Posted on 08/31/2010 11:18:40 AM PDT by a fool in paradise
Marcel Williams is plopped down on a couch in his family's duplex apartment. The stillness is unusual for the 14-year-old, who a few years ago roamed football fields as a star running back for the national champion Flagler Junior Pee Wee Bulldogs.
Since then, Marcel said he had been earning A's and B's at Buddy Taylor Middle School, where he also expected to continue playing football this year.
Instead, school just started and Marcel finds himself slouched on the couch, expelled from the classroom and the football field until next year because of something called "tea-bagging" -- a crude taunt Marcel practiced while keeping his pants on.
Marcel said the boys were horsing around in the back of a school bus on their way home. Several other kids were suspended over the incident but Marcel said he was the only one expelled.
"We were just playing. I didn't know they would take it that far," Marcel said of the reaction of school officials.
The punishment does not fit the misdeed, said Marcel's father, Darial Williams, 43.
"I'm not condoning this, but why make this as severe as it is?" Williams said. He said he has not had disciplinary issues with his son before.
"I've never had any problems with Marcel, no bullying," Williams said. "He's not stubborn."
Neither Buddy Taylor Middle School Principal Winnie Oden nor the School District's director of student services, Katrina Townsend, would discuss Marcel's case, citing student confidentiality -- that of Marcel's and the other student.
But "tea-bagging," as students call it, can be a gesture subtle enough that teachers may not even know it happened, or it can be flagrant -- a student, still wearing clothes, rubbing his crotch in another's face, Townsend said.
It's generally handled as a "school discipline issue," with a detention or a call to parents or some other action, Townsend said.
But criminal charges propel it to another level, she said.
That's what happened in Marcel's case; the taunted boy's father pressed criminal charges, Marcel and his family said.
And what Marcel called "tea-bagging," law enforcement officials called lewd and lascivious exhibition -- a felony.
The taunted student's father later changed his mind and declined to press charges against Marcel. But it was too late to stop the School District's disciplinary process. The incident went to the Discipline Review Committee, which recommends consequences to the superintendent, who makes the final decision.
"Generally speaking, for all students that have felony charges or incidents where there is a student victim on their campus, it's considered very serious," Townsend said.
Nine students were expelled from Flagler County schools during the 2009-2010 school year; all involved felony charges.
A school bus security camera recorded the incident involving Marcel but district officials declined to release it, citing student confidentiality and protecting the victim's identity.
Marcel's father said school administrators stated they had never seen such a severe, long-lasting "tea-bagging" as in Marcel's case.
Darial Williams wonders if district officials had seen other cases of "tea-bagging," why didn't they address the problem earlier, making it clear to students and parents that such behavior was happening and unacceptable?
"If you are driving down (Interstate) 95, and you see a small brush fire, are you just going to pull over and watch that small brush fire become a big wildfire?" Darial Williams said. "Any sensible person would call 9-1-1."
Marcel's family provided a copy of a police report that described the incident as lasting for "quite some time" before Marcel was "pulled off" the boy by other students.
But Marcel said no one had to pull him off. The horseplay just ran its course and ended. He said several other students were doing it, too.
"Everybody was playing around and stuff and tea-bagging each other," Marcel said. "I was messing with him and stuff and then I tea-bagged him."
Marcel said the other boy was in on the joke. Marcel said the kid he taunted was laughing and covering his face and making mock sounds of disgust.
Marcel's family also showed a reporter a note from one of Marcel's friends who wrote that the boy was laughing as Marcel tea-bagged him.
Marcel thought the whole thing was over when he walked off the bus. Until he returned to school the next day and he and the other boys were summoned to the principal's office. They were suspended. Ten days later, when Marcel tried to return to Buddy Taylor, he said he was told he was trespassing.
Darial Williams said he has talked to the other boy's father, who has agreed to help Marcel get back in school. But the father declined to be interviewed.
