What to do with a slightly inebriated young girl!!! ?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Sounds like the perfect setting for an erotic story…
Blackmailing the rule-breaking drunken girl into doing terrible things with her teacher…
Sorry, the OP looked exciting.

I guess the thing you have to remember as a teacher is that principals are usually very tyrannical, short people who sucked at being a teacher so they decided to terrorize good teachers by becoming administrators. (Very thick stereotyping, I know)

Seriously, they are responsible for keeping the rules and should expect full cooperation of the teachers to maintain control of a bunch of teenagers who want no control in their lives. They are experimenting with things they don’t understand and teachers need to tell them it is unacceptable behavior. As do their parents. To let it slide is the wrong answer as it only encourages the behavior. Not that punishment will stop it, but it at a minimum conveys the right message that it is unacceptable behavior and if done should be hidden/kept out of school.

22

I have three teenagers. They’re all good students, involved in extra-curricular activities and not troublemakers (at least by standard definition.)

If one of them was drunk at school, I’d sure as hell want ANYONE (teacher, counselor or student) to blow the whistle. The idea that a member of the staff would cut them slack because maybe it was their first time, or because they’re good students really sets my teeth on edge. And the idea that a faculty member who knew they were drunk and wouldn’t say anything is, in my humble opinion, irresponsible at least.

Suppose this girl WERE a trouble-maker who had a history of coming to school drunk/stoned. Would you have told the AP that in your opinion she was drunk again?

You say you have the skills to determine someone has been drinking that the AP doesn’t have. The student ADMITTED to you that she had been drinking. And you thought it was in the best interest of the student NOT to tell the AP? Did you KNOW that this student had never been drinking before? You say she isn’t old enough to drive. That means she’s 14 or 15 and drinking? And you don’t think that’s a problem that needs to be addressed?

Pardon me for being severely critical, but if you don’t want to be the grown-up in a situation like this, find another job.

23

i remember the ‘cool’ teachers in high school as being popular with the kids, but completely disrespected by the other teachers. the teachers i remember with the most respect are the ones that would have reported perceived drunkeness without hesitation. at work, i am not even a supervisor anymore, but when i see employees acting inappropriately, i still report the behavior to their supervisors because i know that they would want to know, and i would want them to do the same for me if i go back to supervising. as a result, i know for a fact that i am not well liked by the slacker element here, but this is a business, so too bad.

‘tattling’ is a children’s concept. as an adult, you decide what behavior is appropriate or not appropriate, and you take action when you see inappropriate behavior, especially at work. if it’s your responsibility to handle it, you act. if not, you report it to whoever is responsible.

if you have decided that being drunk at school is ok, then you should work at a school where it’s allowed. otherwise, it’s your responsibility to report the behavior to the responsible parties.

24

i meant to tack this on, but timed out…

HOWEVER (just re-read the op), the fact that it was already reported and the student was in the act of being disciplined, changes things a bit. i don’t really see why you should have stuck around to ‘second the motion’ as it were. i just hope that if you’re the first on the scene with a drunk student, you’ll report it.

25

Jesus Frikkin Christ, people!

Bear_Nenno, I am with you. As for the rest of you, why don’t you take a couple of breaths and regain some composure. I mean c’mo kunilou, wring, diane, missbunny, and saint zero (“easy mark”? WTF?!?)

especially to those who admit they did the same things in high school yet turned out okay, I say calm down. Those who are coming from the point of view of a parent, you are completely justified in believing what you will, but stop ragging on dude’s ass (or at least stop doing it so snootily). I am not a parent, so I will not say you are wrong to feel the way you do (I also can’t say you are right for the same reason, although I believe you are).

I can step back for a second and say this- another member of the faculty raised the red flag. The girl was in the principals office under suspicion of being drunk. Bear_Nenno was neither the primary faculty member, nor the principal or AP. He happened to pass the girl on his way out of the office.

Is it now his job to nystagmus test every student? Should he rat out cigarette smokers? Suppose a student came to him and admitted he may have a problem with marijuana, in fact had been smoking some earlier in the day but was no longer high. Bear refers the kid to the counselor. Should he also report the kid to the principal? of course not.

get off his frigging back.

jb

26

Um, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it illegal for a 15 year old girl to drink anyways?
It’s not a PROBLEM to come to school drunk?

Well, let’s see-what if it was an employee who came to work drunk? They’d get written up, right?

I agree with Kunilou. Like it or not, school is not a place to come to when drunk. And she apparently skipped school?

I’m sorry, but I don’t think a good student is someone who skips school to get wasted.

27

This is a toughie, but I’m on your side, Bear. It sucks that our litigious society makes you have to consider the other side of the issue, but I think you were covered here.

The student was being disciplined just by being there in the office, and was to see the AP later. There was no real point in you horning in on that. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the AP would have complained if you had taken a larger role in the process.

