my advice, for what it is worth, is to type up a polite note, with simply the facts concerning your son's version of the story, the fact he was in a room alone with a same gendered school official for questioning (this in and of itself is in the gray area as far as i am concerned), that you will talk to your son (or have), will not sign the original note and most importantly, to please get me involved when my son does something wrong in the future. do not threaten or appear mean spirited, be factual, leaving your emotions elsewhere like dr. spock.
send to the administrator, copy to his teacher, copy to the superintendant and copy to each member of the board of education.
if you really have the guts, send a copy to the local newspaper.
i am not a lawyer, but such a letter i wrote ended up getting a city employee canned -- he had lots of history and my letter was the last straw.
Intimidation by school officials is a scary thing to a child. I'm sure he will never feel the same way about school officials or the school. By hanging up on you they demonstrated they have no respect for parents as well. Liberal mindset, needless to say. Definitely, go to the Superintendent in person. Make sure they understand in no uncertain tone that being alone in a room with a child is definitely not a good thing to do. Advise them, that that will never happen again! Any incident in the future is to be handled thru you and you are to be contacted prior to your son being interviewed with 2 adults present plus you. Alert them you will be contacting an attorney and possibly DHS, if your son is affected emotionally by their mental abuse. Hopefully you are a member of Pre-paid legal, it won't cost you anything. Or maybe have a friend that is. Unfortunately, if a incident is drug related, children have no rights at school as the school officials are their legal guardians, during the school day... Scary isn't it! Good luck!
This is a tough one and I understand your concerns. School staff are over reacting to everything now-days IMO. I personally don't have a problem with responsible little girls and boys carrying pocket knifes but I also understand that rules may need to be drawn for safety. If a child brought a gun to school and no one said anything and someone was shot... That said, I think I would help my son add an addendum that he knows the difference between a threatening situation and just tattling and that since a teacher was notified he had no further responsibility and that he admits no guilt and is willing to miss recess on principle if necessary
Public schools require the participation of parents in order to maintain discipline and to actually function as an institution to educate our children. I can't believe people are actually recommending you retain counsel to resolve this matter. If your son doesn't realize that a pocket knife is considered a weapon in today's society then you should educate him. Then you should make sure he knows the rules of the school he's attending and discipline him yourself when he breaks a rule.
My dad was a teacher for 30+ years and at the end of his career had a parent file an assault suit against him because he had to physically remove a kid from a climbing rope after he'd told the youngster (elementary school) to stay off the rope several times and the boy refused. A court case and lawyers fees because a parent couldn't face the fact that little johnny couldn't follow the rules.
Slap yourself and sign the form.
This is not an "interrogation" but an attempt to resolve a difficult problem. Legal rights? Puhlease, we can't go about Mirandizing students every time there is a problem. Standard procedure is to question the students away from the others in a quiet area..
For school administrators a knife on campus is a huge incident, a "10" on the Richter Scale, and is grounds for instant suspension.
Our principal sent home a student for bringing a knife (provided by the parent) with which to cut cheese. She hated to do it but felt it was necessary to enforce school policy. She gave all students a "heads-up" about this at the commencement of the year so there'd be no future confusion. Students are also told that if they see a knife they are to immediately report it to an adult supervisor or they would face disciplinary actions.
Your child is not being suspended and hasn't, to this point, missed even a recess; I'd say that is not too bad at all. In fact, it sounds as though the administrators are trying to be reasonable.
You could show up and make a scene, but II'd really think it through.
Instead, I'd have your child do the assignment and then attach a note explaining your point of view.
The way you wrote this makes me think that the kid knew he was wrong to have the knife at school. Maybe all the boys were enjoying their little secret of the knife. Then one of them blabbed. I have no problem with the school enforcing the rules about knives at school, but I do have a problem with the way it's been handled. They should have involved you from the beginning. I speak from experience, as I was hauled into the principal's office in 6th grade for kicking a classmate in the shins. His parents were there. He was there. I was ganged up on. I kicked him because he groped me, but no one asked why, and I was too timid to tell them. I wish like hell my parents had been called in to help me deal with the adults.
This is not an "interrogation" but an attempt to resolve a difficult problem. Legal rights? Puhlease, we can't go about Mirandizing students every time there is a problem. Standard procedure is to question the students away from the others in a quiet area..
