Lefemme
Earlier this week, my daughter told me she had to attend an assembly at the school concerning a group on Facebook. From what I gathered (being mindful it's hard to get a lot of details from teenagers) someone in her school created a group called "You know you’re from Easton Shawnee when..." where a lot of kids joined and started posting their opinions of the administration at the EAMS 7/8. Knowing teens and their opinions, you can imagine what some of the comments were. A few of them talked about the 8th grade principal Ms. DeBona and her less than professional behavior towards students, and how they think some of the teachers dress like they’re going to the club instead of a professional work environment. Of course, I'm toning down the language and sharpness of what was said..but you get the drift.
My concern is that the assembly was done without the parents’ knowledge. And during this assembly they threatened the kids and told them that it was illegal to voice their opinions about the school and that the school would find out who they were and would take them to court. What kind of administration would go around trying to bully kids for their "childish" decisions?
We all hear about people who are dumb enough to post “opinions" about their boss or gloat about playing hooky from work and get fired. We are in a very open society where what you do and say can be held against you....BUT the school should have handled this differently. They can't just decide they are going to bring all the kids into an auditorium and threaten, bully and beat the kids up for a group on Facebook. As a parent, I would have appreciated a letter, email or phone call discussing the group and suggesting I talk to my child about the importance and severity of posting personal opinion on a public forum. The school must believe that none of their students have conversations with their parents; otherwise I don't see why they would have gone with this approach, especially with the threat of a lawsuit to young children.
I wish I knew more about what was said, but as I said earlier this comes from my teenage daughter who for the most part ignored most of what was said and thought it was just stupid and a waste of time.
That's my two cents, what's yours?
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6 comments:
Sounds like the district needs to account for itself if this is in fact what happened as described. This would be a limitation on US citizens right to free speech. Children are citizens.
teachers are now receiving more than adequate professiona salaries and should dress and act appropriately. At a recent open house I could not believe how teachers dress today. My teachers all wore shirts and ties for men, some even with jackets, and female teachers always wore skirst, dresses or business suits.
You wonder why kids act the way they do -- they are mini-us since we are their model they emulate.
The First Amendment clearly protects the right to free expression, and this applies to student speech as well. In addition, the Pennsylvania School Code specifically says that 'The constitutional right of freedom of speech guarantees the freedom of public school students to publish materials on their own.' So if they did it from their own computers -- any non-school computers -- the school has nothing to say about it; if they used school computers, there could be a violation of the rules on computer use, but that's all.
The report says that 'during this assembly they threatened the kids and told them that it was illegal to voice their opinions about the school and that the school would find out who they were and would take them to court.' I don't know what was said on the facebook group, but there is nothing illegal about criticizing the school or school employees. If the report is even close to accurate, the administrators are guilty of ignorance and bullying!
The school board should direct the superintendent to investigate this incident and discipline the administrators involved -- and require them to inform students and parents about students' rights!
If any students are disciplined over this, they should contact the ACLU of PA immediately.
Peter
I tried to check out the group after hearing about this but I think the school made the "owner" remove it from Facebook. But from what my daughter said they were basically saying the teachers dress like whores and other personal opinions of the current administration (including the principal Ms.Debona - who was rumored to have had physical relationship with high school students and was removed from the high school and given a principal job at the middle school. I really do hope that's not the case because that would be a SERIOUS problem if so!!
Here is a roundabout reaction to the story via some basic personal background and philosophy about EASD and public schools in general.
I graduated from EAHS in 1976 and attended the system for my entire K-12 career. I am glad I don't have to deal with the district's reputation issues that today's students do - although we all have to deal with the city's continued bad rap among LV communities.
When I was in school, the Southside kids were stigmatized as the losers (race wasn't an issue but neighborhood was). Today it may be the West Ward that takes the brunt but I wouldn't know since my niece and nephew graduated in '86. My niece's daughter is at EAMS but not old enough to be emersed in these issues yet.
I have heard nothing but excellent reviews about the current system's music programs from everyone I've spoken to. Obviously, the district is also legendary in many sports including football, wrestling, cross-country and track. Many other students in various fields have made names for themselves around the country. Point is that it is possible to be successful despite perceptions to the contrary.
My opinion has always been that positive educational experiences are primarily the result of parental involvement and other positive peer/mentor interactions. Recently there have been studies released that show another interesting relationship between demographics and performance that I think relate nicely to the opinion I express.
What the studies show is that it is the ability to teach the poorest segment - and not any particular racial make-up - that most determines success. Put simply, schools do better at teaching financially better-off students of any race than they do poor ones. There are many reasons for this, but it still points out one of the biggest reasons urban schools are under-performing.
This also seems to reflect the Weed and Seed Director's view that the the district's overall performance stats are dragged down by the West Ward's poorer census tracts.
This is all only indirectly related to the issue of censorship and the micro-management of out-of-school activities. I did well in school - pretty much a straight A student - until high school. At that point they lost me. I had no emotional stake in anything that went on academically in high school until my senior year. Put simply, I was bored shitless. My "guidance counselor" never met with me once until three months before graduation.
I can only relate to this issue of student privacy and respect for the teaching staff through my own experiences. New technology like Facebook seems to be having diminishing benefits in this case. When I was in school, one thing my friends and I did was write stories (science fiction and murder mysteries mostly). We dictated the stories to each other over the phone and wrote them out long-hand. These never entered the "electronic domain" and its a good thing. In today's cultural environment I'm sure they would have resulted in us being in big trouble. We killed off and mamed most of our fellow students and teachers in these stories...not maliciously but because we wanted real characters. I think they would have been flattered at the time to be included if they had known, but of course we kept this all to ourselves.
The issue seems to be the ability to take what were private thoughts thirty years ago and today spread them across the Internet in seconds. Should the school district be worrying about what kids are saying about them online? Probably not, but maybe kids just need to keep these ideas between themselves...easier said than done in this electronic media-crazed world they were born into. A whole new world of online etiquette must be taught; this too a function of parental guidance. In any event, the Genie is definitely out of the bottle.
DRL
I'll add this to my list of reasons why my kids are home schooled.
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