What you did do, however, was make it clear to this student that she couldn’t fool you. That probably had the greatest impact. She might have come to the office thinking that if she played it cool, no one could make her confess. After talking with you, she now knows that she can’t get away with it again. I expect the principal will be calling a deputy next time, now that he knows what can be learned from the nastagnus test.

After showing her that she can’t fake her way through, you trusted her to handle it. That also had a great impact on her. A lot of today’s adults forget that the best way to instill responsibility in a teenager is to treat them as adults. In this case, you didn’t let her totally off the hook (You couldn’t, since she was on the way to the AP.), but you let her know that you trust her to take her school life seriously.

Let me tell you a little story from my high school days. I was a nerd, so I didn’t get into much trouble myself. But my brother and his two best friends were a bit more independant-minded. They were like your cheerleader, in that they tended to break a few rules while getting good grades and being involved in the school activities. The principal was smart enough to see they were of this type.

One day, some of the real troublemakers were up to no good. I don’t recall what it was, but it was disruptive. Our principal called my brother and his friends in to his office. He explained that these kids were making it hard to run the school, and that he needed them to stop. But he also knew that being yelled at or disciplined by the principal wouldn’t have too much effect. So, he asked these three boys to help. He felt that they were smart enough to want to learn, and to know that these troublemakers are making that harder. He also felt that the troublemakers would listen to their peers.

My brother and his friends went to the troublemakers and asked them to knock it off. The problems stopped, and they felt more like responsible people. They also had a grudging respect for the principal, because he understood the kids so well.

Eighteen years later, my brother and one of his friends are both police officers. The other is vice president at a fairly large corporation.

My point is, that you can get a lot of response out of some kids by giving them slack, letting them know that you think they are smart enough to do the right thing. Obviously, you can’t do that with every kid, but I think you did right with this one.

On another point, if the principal thinks you screwed up by not reporting what you knew, I hope he ripped into the AP that left her sitting for so long. If he wanted to catch her drunk, letting her sober up for the better part of an hour isn’t the way to go about it. If this stuff is so important to him, he should make policy to make that happen. Such as, meet with students as soon as possible, and call in a deputy in these cases. Not that I think that would be the right policy, just that anything else is a little inconsistant on the principal’s part.

28

'scuse me???
Absolutely I’m coming at it from a different perspective now. That’s what happens when you grow up, learn and mature.

Teens (in particular) suffer from “I’m bullet proof” syndrome- see, nothing bad happened to me the one time I did it, therefore, nothing ever will go wrong.

I was pointing out:

  1. there seems to be some confusion about how well the OP knew this kid - was she “one of his students” so that he knew things about her, or just one of the kids he may have known a little bit about. Was his info (“she’s really a good kid usually”, “good grades” etc) coming from independant knowledge or from the person herself, who had already lied to him.

  2. Was this young person about to be driving herself home (either on a bike or in a car), in which case her state of intoxication could have had serious potential consequences.

  3. Was this person on any medication (that could have been contraindicated with combining with alcohol).

especially this last point. When I get a new script from my doctor for myself, I note “not to be taken with alcohol”, and act accordingly. Would the teen even be aware of this?

young people make mistakes. We would hope that the adults around them would make every attempt to safeguard these folks from some of the more serious consequences of same. We apparently disagree about what constitutes the “more serious consequences” of the behavior that was noted. (I think getting in trouble at school or at home is to be preferred to possibly getting hurt from drug interactions or traffic accident).

29

Yes. I am only banned from this particular school for a year. This school district is some 250 subs short, so financially or otherwise, I am not going to be affected by this. I just wanted to get views from other people to see ALL sides of this situation. A lot of the teachers at this school love me and request me every time they are gone, but now they will not be able to. Oh well, many other schools like me just as much- even more.
Since teaching will not be a my career I am not too worried about how it will affect my future teaching. Even though many department heads (even at this particular school) and many APs have asked me to get certified and be a teacher at their school, my choice is Law Enforcement. This incident will come up again in an interview for a police department.

Interviewer: So tell me about the last time you were in trouble with your last employer…

Me: Well, there was this student…

And yes I have to tell everything since all the questions are over polygraph. Other than that, I am not too worried about the whole thing. Basically I consider myself a good teacher and this kind of hurts my self-esteem a little. Like maybe I really fucked up big time… I am so used to hearing good things about my performance that this was kinda a stab in the heart. Plus the fact that the principal told me I need to “grow up”.

jb_farley, thanks for the support.

Saltire thank you. We think alike.

Keep the posts coming. Even the ones reeming my ass. I appreciate all the input.

30

Sorry, bear, I just can’t side with you here, and for so many reasons.