For school administrators a knife on campus is a huge incident, a "10" on the Richter Scale, and is grounds for instant suspension.
Our principal sent home a student for bringing a knife (provided by the parent) with which to cut cheese. She hated to do it but felt it was necessary to enforce school policy. She gave all students a "heads-up" about this at the commencement of the year so there'd be no future confusion. Students are also told that if they see a knife they are to immediately report it to an adult supervisor or they would face disciplinary actions.
Your child is not being suspended and hasn't, to this point, missed even a recess; I'd say that is not too bad at all. In fact, it sounds as though the administrators are trying to be reasonable.
You could show up and make a scene, but II'd really think it through.
Instead, I'd have your child do the assignment and then attach a note explaining your point of view.
Seems our school isn't the only one then.
Last week our son was suspended half a day because he hit a girl that repeatedly tried to kick him in the groin.
She got suspended for half a day as well.
He got suspeneded for for touching her (behaving in an unsafe manner) AND for not just going to find one of the teachers. The incident took place outside at lunch.
The girl was suspended the half day for repeatedly trying to kick him in the groin. She messed up by telling the assistant principal that it was an accident. The assistant principal said you don't accidentally try to kick someone in the groin.
I told my son he did the right thing. Had he merely looked for an adult/teacher, chances are since the girl hadn't connected with her kick, and since it would have been his word against hers, chances are that nothing would have been done.
See they got half day suspensions because this was totally out of character for both of them. My son is a 4.0 student and member of the honor society.
I don't like the idea that he was suspended for defending himself but the girl got what she deserved.
See that evening was a band/choir concert at school. Because of her suspension she was not allowed on school property. She is in choir and her failure to show at the concert givers her an automatic E for her choir grade for the end of the first marking period of the school year. That's gotta hurt considering she was an A/B student.
My son isn't in band nor choir so he keeps his 4.0 status for this first marking period. I still think it sort of stinks that he has a half day suspension on his record for defending himself, but oh well.
If the superintendent won't listen, go to the school board. The main issue here is not the written statement so much as the fact that you were left out of the loop until afterward.
All three were told if they did not bring the form signed by a parent tomorrow, they would miss recess.
What was the other bad choice? Knowing what else they claim he did wrong might have an effect on the legal situation.
I don't think any of his rights were violated, not yet at least. He hasn't been punished.
What you need to do is schedule a meeting with the principal and administrator and identify your concerns, but don't bother complaining about things that might come off as petty, like the mere fact that they asked him questions about the knife.
Where I think you have an upper hand is to ask what makes the school believe that your son knew that the school would consider his failure to snitch on his friend to be a "bad choice"? Is there a written policy that states as much? Have all of the children been advised that failure to snitch would be considered punishable? Ask questions about the child being forced to acknowledge "bad choices" when the child and parents were not advised that failure to snitch could be punishable. You need to go on offense where you can without being offensive.
Snitching on a pal is counterintuitive. It may be entirely appopriate in certain situations, but not in most, and that's why the school ought to bear responsibility for providing adequate notice to parents and education to the kids that there's a snitch requirement before (1) demanding that they acknowledge in writing that any failure to snitch will be considered a "bad choice" and (2) that they will be subject to discipline and/or punishment together with a permanent record if they and/or their parents refuse to acknowledge that failure to snitch is a "bad choice". Knowing what the other "bad choice" was might help me guide you in distinguishing between the two - for instance, there may be an express written policy about the other bad act. Why is there no written snitch policy?
You should be able to have the statement torn up. Then explain to your child that the school over-reacted and that you took care of it. Thank him for discussing the situation with you. Remind him that what his friend did was wrong, and tell him that if he senses a dangerous situation, he could be a hero one day if others are saved because he spoke up.
I have no idea how to deal with the other bad choice because I don't know what it is.
Home school.
Give me the name of the principal and school. I'd like to interview him and skewer him here. Perhaps he needs to feel some heat.
Unfortunately, situations like this have arisen thanks to Columbine. The schools mandated that any child had to report if someone had a weapon or was threatening anyone.
Personally, it stinks, but the times they are a changin. Try looking at it from their perspective.
If you want to avoid these things, homeschool. It's the only way.
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