Mother of Rhode Island senior sues school for rejecting yearbook photo

[The Straight Story]

Mother of Rhode Island senior sues school for rejecting yearbook photo
The Associated Press | Wednesday, Dec 13 2006 7:39 AM

Last Updated: Wednesday, Dec 13 2006 7:39 AM

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The mother of a high school senior who posed in chain mail with a medieval sword for his yearbook picture has sued after the school rejected the photo because of its “zero tolerance” policy against weapons.

Patrick Agin, 17, belongs to the Society for Creative Anachronism, an international organization that researches and recreates medieval history. He submitted the photo in September for the Portsmouth High School yearbook.

But the school’s principal refused to allow the portrait as Agin’s official yearbook photo because he said it violated a policy against weapons and violence in schools, according to a lawsuit filed Monday by the Rhode Island branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The lawsuit seeks an order that would prevent the yearbook from being published without Agin’s original senior portrait.

http://www.bakersfield.com/619/story/89182.html

[Nikki Stone1]

1. Zero tolerance for medieval weapons

Hmm...

[The Straight Story]

3. Let's hope their history books don't have such pictures

Zero tolerance is after all, zero tolerance :)

[stellanoir]

23. details on. . .

post # 17

[ProfessorGAC]

24. Ok Then, Barely Above Zero Tolerance

I'm only kidding, but somehow i can imagine a school board member answering you that way. "Well, when we say ZERO tolerance, we mean just barely above zero!"

Idiots, ain't they?
The Professor

[Little Wing]

2. As if the rest of his class needed another reason to beat him up

:eyes:

[meegbear]

4. My thoughts exactly ...

could be a zero-doofus-tolerance policy. He'll thank them someday.

[peacebaby3]

36. Oh, thank you so much! I needed a good laugh today and you said exactly

what I was thinking, but in a hilarious way! :rofl:

[bluerum]

5. Did the yearbook staff ever hear of photoshop? nt

[TlalocW]

7. Really

Photoshop it so he's holding a kitty. Who doesn't like medeival knights in chainmail holding kitties?

Communists! That's who!

TlalocW

[Javaman]

18. Or perhaps a bunny ;) nt

[Pyrzqxgl]

38. how about a baby dragon?

[Captain Hilts]

6. I just can't feel sorry for her, or her kid. nt

[valerief]

8. Why don't they just blue dot the stupid sword? Or they can

artisically overlap the sword with another pic (I know, it all depends on the layout). That way he gets his silly costume and the school adheres to its rules. People are so ridiculous sometimes.

[tammywammy]

41. It also depends on the equipment the school has

They could be oldschooling the yearbook, with hard copy pictures and manual cropping. If it's like that, they probably don't have the ability to alter the photo.

Yearbook isn't (or at least at my high school) part of the school budget. All computers, cameras, etc came from the yearbook sells, ad sells, fundraising, etc.

I know that the year after I graduated the yearbook at my high school was named Time's Yearbook of the Year and won other contests (within the publishing arena) and the dept got money and equipment from that. Eventually after another year or so, the yearbook dept could afford to go completely digital and upgrade their computers. When I was there we only had 2 decent, maybe 4 years old computers, the rest were early Apples (one box for cpu & monitor and the monitor was about 5"x7").

[maxsolomon]

9. oh christ on a cracker

take this one to the supremes - let thomas write the decision.

[Dhalgren]

14. Wait a minute. Is there a pubic hair on that sword?

[Hoosier Dem]

10. How about photoshopping/ replacing the sword...

My suggestion would be to replace the sword with a sign that reads "I will never have a date"

[northzax]

13. ten bucks says his favourite movie

is the 40 year old virgin, gives him hope.

[northzax]

11. ahh, little Rhodey

lemme guess, they wouldn't allow his senior quote to be in klingon either, huh?

Look Kid: let me let you in on a little secret. it's high school. in 20 years, hell in 2 years, ain't no one going to give a flying about your senior picture. Plus, keep this up and you will never get laid.

get over yourself, you will have a much happier life. and move as far away as possible from your mom.