On May 26, district officials expelled Marcel until Jan. 11. At that time, he will be allowed to attend the eighth grade at Pathways Academy, the district's alternative school. Once teachers at Pathways are satisfied with Marcel's behavior, he will be allowed to attend Indian Trails Middle School. Marcel will not be able to return to Buddy Taylor Middle School.
Meanwhile, he is attending "virtual school" via a computer at home.
Marcel is stunned. He said when he was at Buddy Taylor there was a "national butt-slapping day" and a day to "pop girls' bra straps," which were relayed via cell phones. So the suspension for tea-bagging knocked the wind out of the running back like a well-placed hit from a linebacker.
Townsend said school personnel review the code of conduct with students at the beginning of every year districtwide.
Marcel's father said he feels his son's future, academically and athletically, is being jeopardized due to an overreaction.
"If it goes the way it's going now, it may effect his admission into a college, hopefully not, but these things tend to follow you," Williams said.
:)
Nice personal attack there when debating the issue didn’t work for you. So typical of threads like this one.
So I guess your post about incorrectly taking things personally and apologizing for doing so means nothing. Got it.
But you said your kids never walk down the street alone even at 15. That you walk them. You said you don’t even walk alone anywhere. That’s surprising to some of us. Hell, you never walk alone. Anywhere. That’s surprising to some of us. Hell, I’ve been walking and driving alone most of my life.
You said you are keeping your kids from temptation and don’t allow them any freedom outside of you and your husband. So basically what we read is that your kids have absolutely no freedom to learn to make decisions for themselves. They only spend time with you and others just like you. And we read that as if they don’t have incremental freedom based on age as is what most of us experienced, then how can you trust them to ever make any decisions without you? It reads like you don’t allow them any freedom so therefore they don’t make any mistakes because you don’t allow it. No freedom, no temptation, no mistakes. Sorta like Islam.
So when they are teens or 20 somethings, never having experienced anything without you how do you know they will be able to handle all the choices and decisions they will have to make? Since they weren’t allowed to make any at all until they were adults? Oh right, they still won’t be allowed any freedom.
I think this is what Carley is addressing.
Hey, you can do whatever you want. I don’t care. Same as I don’t give a damn what you or anyone thinks of how I raise my kids.
For discussion sake, and we are posting on a message board (the big bad internet but most are ok with that since they post on it, lol, funny how that works ain’t it), it’s ok to have differing opinions. I could think you’re weird and feel sorry for your kids and you could think the same of me and mine. It doesn’t matter. But, it’s good to discuss this stuff with other people who share our basic values. Attacking them personally sorta cuts all that discussion off, imo.
So I get that you allow your kids absolutely no freedom whatsoever until they are some age past 15 or whatever age you deem appropriate. Maybe when they are married? Therefore, they can’t earn your trust because they are never without you to make any decisions on their own that you supposedly taught them by allowing them no freedom whatsoever. So they can never earn your trust or be tested on that trust.
Of course you’re sure your kids will never do anything wrong WHILE THEY ARE UNDER 21 or whatever age because they are never given the chance to make any decisions on their on.
Can’t have any temptation interfering with making any decisions, choosing to do the right thing with no restrictions, lol.
I think it’s just fine you raise your kids the way you deem right. It would be nice if that sentiment was reciprocated but we all know it isn’t.
So you stay right up on that high horse of your’s honey and heaven forbid your kids don’t follow you exactly. I hope that bubble doesn’t burst for them or you.
And when is that “independence” supposed to happen if they are never given the opportunity to work towards that independence?
Please. The world has always been barbaric. Our kids have is way easier than those of a few generations ago and certainly more than those hundreds of years ago.
Children need protection. They always needed protection and this era is the time they get the most protection. Children also need to learn how to defend themselves. The children today are the LEAST equipped to defend themselves because the liberals and other nanny-staters, lots of so called conservatives, refuse to allow them to defend themselves.
