Gov/public school: another +1 for privatization? student suspended for

T

theinvisibleheart

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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,350988,00.html

Texas School Suspends Student for Answering Call in Class From Dad in Iraq
Saturday, April 12, 2008
FOX News

A Texas sergeant and his son recently found themselves separated not only by an eight-hour time difference, several bodies of water, hundreds of miles and a war, but by a high school official who suspended the boy for answering his dad's call during class.

Cove High School in Texas, where half the students have at least one parent deployed, justified the punishment against Brandon Hill by saying he had violated the no-cell-phone policy when he took the call from his father, who is serving in Iraq.

"I have been going through a lot of stress lately and my dad’s like my best friend, so I go to him for everything," the sophomore told FOX News on Saturday.

"I needed to talk to him, so my mom got a hold of him on Yahoo and told him to call me, so I answered the phone call in class."
 
You can't have cell phones in school. Even if its a private school they are not usually allowed. Its too bad the kid's dad is in Iraq, that's the fault of the present administration, not the school. I don't mean to be insensitive. If the kid's dad had called the school office, he would have been able to pull the kid out of class for a conversation that would have followed the school rules, and would not have disrupted 30 other students in class.
 
If I was in that situation I would answer the phone too, go ahead and suspend me. If that phone call had the possibility of being the last one I ever got from my dad I would answer it every time. I agree if the dad had the option of calling the school first he should have, but what are the chances that he had the schools number memorized? The school suspended him due to policy, he got a precious call from his father, who won?
 
true

but I expect common sense discretion. Maybe that's asking too much from a public school.

I've graduated from private school, university, and graduate school, but I don't recall ever seeing automatic suspension based on 1 cell phone.

Especially a call like this one from an oversea parent facing danger on behalf of US government.
 
Have the phone on vibrate, and when it goes off step out to "go to the bathroom" and take the call outside. It's not that hard.
 
So in deference to the precious rule, give the kid half an hour of after-school detention.

I agree that the kid did the right thing, but when the right thing is against the rules you take your consequences. (That's a major tenet of Civil Disobedience.) But the punishment here was totally out of proportion to the "crime".

I suspect the kid lived thru it, and now he has a heathy distrust of the school administration; that's not a bad thing.
_______
"The youth who winked a roving eye
Or breathed a non-connubial sigh
Was thereupon condemned to die —
He usually objected."
 
You can't have cell phones in school. Even if its a private school they are not usually allowed. Its too bad the kid's dad is in Iraq, that's the fault of the present administration, not the school. I don't mean to be insensitive. If the kid's dad had called the school office, he would have been able to pull the kid out of class for a conversation that would have followed the school rules, and would not have disrupted 30 other students in class.
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Spoken like somebody who has never had to wait an hour and a half in line to make a phone call limited to fifteen minutes. Losing 5-10 of those while they dig up your kid from class (if they're even willing to) isn't reasonable.

So in deference to the precious rule, give the kid half an hour of after-school detention.

I agree that the kid did the right thing, but when the right thing is against the rules you take your consequences. (That's a major tenet of Civil Disobedience.) But the punishment here was totally out of proportion to the "crime".
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This I'd agree with. An hour of detention is a relatively reasonable punishment given the circumstances. A day (or more) of suspension is not, especially considering the policies many schools have regarding missed work and suspension (often you don't get to make it up, and it can have severe effects on grades).

Have the phone on vibrate, and when it goes off step out to "go to the bathroom" and take the call outside. It's not that hard.
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Yeah, that's what I'd have done. You could probably pre-arrange with the dad so that he knows to call back in a couple minutes after ringing you once (because voicemail will pick up). You'd lose less time than you would going through the office, to be sure.

Of course, cell phone vibrators are pretty loud, so odds are other students would hear the phone and you'd run the risk of getting ratted out anyway.
 
My job is as a teacher.

Here's what I tell all of my students.

If you are waiting on a call so serious and important that you need to answer the phone in class, that's a good clue that maybe you should be somewhere else besides in the class.

I do teach at a college, so my policies are not exactly like a high school's policies.

But if that's the policy, and you take the phone call, man up (or woman up, as the case may be) and accept the results of your choice to have your cell phone ring in the class.

As a teacher, there is little that I detest more than having folks cell phones ringing, ringing, ringing in class.

It's downright rude.

To be honest, ringing cell phones is why I have given up going to movie theaters anymore.

But if you know the policy, and take the call anyway, accept the results.

If you need to talk to your dad in Iraq that much, then go somewhere else to either take or make the call.

possum
 
My job is as a teacher.

Here's what I tell all of my students.

If you are waiting on a call so serious and important that you need to answer the phone in class, that's a good clue that maybe you should be somewhere else besides in the class.

I do teach at a college, so my policies are not exactly like a high school's policies.
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Yeah, college policies and expectations are nothing like those in high school. I can count the number of college classes I've had where attendance was mandatory on one hand. You're often hosed if you don't go (at least if you make a habit of it), but nobody's marking your name down, and calling your parents and suspending you if you don't show up.

But if that's the policy, and you take the phone call, man up (or woman up, as the case may be) and accept the results of your choice to have your cell phone ring in the class.