[Vexatious Ape]

12. That's pathetic

"Zero tolerance" means zero thought and sends a bad message to our kids, and that message being: Follow the rules even if they are asinine and wrong, just follow the damn rules people. A few years ago a 10 year old girl was suspended in a local Atlanta school because her Tweety Bird key chain was in violation of the "zero tolerance/thought" policy. No chains allowed. She learned something: Grown ups are stupid and so are their rules.

[Botany]

15. Mom & son = idiots

1. Most High School Yearbook photos look bad & dated PDQ
2. Few people go back to review their high school yearbook
(I don't have a clue where mine is & much less care)
3. He can take millions of pictures of himself wearing his
"outfits."
4. Turn another picture in ..... this is an unneeded fight.

[majorjohn]

16. Wow... I can't figure this out

Is it the school, the boy, or the mother that sound weird?

- School won't publish a photo of a kid holding a sword
- Boy loves medieval stuff
- Mother decides to sue over a stupid thing

[Hav]

19. .

Lol yeah, it's like a game to pick the odd one and you just can't decide which is it ;).

[Javaman]

20. Stupidity is self perpetuating. nt

[Midlodemocrat]

37. Maybe the mom is desperately trying to rationalize her son's

desire for this to be his senior picture. I can't think of any other reason to go to the wall on this.

[stellanoir]

17. Okay so the kid's a little eccentric but the mom's challenge to the school involves the hypocrisy.

The school's mascot is the "Patriots." It was the town where one of the first Revolutionary skirmishes transpired.

The school's logo is a "patriot" brandishing a musket. Therein lies the problem.

If anyone should be mad about this it should be me because my dinky town outsources our kid's High School education to this particular neighboring town so if the mom wins the case it'll effect my taxes and the school, like most has budgetary constraints already.

I'm not mad about it though especially given the the SOTU is going to hear the case of the Alaskan teen who posted the "Bongs 4 Jesus" banner on private property adjacent to and within eye shot of his High School whilst innocents are held without charges, and Ken Lay may just be drinking pina colada's down in Paraguay whilst I type (who knows?), the whole system's totally warped.

We never are for want of local color in RI. :)

[jarab]

21. Mom needs an avocation. eom

...O...

[DemBones DemBones]

40. You said it best.

As I used to sing to my daughter "You don't always get what you want, And you don't always want what you get."

[MrCoffee]

22. psst....Sir Lancelot...they're doing you a huge favor

[Javaman]

25. Um, I ran track but I didn't want to pose for my pic in my uniform...

I posed in my uniform with the rest of the track team in the team photo. Why doesn't this boob do the same with the one or two other...people that belong to this organization that are in his school.

Once upon a time, way back when, I used to be professional juggler and had done a stint or two at Renaissance fairs. And I have one thing to say about those who are in the Creative Anachronism organization; they are weird.

Not weird in a geeky sense but weird in a living in a basement, sending fake anthrax to people weird.

I tried once and only once to have a serious conversation regarding their organization with a few of the members and not a one would break character and they would all start this odd sort of bizarre of a name called ritual, all because I was an "outsider". Sigh.

I can't pass judgment on them all but the ones I had met certainly fell into the misfit category. Socially inept, functionally distressed. I would never ever trust my teenage daughter with one of them ever.

just my two cents.

[kiahzero]

27. Yeah, that's not passing judgment at all.

:eyes:

[Javaman]

29. I did say I can't pass judgment on ALL of them, just the ones I met.

And the garden variety of people that attend Renaissance fairs in full costume are certainly of a kind that surpasses the average geek.

So yes, it may have seemed as if it sounded like I did, but it was just the ones I met.

I'm not saying that makes it right, I'm just saying that was my experience.

I maintain, they were and odd group.

[Name removed]

30. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Javaman]

31. Oy vey, get a grip. nt

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

26. I wish I could have had my yearbook picture banned

I looked hideous.