“The AP would have never known.”
“She was not ‘wasted’.”
“I do not believe that every student who comes to school drunk has a problem.”
“They were all in sports and good students.”
“They would never have been able to know for sure that she had been drinking.”
“I decided that if they can figure out she is drunk, than so be it.”
“But what I am saying is that the teacher who sent the student to the office in the first place could and should have taken care of all that.”

On several occassions, bear, you use the terms “they” and “them” to refer to the staff. I’m sorry, but YOU are “they” in this situation. Being the “cool teacher” does not exclude you from that list. Making friends is not on your list of job descriptions - you have enough of them your own age and in a non-professional setting.

Just because you were not the “primary faculty member” does not eliminate you from this situation. In fact, what puts you in a position even higher than that is the fact that you placed YOURSELF in that situation when you entered the situation. And, knowing you had more skills at your disposal than any of the other faculty members and were more likely to recognize intoxication, you had an added responsibility to this student.

I guess it all comes down to one thing - at what point can a teacher shirk responsibility? And to be honest, that’s what I think you did here. Look at the quotes I took printed above. All of them drip with excuses and backdoors. I don’t see your reasons as valid, especially with the actions/impressions of a 15 year old on the line. As good of a kid as this girl might be, repurcussions must be handed out. If she’s as good of a kid as you suspect, she can take them in stride. Its the bad kids that fight them and call “bullshit”.

No, not everyone who shows up to their 10th grad class has a drinking problem. But I’m willing to bet that the odds are a lot worse. As an educator, I wouldn’t be willing to take that risk, and you shouldn’t either. Granted, the office could have handled this much better. But you were in a position to guarantee that it would have been. That, and given the discussion that you and student had, you were in a position to make that student much more comfortable with dealing with the consequences. No, no one forced you to put yourself in that position. But you did find yourself there, didn’t you?

bear_nenno, I spent only a year teaching. It was the hardest year of my life. The responsibility placed on our educators is staggering, and have every sympathy for you, and even thank you for putting yourself on the front line everyday. But I really think that in this situation, you goofed. That does not make you a bad teacher. That does not make you a bad person. 99% of your actions in this were rooted in sympathy and empathy in treating this student as a real person, and not demeaning her and talking down to her. What it comes down to is this question: Were you responsible for the well-being of this child? Either you can say that your job description says that you are hired to teach particular subjects, or you can say that as an educator you are held to a higher standard - that of an educator that teaches the entire person. Both are correct answers. Its really up to you to decide which one you want to be.

31

IMO you really screwed up, bear. Not with respect to what is good for the kid, mind you, but with respect to what is in your best interests. Specifically, you failed, in a big way, to cover your ass. Meanwhile, your actions provided an easy opportunity for someone else to make it appear as tho they were doing something significant, or to cover up their inadequacies, but targetting you. It may be a shame that people act that way. But they do. Moreover, as a teacher you are in a pretty special situation. I believe you are obligated to report evidence/suspicions of certain things such as child abuse. In today’s climate, drugs and weapons are hot topics in schools. Think about it. If the superintendent or local school counsel asks the principal what he has done about teenage drinking, he can say, “I suspended a teacher who did not come forward with info.” And saying that makes it seem like he is doing asomething about drinking, whether he is or not.

Personally, I think what you did, spending a few minutes with this girl, is probably as effective as any “official” response that could have been meted out. And you are to be commended for going out of your way to find out what was going on with her. BUT, once you went out of your way, you had to make sure the knowledge you gained would not be used against you. You should definitely have covered your ass in some way or another. Maybe you could have stuck your head in the AP’s office and said, “I just spoke with X. Go easy on her. Give me a call if you want to discuss it.” Or written a very brief note to the AP, the principal, or the original reporting teacher. Just SOMETHING to create a record that you weren’t complicit with a student who was breaking school rules and the law.

If you were to contest the principal’s actions, you must understand that it would be difficult to present your actions to any reviewing body as the most desirable course.

Like you said, both in your current assignments and possible future hiring, you are negatively impacted by the way you handled this. No reason you should have to suffer in this way. Hopefully you can do what is best for the students and the institution, but not at the scarifice of what is best for YOU.

Sorry if I sound paranoid, but I have worked in institutional bureaucracies for the past 15 years, and am merely trying to be pragmatic. The desired situation is to do the right things for the right reasons, and CYA while doing it. Don’t think that the righteousness of your intentions and goals will be enough. If you do not create the record, someone else will do so, and they will not be as interested in casting you in a favorable light.

32

Connor - Amen!

33

My thoughts summarize like this:

  1. Kids are going to break rules.
  2. It’s still our job as adults to set reasonable rules and enforce them.
  3. This is true even if they’re likely to wind up being productive, law-abiding citizens. This is how we get them there.

