Unless you can come at them with more overwhelming force, you risk becoming a victim yourself if you oppose them. I mean we see it all the time in the regular criminal justice system whereby people are intimidated into not testifying and the like. Now, that said that's probably another aspect they need to look into. Still its small consolation to the person who gets beaten up (or worse) that the people who beat him up might get in trouble which is why its still an issue.

This isn't forced recruitment, it's encouraging people to not be bystanders. I'd be quite surprised if the best way to prevent bullying was not "convince those not being bullied to stand up for the victim". You aren't going to bully people if it makes you a social pariah yourself. You can't force people to do it, no, but you can have policies that encourage them to.

I'm not familiar with how high school classes are set up. When I was in high school they were fairly regimented in that everyone had X amount of Y duration blocks, so just moving from class to class wouldn't have done much if the bullies weren't in the same class, but I suppose if everyone's schedule is more like a university type thing with free blocks and the like that does make sense. It does seem to imply it was a lot of different people bullying him (since presumably if the same person bullied you 10 times you'd probably be able to give a decent enough description in the end) which again seems somewhat odd to me. Bullies in my high school would definitely target the people who were different, but it was generally restricted to people in the same grade which generally meant you had at least an idea of who the people were. Perhaps I was just lucky in my high school though.

What I'm thinking of is reliant on the high school "block" system. Since I've been having trouble explaining it, I made a picture:

If he's always encountering the bullies on Route 1, then switching his classes around so he's on route 2 might cause him to never actually encounter the bullies. A real school would have a lot more rooms and buildings to work with than my haphazard illustrator sketch as well.

As for the articles they all read with somewhat of a bias towards the school's presentation of what they offered to do, notably because its rarely the school's words. A lot of the articles have the mother (or author) paraphrasing the school's actions. The principal does admit to asking him to "tone it down" but its generally defensive response to someone saying he's victim blaming. The articles are all extremely vague on what the school was actually doing, with them usually mentioning something like "they said they were doing everything in their power" which really could be bullshit for all we know. Or it could be the truth in that they had looked to changing schools/classes/walking routes but determined they were not acceptable/feasible/useful.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that in cases like this, if you're actually doing something and it's not top secret, you're going to say what it is to help your case out. "We're doing everything in our power to fix this. Also, we refuse to mention what any of those things are." is really just code for "I'm not doing anything more than the token amount of work required to make this no longer my problem".

[Роберт]

It did have an odd effect: back when there were no camera people just acted normal.
when there were cameras the day the power went off and everyone knew the cameras were down lots of people went mental.
though that issue is one for the psychologists.

Stuff like this is why it's so hard to stop bullying. Humans are hard to understand. Take for instance, Ghostbear, trying to understand morriswalters.

It's hard.

It does sound like the school was not caring enough, but like Dream keeps pointing out, "solving" the issue of bullying is likely impossible. It's more a question of what steps should be taken. Would more cameras help? Maybe. At least it would be easier to identify the bullies, right?

[Chen]

This isn't forced recruitment, it's encouraging people to not be bystanders. I'd be quite surprised if the best way to prevent bullying was not "convince those not being bullied to stand up for the victim". You aren't going to bully people if it makes you a social pariah yourself. You can't force people to do it, no, but you can have policies that encourage them to.

The problem is that whole social pariah thing only works if the bullies aren't also the popular students. By standing up against THEM you may in fact make yourself a social pariah because the person you are standing up for is usually already one. Now again this is only my experience but it was never the unpopular kids that bullied others. Social pressure has already prevented that, pretty much in exactly the manner you describe.

What I'm thinking of is reliant on the high school "block" system. Since I've been having trouble explaining it, I made a picture:

If he's always encountering the bullies on Route 1, then switching his classes around so he's on route 2 might cause him to never actually encounter the bullies. A real school would have a lot more rooms and buildings to work with than my haphazard illustrator sketch as well.

Fair enough. I mean we had 5 minutes between classes so that was hardly the time you got bullied. It was more the times when the bullies would have free periods or when everyone did (lunch). But I see the point you're making.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that in cases like this, if you're actually doing something and it's not top secret, you're going to say what it is to help your case out. "We're doing everything in our power to fix this. Also, we refuse to mention what any of those things are." is really just code for "I'm not doing anything more than the token amount of work required to make this no longer my problem".