BTW, this kid is one town over from me and the local weekly has been making a huge deal over it. Meanwhile we've got a recount that's been going on for weeks and our town council hasn't been seated because of it, yet this is the big story.

[sniffa]

28. uh-oh, don't piss off the rennies

they get aLL, "Loved be god, a warwick! a warwick!"

[Blue Diadem]

32. Don't most schools require a certain style picture for yearbooks?

My kids had various background scenes and poses in their Senior pics, but they were only allowed a traditional picture for the yearbook. It's been a longstanding rule around here.

[tammywammy]

39. I was the editor of my HS yearbook

Seniors had to have their pictures taken in the tux/drape. The freshmen through juniors had pictures in their regular clothes.

All the freshmen through junior pictures were sent from the photographer back to us on a CD, and we made sure the names were correct. The CD of pics went to the publisher. We couldn't photoshop a picture even if we wanted too. Actually the only manipulation of photos was cropping, there wasn't photoshop at the time. I know that the high school I went to went completely digital a couple of years after I graduated, so I would think they'd have the ability to now, for fixing red-eye and such.

Senior pictures were a little different. Everyone had about 5 pics of them taken, looking this way and that. We'd go through and select the most flattering picture for the senior. I think a couple of years after I graduated ('99) they've move to the senior pictures on CD and picking from there.

What I wonder about this guy, is if there's a club at the school for this? If there was, then they'd be included in the yearbook with a picture of them in the chain mail, but maybe no sword.

edited to add:
I know that I had seen yearbooks where the seniors got to choose their picture...they didn't have to be in tux/drape. When I was in high school, we thought that it looked better with everyone in the tux/drape, and it also separated the seniors from all the underclassmen.

[Massacure]

42. I just graduated this past year, and we were able to pick our own photos.

The photographer I hired allowed me to shoot in up to four different styles. I was photographed at a nearby state park and the style I choose was of me standing out on a wave-break looking out over the Great Lakes with a lighthouse in the background. There was also a thunderstorm about an hour after we finished, so there are dark clouds in the sky but out in the horizon you can see the sun.

It cost a fortunate, but the photos turned out great.

[tammywammy]

44. It was tux/drape

just for the book.

I did some different ones with the photographer the school uses, but in the end I went to a different photographer for the pictures we purchased. But for the yearbook, it had to be a tux/drape done by that specific photographer. Basically there were a few cattle calls during the summer when you could go, and also a couple of times during the fall.

I just ended up not liking the photos I got from the school selected photographer. I didn't even really like my yearbook photo, which sucked, but I was too lazy to go to another photo shoot.

[Massacure]

45. Yea, thats what I was talking about, the book.

Most of my relatives that got pictures didn't use the same photo I used for the yearbook. There was no requirement for what we submitted to the yearbook though. Just use common sense basically. Some people wore suits, but no one wore a tux.

[KamaAina]

33. What's with all the SCA-bashing? Don't knock it 'til you've tried it!

I only ever went to one event, years ago in Conn., er, I mean "Dragonship Haven", but it turned out to be a blast. Later I tried SCA-style swordfighting; the rather fiery instructor told me I was hitting too hard!!

Oh yes, the lady (their terminology) who took me was quite popular with the "lords", despite not being terribly attractive in a conventional sense. I can assure you, her favorite movie is not "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" (if only because Cary Elwes isn't in it :-) )

[Bridget Burke]

34. I think that SCA groups vary widely.

Some of the baronies may have become a bit inbred. Others display serious love of historical knowledge & even a sense of humor.

I may yet look into my local Barony of Stargate, in the Kingdom of Ansteorra.

[w8liftinglady]

43. my oldest son's godfather was a member

he was the coolest,most unique person i knew.He was also a trekkie,and has just about every musical album made at the time.I loved the people in the SCA

[mondo joe]

35. I don't mind. I don't like schools dictating personal choices.

That is all.

[JVS]

46. The SCA is a boil on the ass of nerd-dom everywhere!