Teens especially feel a lot of pressure from their peers to do dumb and potentially dangerous things, just to fit in. This includes drinking, taking drugs, premature sexual involvement, driving dangerously, and who knows what else these days.

They may be rapidly on their way to becoming adults, but high-school kids still aren’t there yet. They frequently don’t have the backbone to stand up to the temptations and pressures thrown at them; it’s our duty to be their backbone, to say ‘no’ and draw the line, enforcing it with appropriate sanctions where need be.

Drunk at school is way over the line. Maybe the kid’s OK and doesn’t drink that often. But more likely, if she’s drinking in the day, she’s got a major drinking habit that no longer confines itself to nights. If you’re a teacher, you implicitly agree to be part of The System, and you’ve got a responsibility to turn her over to the authorities (the APs, in this case).

If she doesn’t get caught, it may well be likely that she’ll find her own way back to a healthy, productive life. Good. But I’d argue that the very existence of the rules - the fact that they’re there and could get her in trouble, even if it doesn’t actually happen - is part of the process of her finding her way.

However, if she’s caught and finds that the rules don’t apply to her, or aren’t really rules, she’s got one less reason not to engage in the proscribed behavior - in this case, drinking. If we give her a bye when we catch her in a major breach of the rules that are intended to protect her from herself, she’s gonna believe we aren’t really serious about those rules - and act more as if they aren’t there. And we’ve let her, and ourselves, down when we do this.

I broke my share of rules when I was younger - and look back fondly on my days of occasional dope-smoking in high school. But I don’t think it would have served me or my peers well if they’d let us walk around stoned in school.

34

Conner, thank you so much for taking the time to post. That was great! Thank you. Everything you said made a lot of sense.

I think you hit the nail on the head here. See, because just three and a half years ago I was at this same school dodging the same APs that are there now. There is a new principal but all the APs are the same from when I went there. Just three years ago, I was in situations not unlike the kind this student was in. (I never did drink at school, or at all for that matter. But one of my closest friends was once caught drinking at a field trip.) I think, though maybe I did not realize it before, that I am seperating myself from all these teachers and administrators. I never try to “befriend” the students or try to be “cool” for them or “act like one of them” or anything. I never forget the fact that I am there to teach them and give them advice that will help their lives. I easily relate to them, but I try not to act like they are my equals. I make sure they know that I am in a position of authority there. In fact, some students will call me by my first name and I nip that in the bud right away. I tell them that my name is Mr Nenno, or Mr N, not Bear. They respect that. But at the same time, I am not quite viewing myself at the same level as these other teachers. I guess I have been somewhere in between this whole time.

Thanks again.

35

Mr. Nenno. Congratulations on recognizing that perhaps you did not act like the “grown-up” in this situation. That’s an important first step.

36

bear, also I would suggest going back to that school and seeing if there is anything you can do to remedy the situation.

37

y’know, I went to the trouble of mediating my earlier anger with concessions to those who I disagreed with. In rereading it, I see that the strongest word I used was freaking/firgging/fricking, and that was only a modifier. And frankly, my point wasn’t ‘you other guys are wrong’ but ‘cut the guy some slack, stop jumpiung on his back’.

So comments that I have yet to “grow up, learn and mature” strike me as a bit shortsighted.

Allow me to rephrase how I see the situation.

Bear is in the office, doing other stuff. On his way out, he talks with two students in the office. He doesn’t know why they are in the office. One of the girls appears drunk to his trained eye.

So he pulls her out of the office, and confirms his suspicion (all of this on his ‘unresponsible’ own). He finds out that the girl has indeed been drinking, and that she is in the office for that same reason. End of story.

Now, I don’t know if I would have reacted in the same way, but I can’t fault Bear for doing what he did.

jb

p.s.- and contrary to what most everyone in this thread is saying, underage drinking, let alone being drunk at school, is not automatic ‘problem’ fodder. Could be a sign of it, but I’d say less kids who do so will turn into alcoholics than who will not (turn into alcoholics, that is- what awkward syntax- boy I need a drink).

38

No, it is not an automatic problem. BUT…it is irresponsible behavior. It’s not a mature or smart idea to go to school drunk. Is it a good idea to go to work, drunk?
If I had a student who came in drunk, I’d be pissed. There is a time and a place for that. It’s not at school, and not when you’re fifteen.

39

Blank posts, quoting blank posts, etc. are not funny or original, and they are a lot of work for moderators. Please do not do this again.
Thank you.

40

I agree with what you did, but two things I want to point out here Bear.

  1. What you did seems at odds with your position in that pit thread w while ago, the one about strip clubs. Now, don’t get me wrong, I support you here, didn’t there. But, it seems you might have a double standard going here.

  2. It does seem elitist, if the student had a 1.5 GPA and was struling would you turn her in? Why? She could also be a good person, maybe someone who’s just hung around with the wrong people. etc.

anyway that’s it