I'd suspect they had to say that because the real truth would be "we dedicated as many resources as we could to deal with this one instance of bullying and it was not cost-effective/feasible to do any other solutions for one student being bullied". We exaggerate with hiring bodyguards, but even changing a student's class schedule is a fair bit of work. Especially if its a fair bit of work that may or may not reduce the bullying. I mean sure if he was simply a target of opportunity when he passed by one way it might help. If he was actively being targeted it might throw them off for a bit but its not really a solution. Even then, the actions the school performed do tend to be told from the mother's perspective. The quotes from the administrators are more explanations of why they couldn't attempt to punish people since they couldn't identify them. They even talk about how they tried interviewing others who did corroborate the story but wouldn't ID attackers either. I don't feel its reasonable to say they aren't doing anything but token amount of work.

[morriswalters]

The problem with this line of reasoning is that in cases like this, if you're actually doing something and it's not top secret, you're going to say what it is to help your case out. "We're doing everything in our power to fix this. Also, we refuse to mention what any of those things are." is really just code for "I'm not doing anything more than the token amount of work required to make this no longer my problem".

In detail and extremely nasty (or at least as nasty as I ever get). Here is a perfect example of the problem that I have been shooting at. There is no basis for this statement, none. It's not supportable in any fashion whatsoever. Its Ghostbear's take on a situation he is too far away from to draw any conclusion at all. It's one dimensional, not particularly useful, and basically bullshit. He can't read minds, and I have seen nothing to indicate that he has attended any of the school board meetings where these things would be discussed. It comes down to, they are lying because I believe they are lying. It's intellectually dishonest and assumes that the actors neither care nor are inclined to care.

If I were going to accuse him of a fallacy it would be of the nature of assuming special knowledge unavailable to anyone else.

When people here are called on those fallacies the next recourse here is ridicule(hasty generalization on my part). Another type of fallacy. That's the level of discourse that I see here, I just wished to join in(hasty generalization on my part). Now I don't have any answers(hand wringing on my part), but if bullying happens to a family member you can be sure I won't arm him, whine about someone else solving the problem, nor would I be afraid to find a way to force the change through litigation and the legal process.

Toodles

[The Great Hippo]

When people here are called on those fallacies the next recourse here is ridicule(hasty generalization on my part).

I think the problem is that on your way to call out other people's fallacies you make about six of your own. You also phrase your call-outs in a very presumptuous way.

Effective discussions rely on us attempting to understand each other's position, then to analyze those positions in detail. You don't do that. You grab a few possibly poorly worded points and jump to a lot of conclusions based on those points, then present a very poorly worded response about why everyone is wrong.

I'm trying to not be nasty here but, for example, the whole above point could have been addressed by you asking 'Why are you assuming this is the case? Do you have actual evidence of malfeasance? Isn't it equally probable that the school's withholding information because they're under investigation?'. A dialogue would then happen, and maybe the poster in question would realize they're jumping to conclusions, or maybe they'd better clarify what they meant, or maybe you'd understand they have a point. Instead... You just go off on some sort of weird, nonsensical rant.

[Роберт]

When people here are called on those fallacies the next recourse here is ridicule(hasty generalization on my part).

I think the problem is that on your way to call out other people's fallacies you make about six of your own. You also phrase your call-outs in a very presumptuous way.

Effective discussions rely on us attempting to understand each other's position, then to analyze those positions in detail. You don't do that. You grab a few possibly poorly worded points and jump to a lot of conclusions based on those points, then present a very poorly worded response about why everyone is wrong.

I'm trying to not be nasty here but, for example, the whole above point could have been addressed by you asking 'Why are you assuming this is the case? Do you have actual evidence of malfeasance? Isn't it equally probable that the school's withholding information because they're under investigation?'. A dialogue would then happen, and maybe the poster in question would realize they're jumping to conclusions, or maybe they'd better clarify what they meant, or maybe you'd understand they have a point. Instead... You just go off on some sort of weird, nonsensical rant.

You forgot to say "toodles".

[eran_rathan]

What's that? You're not into dudes? Fuck that noise. Freddie Mercury is universal; Freddie Mercury is absolute. He rises above your paltry notions of sexual preference. He is sexual preference. All of them. At once.

As a guy who is not into guys, I approve this message.

[Ghostbear]

The problem is that whole social pariah thing only works if the bullies aren't also the popular students. By standing up against THEM you may in fact make yourself a social pariah because the person you are standing up for is usually already one. Now again this is only my experience but it was never the unpopular kids that bullied others. Social pressure has already prevented that, pretty much in exactly the manner you describe.

