From the article:
So these kids did all of this stuff, including putting feces on the juniors, and they’re getting expelled. But the school board has decided to freeze thier grades in place and let them graduate instead of flunking them automatically.
So they get to abuse a bunch of other kids, get out of school early, and get thier diplomas. What in the hell is wrong with people? I say the school board should flunk the little dips and make them spend another year in school.
I heard about this on the news this morning. The kids want to be able to attend graduation and the prom. They’ve been promised their diplomas, but just can’t attend the graduation ceremony or the prom.
If they’ve been expelled, how can they even graduate? I just don’t get it. I though explusion meant not graduating at all. I know some of these kids probably had college all lined up, but hey, they were expelled, and some had alcohol charges filed, too.
If they were promised their diplomas, they should just shut up and be happy with that.
I agree, welby, if they’re expelled, they should have to attend school again next year. Of course, that’d put them back in school with the same girls they mistreated, so they should have to go somewhere else.
I saw a short clip of the video on the news last week, and I’ve gotta say that that’s some nasty, scary, downright shocking stuff.
Maybe it’s because I live in little old England, but watching those kids beat on the juniors and dump shit on them, was pretty damn disturbing. We just don’t get that kind of think over here, and campus hazing seems to be a uniquely American thing - maybe it’s to do with frats?
In any case, they should be jailed, not just expelled.
If I were the Empperor of the World, or even Superintendent of that district they wouldn’t get diplomas if they didn’t do the course work. Has any one of the Seniors been interviewed publicly and said anything like, “Wow. I got caught up in a mob scene but looking back I can see how terribly wrong it was and I’m sorry” ??? Suing the school board? Whining because they can’t go to Prom?? I don’t get it.
We had what I guess would be hazing at our high school but really benign stuff. Seniors on the football team would have guys on JV carry their trays at lunch. There were other things like that within certain teams or clubs, but nothing to do with grade levels and no feces was involved!
If my son were caught on tape brutalizing people and drinking underage I would not be hiring an attorney for him. He wouldn’t need to worry about Prom or Graduation because he’d be repeating his senior year at a Military Academy.
“Hey kids, you don’t have to go to school but we’ll give you a diploma.” This is known as “punishment” in the US nowadays.
I might point out that if the school board failed them and made them go to school for another year, they’d get to go to prom!
Perhaps that should be offered up as an option to the whiners.
I’m still blown away by the girl that suing because, what she did wasn’t that bad. In my mind, just being there and doing nothing to stop the procedings is as bad as helping commit the crimes.
But perhaps that’s just me and the paper I had to write in middle school explaining why I was as guilty of misbehaving on a field trip as the rest of my class even though I personally hadn’t been being loud or whatever it was that the class got in trouble for.
Was she the one that was on the CBS “Early Show” today with her mother and lawyer?
Whoever she was, she didn’t make a very good impression. All she could say was “uh huh” and “nuh” in response to the interviewer’s questions. Everything the mother said was a variant of “But my little precious didn’t do anything!” I changed the channel before the lawyer started speaking.
I was watching CNN, but it was probably the same girl.
I don’t get these mothers. I would have been DEAD. Or more likely I would have WISHED I was dead, once she got ahold of me after finding out about something like that. She told me that if I’d done something like this she’d have called the cops on me herself, even if the school wouldn’t.
Do these people not realize that their little darlings need some actual discipline? That they did something WRONG and SHOULD be punished for it? WTF???
I heard that some of the parents have sent their darlings on a cruise, so that they can avoid the “unpleasantries” from the media. :eek:
Good thing I behaved myself during my teen years. I’d hate to have gotten to graduate without having to do schoolwork or attend class, and been rewarded by mummy and daddy with a cruise. That would have been awful.
WTF is wrong with these parents?? Whatever happened to parents being liable for their children’s crimes? Ugh.
I think Kathleen Parker had a nice editorial about it.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/kathleen/parker.html
Boy, these kids are going to get a shock when they get into the real world. “What do you mean? I didn’t do the report, and now you’re firing me? But that’s not faaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrr!”
At the very least they should have had to do makeup for their last quarter by attending summer school in order to graduate. Giving them their diplomas was a form of tacit approval and amounts to turning a blind eye. No prom? Try, NO DIPLOMA!
I really would have preferred to see them repeat their senior year in a continuational school. These little scumbags are thugs in the breeding. Where in Hades did they ever get the notion that this represents acceptable behavior?
Those who stood by idly are just as guilty. It’s called being an accomplice.
I’m so disgusted by idiots who have no sense of right or wrong. They can only comprehand winning or losing. If confronted with their misdeeds, there is never any self-examination or questioning. Just a knee-jerk reaction to fight back. No wonder their kids turned out like this.
Let’s hope the courts can issue a little justice in this dispicable matter.
You guys are all jumping up and down and demanding that they be expelled, but I think letting the girls graduate is the right thing to do. I don’t think the school should be disciplining any of the girls involved. This wasn’t something that happened at school; rather, it took place off school property and after school hours.
This is a criminal matter, to be handled by the criminal courts. They’re the institution that will properly assess the girls’ culpability and give them the appropriate punishment. I don’t see how adding to this punishment by expelling the girls accomplishes any societal good. Indeed, expelling them and making it much more difficult for them to graduate may function to prevent them from going to college or otherwise impede their ability to become productive citizens. And if the reason we think the girls should be expelled is because otherwise, they’re not being punished enough, then I think the proper resolution is to increase the penalties meted out by the criminal courts.
Schools should not be judges, juries, or executioners. The disciplinary systems of academic punishments schools impose have a limited function. (Moreover, in them, the adversary process is shortcircuited, and etc.) And punishing criminals – just because they happen to be students – is not one of them.
From what I gather, there was a deal made, because the perpetrators were offered book and movie deals-they agreed not to accept these and they’d get their diplomas?
All I can say is, If those schmucks would have started doing all that nasty crap to me, I would have gotten up and started swinging. Hazing is dumb, and anyone taking part in such nonsense is mentally retarded.
Unless it’s on a military level, those men and women need to warriors, so harsh treatment would be ok(not dumping shit and the like on them).
Mr. Hand:
From a related article here:
My italics.
Also,
Though it was off school grounds it’s obvious that the girls beleived it to be a part of thier school year, the traditions of thier class, and something that they were entitled to do because they were seniors at the school. It’s not as if they attacked a couple of kids randomly in a park.
Instead, they used thier status as seniors and the “tradition” of a football game to violently assault fellow classmates. How can you possibly beleive that the school should not act accordingly and punish them? They aren’t punishing criminals because they happen to be students, they’re punishing students who happen to be criminals.
Don’t want to sound rude, but it’s that kind of attitude that has us in a society where kids think it’s okay to bring a baseball bat to a football game, shoot someone with a paintball gun, kick them, beat them, throw mud, fish guts, feces, and urine on them, and then whine and file a lawsuit when they have to own up to thier actions.
To put it in a simpler vein: Had you done this, and had criminal charges filed, you’d go to jail and lose your job. The only “job” of a student is to get an education. These kids should spend a little time in jail and lose thier “job” as well. It might serve to show them that thier actions were reprehesible.
As for your concern for thier future, I care little for it. They obviously cared little for thier victims, to attack them that way (which will surely scar them for life), and to actually leave more than one unconcious, was low. Why do the attackers deserve the same opportunity as the victims?