As a teacher, there is little that I detest more than having folks cell phones ringing, ringing, ringing in class.

It's downright rude.
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I've never understood why people would actually leave their ringer on in class. Any semi-modern cellphone has a vibrate mode. Put it in your pocket, when it vibrates you step out and answer it. At the college level, to which you're referring, I can't remember a single class where stepping out would be an issue (unless it's a constant thing). Even in high school, stepping out for a moment is probably less disruptive to the class (and less disrespectful to the teacher) than actually answering the phone in class.

Though the details in the story are sketchy. For all I know the phone in question was on vibrate, and the student merely hit the talk button (to prevent voicemail) as they stepped out.



Regardless, I can probably support the school taking action. Making the assumption that disallowing cellphones on students is acceptable or preferable (just to give the discussion some direction), making exceptions for what would wind up being half the student body in this case would make the rule in general unenforceable. Better to enforce the restriction, and deal with anybody who violates it on a case-by-case basis.
 
Yes he broke the rules.

Now I think it is time to closely examine every aspect of the administrators' job performance to make certain they have never broken any rules...

Zero tolerance goes two ways (well one way if one side is protected by the teacher's union). Rules are not absolute. If I change lanes without signalling to avoid killing a pedestrian who fell into the street should I be ticketed for the lane change? People need to see the forest through the trees here.
 
another special case

why is it those who constantly cry the system does not work instantly support a kid who broke the rules. It seems rather hypocritical to promote special cases based on who the call is from.

Should the school have to screen all the calls for the convenience of the student? Then there would be an endless list of complaints over who the school selected as appropriate. Among other reasons schools have banned cell phone use is the number of kids whose parent(s), other adults or juveniles have court ordered non-contact with the student. Should one of those individuals be allowed to talk to the kid becasue the school did not prevent the contact and the same people crying over the dad's call would be faulting the school for allowing some pervert to phone the kid.

For some reason becasue technology has brought us the cell phone it is now suppose to be some new right to use it everywhere. Yet no-one would have considered it appropriate for a student to have a land line installed in each class room as a similar right.


My theory is this if you have the right to a cell phone I have a right to a jammer.
 
T.B., I think someone over in the sandbox who wants to talk to his kid deserves a little extra consideration, don't you?

Who owns the kids anyway, the parents or the school?

__________
"The youth who winked a roving eye
Or breathed a non-connubial sigh
Was thereupon condemned to die —
He usually objected."
 
why is it those who constantly cry the system does not work instantly support a kid who broke the rules. It seems rather hypocritical to promote special cases based on who the call is from.
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How about him making a call out... say while barricaded in a class room during a rampage shooting in progress? It is an extreme example but so is a call from someone who only has a couple minutes to talk and is located in a desert on the far side of the nation serving his nation.

Somewhere along the line we became a nation of morons incapable of judging a situation on its merits and being condemned to following a rule book for all decisions at all times.
 
Who owns the kids anyway, the parents or the school?
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In school? The school does.

The OP indicates that the student broke policy by having a cell phone, not just by taking a call. Though we've all had the experience of living at the whim of a bureaucrat whose career has deadended in school, and who takes revenge against the world for his own inadequacies by dealing harshly with children, there really isn't enough information in the story to conclude that this story is the result of that kind of minion's over-reaching.
 
My theory is this if you have the right to a cell phone I have a right to a jammer.
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and you can be certain your jammer will not interfere with calls made or received outside your private property?

Your theory is flawed.
 
how do you know who it is calling

prove to me a way to determine who every phone call is for that kids in school and I'll support your premise.

In order to know who the phone call is someone would have to answer ever phone call to begin with. That would require the someone to monitor the calls.


As far as over in the sandbox goes I question when you decide who is more of a special case than someone else. Is the guy serving on a carrier in the Gulf less deserving than the guy on some base in Iraq? How about other military personnel who might get very limited access to calling their kid as the case would be for someone serving on a sub. So who deserves special treatment over anyone else in the military. Everyone stationed in Iraq is not in limited situation where they are restricted to phoning home only during their kids school hours. It is an unfortunate reality of being in the military: some times you get separated from your family and have to deal with it.

Then you can get into an entire related issue for the kid who does not have a cell phone. Can daddy call the school and have them take the kids out of class to talk to take the call in the office?
 
I've made a bunch of those calls through the years. I guess my kids teachers had a clue.........plus many of them were retired military or married to military. My kids always understood that just because they got in trouble at school didn't automatically mean they were in trouble at home. I based it on what occurred and whether I agreed with the school's stance.
 
As far as over in the sandbox goes I question when you decide who is more of a special case than someone else.
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Anyone deployed away from home for extended military service should not under any circumstances have a school authority saying they are not allowed to call a child's cell phone.

Any health emergency.

This should be able to be solved with a simple note from the parent explaining the situation. Since the teachers and administrators are too stupid to understand this I guess some local politician in the are can make some points here. Simply propose a law, in this heavily military area, that the school may not ban the use of a cell phone by a student for the reception of calls made by a parent currently on extended deployment with the military. Dare any moron to oppose it.

remember when we lived in a nation where people could think without a law telling them how too?
 
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