Popularity is a fickle thing though. You can go from the most popular person around to the bottom of the totem pole over a single weekend at that age. The idea here is to make it so that 'being a bully' is sufficiently "uncool" that they aren't able to be bullies and maintain their popularity. Popularity isn't a hard number or an immutable fact after all -- another sufficiently popular person standing up and saying "hey, leave that kid alone" could easily reverse the entire situation.

Fair enough. I mean we had 5 minutes between classes so that was hardly the time you got bullied. It was more the times when the bullies would have free periods or when everyone did (lunch). But I see the point you're making.

Yeah, I'm not trying to paint a class switch as a cure-all, I'm just pointing out that it was possibly an option. The issue to me seemed to be times and areas where the bullies couldn't be avoided at all, which would most make sense as the routes between classes to me. You can stay within relative safety during your own free periods, I'd expect, but that might not be true in this case.

I'd suspect they had to say that because the real truth would be "we dedicated as many resources as we could to deal with this one instance of bullying and it was not cost-effective/feasible to do any other solutions for one student being bullied". We exaggerate with hiring bodyguards, but even changing a student's class schedule is a fair bit of work. Especially if its a fair bit of work that may or may not reduce the bullying. I mean sure if he was simply a target of opportunity when he passed by one way it might help. If he was actively being targeted it might throw them off for a bit but its not really a solution. Even then, the actions the school performed do tend to be told from the mother's perspective. The quotes from the administrators are more explanations of why they couldn't attempt to punish people since they couldn't identify them. They even talk about how they tried interviewing others who did corroborate the story but wouldn't ID attackers either. I don't feel its reasonable to say they aren't doing anything but token amount of work.

While "we dedicated shit tons of resources at this problem" wouldn't sound good in a meeting with the superintendent or when discussing it in front of the people setting budgets or whatever, it's going to sound golden when said to a group of parents or to other people in that community. I also can't see it being that hard to hide what those insane resource costs are if you're explaining it either -- you don't need to say "we're spending $10,000 on 87 new cameras in quadruple awesome HD, with 3 new staff members to review them", you can just say "we increased our camera coverage". You don't need to say "the counselors spent 47 hours finding and optimizing a new route for him that we think will reduce bullying", instead you can say "we changed the buildings his classes are in". You don't need to say "We're spending $20,000 on a new anti-bullying initiative after contracting a psychologist to figure out the best options", you just need to say "We're introducing our new F.R.I.E.N.D.L.Y. initiative this week". And so on and so on; if they're doing so much that it'd annoy people, it's easy to explain some of it without annoying those people. If they're not putting much extra effort in and that would annoy people, the best they can do to hide that is by saying "we're doing everything we can, and will not provide any examples of such". If they are doing something, there's very little incentive to hide it, and many incentives to speak of it from the rooftops so that people don't give you shit about it.

Also, as an aside.. I don't really think changing a class schedule is of any real difficulty. I know when I was in high school, I swapped classes in or out practically every quarter of my last two years, and the process only took about five minutes from an administrative standpoint. Every school is different though, and I'll admit in my case the guidance counselor was willing enough to trust me, based on my grades, to not fuck up my ability to graduate that they just had to make sure there was room in the other class then add my name to the roster and drop it from the other... but I definite'y can't imagine it being a particularly taxing endeavor for a school.

I do also agree that a lot of it is written more from the mother's perspective, but I see a very definite pattern in the information we are given. I understand how others can see the "we don't have evidence one way or another" situation, but the way the administration has chosen to phrase and portray its case seems to be a dead giveaway to me, as mostly outlined above. Bureaucrat love to talk about what they've done to fix problems when a shitstorm forms about that problem, so the lack of examples of them doing anything significant, combined with the complete lack of results, speaks volumes to me about how much they probably did. I'll readily admit there's no 100% to my interpretation, but I see it as a safe guess.

[Chen]

Popularity is a fickle thing though. You can go from the most popular person around to the bottom of the totem pole over a single weekend at that age. The idea here is to make it so that 'being a bully' is sufficiently "uncool" that they aren't able to be bullies and maintain their popularity. Popularity isn't a hard number or an immutable fact after all -- another sufficiently popular person standing up and saying "hey, leave that kid alone" could easily reverse the entire situation.