Mu kids aren’t or weren’t equipped to grow up in the city like I did. Duh. That was the point of moving here. But they have been taught how to defend themselves without living in a bubble. Others do it differently and that’s just fine and some of us do it another way and that’s just fine too. I sure as hell don’t want the govt, federal, state, judicial involved or dictating how I raise my kids.
It is a huge deal and his son is the perpetrator and now he’s suing.
It’s not something really new. Been going on for a while...kids rubbing their crotch in another’s face/teabagging with clothes on.
Used to be girls who experienced this and now it’s boy on boy.
Or maybe teach the kids to fight back but oh we can’t do that anymore.
Oh please. lol
Especially today when parents are sticking up for their kids who exhibit this behavior and it’s becoming more common. And the victim can’t defend himself anymore.
Unfortunately, it is becoming common for this type of thing. They are learning it’s ok and that their parents won’t punish/ground them.
“Sorta like Islam.”
Don’t respond to me again. Comparing my love and protection of my children to a hate filled child abusing worldview is inexcusable.
We don’t know all the details.
We had a similar incident at our k-8 Catholic school. Last year! I only knew about it because my daughter was friends with both the victim and the perpetrators. She sat between both so heard all the details before it was brought to the attention of the school.
There were suspensions of course. And the victim left the school and didn’t attend 8th grade.
He never ratted the kids out, though. Another witness did and my kid only told me and I didn’t make much of it at the time. I didn’t know the whole story.
But it’s interesting how the parents of the perptrators reacted. Their kids did nothing wrong of course.
This is still a discussion in our house and we call them the homo bathroom boys, losers who will never be allowed to date our daughters.
You sound very angry. Did I say the fedgov or stategov or countygov or municipalgov should protect anyone’s children?
At the same time, kids should not be permitted to torment or sexually molest other kids. You think that should be permitted; apparently.
I am not saying that children should be protected from responsbility, vigorous play or exercise or fun, from learning to work and having a work ethic.
I am saying they should be protected from sickos, freaks, predators, and kids who are on the way to becoming such. Kids should not have to endure crap like what this article describes. This era protects children too much from things they should be able to experience like riding bikes without helmets, working, being properly disciplined, and so on. But they are not protected enough from molesters, which includes many teachers, or leftist propaganda in schools, and other crap which wasn’t around when I was a kid.
In my younger kids school it was just a suspension for the perpetrators.
If my kid was the victim, those boys would have been terrifed to come back to school.
Oh wait, if one of my kids were the victim (just even typing one of my kids being a victim...um no) she would have beat the hell out of the wimps.
The victim of the teabagging in our school never ratted those kids out. Hid parents took him out at the end of the year along with their other kid.
A part of me wonders what the hell the parents of the victim and perpetrators were thinking. If that were my kid, as a victim, she would have beat the hell out of them or I would have scared the hell out of them. If my kid was the perpetrator, house arrest at the very least. Why were the parents not more appalled by this behavior?
Back when I was in school, boys didn’t do that to other boys.
I agree and I don’t give a damn if any moron calls me a racist or bigot.
It’s spreading for sure but all the great kids, and there are many and they outweigh the morons, don’t get the press.
Great post.
Please. Anyone with a brain or hormones knew what a BJ/oral sex was.
Oral sex may not have been a topic for some but it was always around and happened. And normal.
I agree with the rest of your post.
Twink, you’re one of the rudest people I’ve seen on FR for quite some time.
Sounds as though you could have used a little more parental guidance growing up, maybe you wouldn’t be so coarse and aggressive now.
Some years ago when I lived in northern CA - a small town - two young women were kidnapped, raped and killed. While they were walking alone (separate occasions). The killers tried it again but fortunately the young woman escaped.
I supposed it was just a learning experience for the two that didn’t escape, according to your philosophy. ]Bad luck for them, eh. Maybe they should have been better at fighting back or something. Or been a tough cookie like yourself and ripped the kidnapper/rapists limb from limb.
EXACTLY!
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