Schools hold students accountable for their online writings

[Nomad559]

Some Students Find Themselves In Principal's Office Over Blogs

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB113268572534704333-kl_gh5uVNgDPNPepwznr7DnkfW8_20051204.html?mod=blogs

As parents wring their hands about Internet predators, many teens are worried about a different kind of online intruder: the school principal.

Students are blogging about schoolyard crushes and feuds, posting gossip about classmates on social-networking sites like MySpace.com and Facebook.com, and sharing their party snapshots on public Web pages. Increasingly, their readers include school administrators, who are doling out punishments for online writings that they say cross the line.

Laura Iacovacci, a 16-year-old junior at Paramus High School in Paramus, N.J., was suspended last month after teasing a classmate during school and implying he was gay. While at home on her suspension, she posted some comments on MySpace -- including a post in which she commiserated with a friend who was paired with the boy for an activity in gym class. "Poor u … not fun not fun," Ms. Iacovacci wrote on the page. The comment has since been deleted.

[sbj405]

1. I think the schools should focus their energies on educating students,

rather than trying to play parent. Banning students from maintaining any type of blog seems completely ridiculous and not likely to protect them from predators. Are they going to ban diaries and journals next?

[Deja Q]

13. Until parents learn how to parent kids, why not? And a blog is no diary...

It takes a village and I wish, when I was growing up, I didn't have village idiots leaving everything to the parents - most of which didn't give a flying fuck. "Boys will be boys" and all that.

And if they want a diary, that's fine. Nobody can see it unless they show it to them. That privacy is fine. But a blog can be seen by anybody if configured for global accessibility (depends on the blogging service). It's out there.

[sbj405]

20. Are they going to start hanging out at the mall monitoring who is spreadin

rumors there?

[Chovexani]

2. Holy shit

I would have been so busted if LJ existed when I was in school, what with all the filthy stories I post to mine. :P

[TimeChaser]

7. You know, I always wondered

Dirty stories and fanfics always have the "Don't read if you're under 18" warning on them. But what if the writer is under 18?

[Chovexani]

9. I have no clue.

Back in the stone age of online fandom I used to lie about my age to get on Highlander mailing lists, and posted many a horrible NC17 romp featuring my Mary Sue, Duncan and/or Methos. Back then there was much more Don't Ask/Don't Tell going on, on both sides. Most of the time it's obvious if the person is underage and their only knowledge of the facts of life comes from other people's fanfics.

But I wonder about nowadays, with LJ fandoms, aff.net, etc. I'm wondering about all the moron kids with entitlement issues wanking away on Fanficrants, calling attention to all of our legally dubious activities...the increased exposure capital-F Fandom is getting in mainstream media...the anti-fanfic brigade just looking for an excuse to take us down...man it's just a powder keg waiting to blow.

A lot of this is because of the HP fandom, methinks. Many a very sheltered parent has had a rude awakening and lost their shit because they suddenly found out little darling Missy was writing graphic Harry/Draco mpreg on the internets. I suspect it will only get worse as the fandom gets bigger and clueless people are introduced to it.

[TimeChaser]

19. Fandom is absolutly insane

I almost feel bad for casual fans who get overwhelmed by Fandom. Unless it happens to be a homophobic parent who finds that their daughter is a yaoi fangirl. That just makes me laugh.

My first naughty writings... eh heh... they were bad. And not badly written bad, but horrible messed up kinky bad. I'm pretty sure I've eliminated all traces of them.

[Rabrrrrrr]

3. I can understand them not wanting kids to use blogs to slander, tease,

or abuse others, or spread gossip and/or lies...

But FOR FUCK'S SAKE PEOPLE - CAN WE TURN OUR SCHOOLS BACK INTO BASTIONS OF EDUCATION AND NOT CONSTANT POLICING OF STUDENT'S BEHAVIOR?!?!?:!?!

FOR FUCK'S SAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jesus Christ, who's in charge? Republicans?!

[Deja Q]

17. And schools even bother to educate? They shove kids out the door...

Hell, even "Good Times" - a tv series from 1973, no less - had an episode dealing with this problem!

And it's only been getting worse ever since.

and, like I've previously said, when the parents aren't able or willing to deal with their little Dennis the Menace 2 Society, who should take up the slack? Are we a village? Or are we dog eat dog?

And if we are dog eat dog, I'm not keen on the dog who gets the last meal. For that dog eventually and ultimately starves to death.

People have GOT to work together or else there's no point.

[Mutley]

4. I guess I can see what they're trying to accomplish,

but do they really have any business in a student's personal life? Off school grounds and during off hours?

[Rabrrrrrr]

5. Prinicpals should say to the asshole parents, "Look, if you have a problem

with something that a student posted about your child, that's a matter for the courts and/or the police, not for us. We are here to educate, and our responsibility ends the moment the kids walk out the door. I will not, absolutely will not, interfere in the life of any student outside these walls. They are free human beings with inherent rights given to them by their creator, and protected under our COnstitution - the same Constitution that will be used, when you take this issue to the appropriate people, to determine whether your child has been wronged."