I'm sure this is what a lot of those awareness seminars are trying to do. We had them when I was in high school too (though far less frequently I imagine). I just never saw them doing any good, despite whatever surveys/studies had been done.

While "we dedicated shit tons of resources at this problem" wouldn't sound good in a meeting with the superintendent or when discussing it in front of the people setting budgets or whatever, it's going to sound golden when said to a group of parents or to other people in that community. I also can't see it being that hard to hide what those insane resource costs are if you're explaining it either -- you don't need to say "we're spending $10,000 on 87 new cameras in quadruple awesome HD, with 3 new staff members to review them", you can just say "we increased our camera coverage". You don't need to say "the counselors spent 47 hours finding and optimizing a new route for him that we think will reduce bullying", instead you can say "we changed the buildings his classes are in". You don't need to say "We're spending $20,000 on a new anti-bullying initiative after contracting a psychologist to figure out the best options", you just need to say "We're introducing our new F.R.I.E.N.D.L.Y. initiative this week". And so on and so on; if they're doing so much that it'd annoy people, it's easy to explain some of it without annoying those people. If they're not putting much extra effort in and that would annoy people, the best they can do to hide that is by saying "we're doing everything we can, and will not provide any examples of such". If they are doing something, there's very little incentive to hide it, and many incentives to speak of it from the rooftops so that people don't give you shit about it.

Clearly if this was the case. I'm thinking more along the lines of things like "we have 20 cameras around campus already that are costing us X amount and can't afford more". Or "we've already expended our budget on anti-bullying initiatives that seem to be doing jack all". I agree 100% that if they did extra things because of this one instance of bullying they would have said it. The articles mention spending hours investigating and coming up with nothing. And they mention the whole toning down thing. The CNN article mentions that there already are anti-bullying programs and gay/straight awareness programs (whatever that is supposed to mean). I wouldn't actually expect a school to start a new program or go buy 10 new cameras because a single student was still being bullied. Now, if bullying is a major problems throughout the school, yes I can see justifying new equipment/programs. And I would consider it neglectful of them NOT to try and resolve it. It just doesn't seem to me that they failed with regards to this student since it does seem like they're putting efforts into it.

[The Great Hippo]

As a guy who is not into guys, I approve this message.

When government forms ask 'Sexual Orientation', I write "FREDDIE MERCURY".

[mojo12]

I tried to read the links given in the thread, but maybe I missed some of the details. But it still seems that there is a lack of specifics and a lot of speculation. So please correct me where I goof up the facts as I continue to speculate wildly.

I viewed this issue by separating the concept of bullying into two types: physical and emotional/psychological.

Everyone can grasp the physical bullying concept. It is more tangible. Correct or not, it may be what people think of when we talk about the school administration being responsible for a “safe” environment. It certainly covers the “pencil stab to the eye” example proposed earlier. It covers the kind of things that could actually be caught on a camera. It makes for catchy headlines – did somebody say “stun gun”?!

But I got the sense that he was subjected to more emotional attacks. Continual verbal abuse and spreading rumors about someone can take a very heavy toll. It would be much harder for the school to guard against this kind of thing. Cameras won’t do much good. I think the only case mentioned where a bully actually got in trouble was in class where the comments were overheard by a teacher.

I can imagine that kids in a school rigged with cameras might know better than to engage in any obvious physical tactics. There is mention of bumping in the halls, but was that the worst of it? Rocks were thrown outside of school. Was that with the intent to harm him, or intimidation? I didn’t see enough details on that. Same question with the stun gun incident. Was there a beating actually about to happen, or was it mostly verbal and someone in the crowd upped the ante with a threat of physical violence? Certainly that is irrelevant from Darnell's perspective.

I don’t mean to downplay what happened. In fact my intent is the opposite. High school sucks. It is an emotionally and socially stressful time. I think I’d rather be beaten up once by a random bully who wants someone’s lunch money, than be continually slandered and belittled for who I am.

So I’m not sure that the fix has anything to do with more dollars or more cameras. It’s a tough, constant cultural battle the school faces to provide an emotionally safe environment, which will always be contrary to the assholish tendancies of many teens. One friend in Darnell’s corner who can speak up and say to Bully X “shut up, you fucking homophobe, I heard you were the one having gay sex in the bathroom” would be ten times more valuable than more cameras or other tangible measures. They may have had physical security measures in place; they may have had awareness and tolerance programs; but it’s damn hard to make sure all students have an adequate support network when it matters.

