The policy is mightier than the sword
I just don’t see the point.
I mean, I know we’re talking about swords here, but kicking two kids out of school for the rest of the year for purchasing a couple of souvenir swords on a choir trip in England seems like overkill.
The District 196 School Board can’t elaborate publicly on the expulsions, but their hands aren’t exactly tied on the matter. They could have chosen to make their expulsion decision based on common sense and a little compassionate leniency instead of following the district’s policy so strictly.
Granted, we don’t know the whole story. The parents and students are making their claims and the district is bound by law not to present their side of the story publicly. However, the circumstances of the case make it nearly impossible for me to believe this case didn’t deserve a softer hand.
First of all, this was a school field trip. Where were the chaperons and what is their responsibility in this? Couldn’t or shouldn’t they have informed the students of the policy? I suppose the kids who purchased the swords could have deliberately hidden them from the adults. Still, it seems hard to believe there was something sinister going on here. They were on a choir trip after all. No offense, but if it’s still the same clique of kids that take part in such field trips as it was when I went to school, we aren’t talking about the rotten eggs here.
At worst, we’re talking about a couple of Lord of the Rings fanatics and there’s nothing very threatening to society about that. (Perhaps Matrix fanatics might scare me a little more…)
Secondly, purchasing a sword on a school trip to an exotic land is a unique situation that the current school policy fails to properly address. Expulsion for the rest of the year for a “look-a-like”
Intentions have nothing to do with anything, sadly. And kids have been disciplined for a lot less - like pointing a chicken finger and saying “bang,” or simply drawing a picture of a gun, to having a kitchen knife in the car that was left there after a weekend move.
If I’m not mistaken, a student at North St. Paul and admirer of our military got in trouble for submitting a senior picture astride a cannon in a city park.
You say weapons have no place in school, but they sure used to. Time was, students took gun safety through school and on a given day you would have a handful or two of students at a given school with deer rifles in their locker. There was never a problem.
Assuming the students are expelled for no other reason than the purchase, it is just one more example how the public school system at large has lost the capacity for common sense.
The ThisWeek story linked to in this post contains the following quote:
“Citing Minnesota Data Privacy law, District 196 Communications Specialist Tony Taschner said the district is bound legally not to release any information about matters of student discipline.
“That’s why stories about specific student expulsions are so problematic,”
Jeff, I agree. Besides, how are kids going to learn where boundaries of appropriateness are located and make reasoned decisions when all they know is a hard “no” line? Life is not black and white - we have areas of gray. Kids need to know how to deal with the gray.
If we want to protect our kids from the “possibility” of doing wrong, we may end up with a society of sheltered kids.
There is a nice example from Austria of a man who wanted to protect his daughter from smoking, staying out late, etc. What did he do? He locked her up for 20-some years! Granted, this is an extreme case. However, isn’t this what we are essentially doing to our kids?
Talking to the parents of students expelled is a good idea. I remember covering a student expulsion once and I placed a call to the home of the recently expelled student on a Sunday night. No parents were home, but the student who had been expelled on a weapons violation was home. Background noise was a violent, loud, obnoxious R-rated movie. I doubted the expulsion was doing much for this youth.