[Mutley]

6. Amen.

When I was in high school the prinicple tried to suspend students who would smoke cigarettes in the grocery store parking lot up the street before and after school. Didn't work.

[philosophie_en_rose]

8. Exactly!

Why should the school become involved at all? Even if the kid were to seriously threaten someone, the school needs to coordinate with law enforcment and just not take it upon themselves to punish the kids for stuff they do on their own time.

I can see talking to teachers about a student's problems at school, but it's one thing to talk about bullying or conflict with other students. It's quite another to be the myspace babysitter.

[Err]

10. This is B.S.

A student should not get in trouble for what they do outside of school. It's none of the principal's business what students are writing about or who they're writing about.

Granted, I don't think kids should be spreading rumors around the internets about classmates, but, like I said, it's no one's business but the student's.

[Abelman]

11. You are damn right

Total bullshit. Once the student is off school grounds, it is not the principal's responsibility. If the student were endangering their life, I would not be opposed to them talking to the parents or notifying authorities.

But this? This is bullshit.

[Deja Q]

14. What you think is one thing. What's best for the students is another.

Did they make slurs about you?

Did they say to pick you out for being beaten up (and distribute pics so it'd make it easier to find you?) because you never fought back?

Just two examples, of many, I regret to say.

They can do the same thing with a diary or voice-to-voice.

But the internet is much easier to get into. I can think of too many hurtful scenarios and I've just had more flashbacks than I care to adumbrate upon... x(

Fuck the students. And not in the good way. The little fuckers haven't a damn clue. And I'm a textbook case of what happens when just about nobody gets involved. Thank God I had decent parents, who kept fighting a system ran by so many dumbfucks it was beyond belief... dumbfucks who, 15 years later, actually realized that my parents were right... oh bet I'm pissed off.

They are not adults. They have no rights. Give them random locker checks too. The situation has been out of control for years, and when I heard that my school had put in METAL DETECTORS, I knew things had taken a thing for the worse.

Schools have GOT to get involved. Parents sometimes will. Other parents don't give a flying fuck and it's sometimes worse than the apathetic "boys will be boys" bullshit. Who takes up for parental irresponsiblity? Nobody?! Just let the little vermin spit and bully and knock-up all over the place? No, the little shits need to get stopped here and now. Things have GOT to change. No more students need to be victimized by degenerate cretins who should be sent to boot camp instead. Ever.

Sorry, but this is a very sensitive issue for me.

(I can also think of worse examples of what happens to kids abused by their "peers", but I never have - and never will - sink to their levels.)

[Chovexani]

21. At least you had parents that understood

I had a similar situation, was targeted by asshole kids in HS, including religious harassment and a dyke bashing. Authorities were either indifferent or downright hostile to me (I had more than one tell me outright that I was a sinner and I "deserved it"). The bashing happened outside of school, btw.

Problem is I could never tell my mother because she's a fundie and had already lost her shit once and threatened to kick me out when she found out I was Pagan (to this day I never came out of the OTHER closet to her). So, I suffered in silence until I couldn't take it anymore and I just quit going to school. I was never able to tell my mom the real reason I dropped out, and it's still an issue of contention between us. Ironically, she can thank the local school for GLBT teens for helping me get my GED. Damn those gays and their agenda! :eyes:

Not one person stood up for me. And I'm still paying for it, in every aspect of my life.

[Oeditpus Rex]

12. Perhaps those administrators should read this:

http://www.splc.org/newsflash.asp?id=1126

November 9, 2005

NEW JERSEY — School officials will pay a former student $117,500 to settle a lawsuit he filed claiming his First Amendment rights were violated after administrators punished him for material posted on his Web site.

[Deja Q]

15. Pity we don't get a link to the opportunist's web site...

It's only fair.

Do we not have the right to judge for ourselves if the kid's content was legitimately countered by the school system?

Or are we to be compelled solely by one side of the issue; that said in the article itself? I want objective and unbiased, and that means including the website that's the core of the controversy. The trial's over, the kid is richer (so he can listen to all the ipods in class that he'd ever want to as far as I'm concerned), let us peons now get a chance to see it too.

There are appropriate venues. And maybe the school was in the wrong. But until we know what the kidd-o had said, I refuse to take his side. I can't.

[Oeditpus Rex]

18. The site in question apparently no longer exists

since the 'opportunist' took down the site "at the request of school officials."

But a story posted earlier about the suit (http://www.splc.org/newsflash.asp?id=727) provides some description:

Dwyer created the site to provide a forum for criticism of school officials. It was meant to show students "why their school isn't what it's cracked up to be."

The site described the school as "downright boring" and urged visitors to sign a guest book to express their "hatred" for the school.

Visitors to the site were instructed not to use profanity because it "isn't protected by the First Amendment" and that they should not threaten "any teacher or person EVER."

Some comments in the guest book were "arguably crude, sophomoric and offensive," but Dwyer never made any threats or used profanity, the lawsuit claims.

The point is not whether Dwyer's site was offensive, in our eyes or those of his school's administrators. The point is whether the administrators had the right to punish him for expressing his thoughts out of school time and off school grounds.

[Misunderestimator]

16. Wow... imagine how many suspensions there would be here for slander

via PM... would be mind boggling.