[The Great Hippo]

I absolutely agree that emotional bullying can be just as traumatic as physical bullying, and, given the right context, even much worse--I also suspect, like you, that more cameras and more dollars won't sufficiently address that problem. Changing the culture seems like the best route; encouraging teachers to actively oppose bullying, creating anti-bullying clubs, pulling the parents of suspected bullies in to talk with them and their children, pulling the parents of students targeted for bullying to discuss things they can do to mitigate the bullying--all of these involve, rather than just punishing bullying and moving on, trying to come up with situation-based solutions that alleviate the situation and address everyone's concerns.

Again, from my point of view, it's possible the school did everything it could to prevent this situation from happening. I doubt that, because in my (notably limited) experience, most schools don't do everything they can to prevent bullying, and don't actually take it that seriously (as noted before, zero tolerance policies on bullies are an example of schools not taking bullying seriously, and only desiring to create the illusion of taking it seriously). I think the best response to things like this is to figure out what the school's doing to curtail bullying and see if there's anything else that can reasonably be done.

[Lucrece]

Bullies are not necessarily popular. I can recall various times bullies that were not particularly liked in class, but they were just the tall wannabe ghetto thugs in schools being nasty to everyone except their one underling or two. Not people with many friends, but with the physical capabilities and misanthropic cuntliness to be bullies in their own right. Yes, there are popular bullies, but there are also the criminal in development type of bullies who don't give a shit about suspensions (that's a reward), and detention was just an opportunity to curse at a different teacher and group of students somewhere else -- because they just did not give a shit. Completely sociopathic people.

[The Great Hippo]

Bullies are not necessarily popular. I can recall various times bullies that were not particularly liked in class, but they were just the tall wannabe ghetto thugs in schools being nasty to everyone except their one underling or two. Not people with many friends, but with the physical capabilities and misanthropic cuntliness to be bullies in their own right. Yes, there are popular bullies, but there are also the criminal in development type of bullies who don't give a shit about suspensions (that's a reward), and detention was just an opportunity to curse at a different teacher and group of students somewhere else -- because they just did not give a shit. Completely sociopathic people.

That's fair, although I would hesitate to apply the word sociopath--it has a very precise meaning, and applying it in this context may conflate the precise meaning with the more imprecise 'social' version we use.

Some solutions might involve taking them out of 'general population'--isolate and target for more individualized instruction. But now you're starting to burn up a lot of resources--time, money, attention--and the educational system is already stretched as it is. I don't like the notion of giving up on a student, and I don't think we should ever be quick to do it, but if the only reasonable way to protect other students from you is to expel you, then expulsion is the obvious answer. Maintaining an emotionally healthy and supportive school environment is priority one (well, priority two--maintaining a physically safe school environment is priority one).

[Dream]

As a guy who is not into guys, I approve this message.

When government forms ask 'Sexual Orientation', I write "FREDDIE MERCURY".

I understand what you're getting at, but I've never seen such a very specific learning difficulty. You seem to inadvertently spell "Prince" as "Freddie Mercury"!

[The Great Hippo]

I understand what you're getting at, but I've never seen such a very specific learning difficulty. You seem to inadvertently spell "Prince" as "Freddie Mercury"!

Spoiler:

1780549-shakehead.gif (1.82 MiB) Viewed 1349 times

[Griffin]

Shit, everyone's been telling me I'm supposed to be filling out DEPP in that field! Have I been doing it wrong!?

[Tirian]

That's fair, although I would hesitate to apply the word sociopath--it has a very precise meaning, and applying it in this context may conflate the precise meaning with the more imprecise 'social' version we use.

Not so much these days. The DSM is officially calling it "antisocial personality disorder" now, and psychopathy is a less precisely-defined subtype. There shouldn't be any confusion as to whether the word "sociopath" would be used by a professional, if for no other reason than that professionals have switched over to person-first language.

(For the record, the proper categorization for minors who exhibit these traits is "conduct disorder".)

[Nordic Einar]

http://rodonline.typepad.com/rodonline/ ... -mall.html

Young and Donald Richardson, a janitor who witnessed the incident, told police that when Young walked past Delay’s table in the food court, Delay told Young to get away from him and used homophobic slurs. They said that Delay pushed Young and then hit him in the face, according to court documents. Richardson said he radioed for mall security, and then Delay came toward him because he was mad that Richardson had called security. Security officers arrived and detained Delay.