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Dad Sues Over School Lunch Seating Restriction
WNBC Television ^ | 5/20/2004 | Puppage

Posted on 05/20/2004 10:50:06 AM PDT by Puppage

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To: headsonpikes
Why are adults obsessing about controlling, in detail, where children sit at lunch-time?

One big problem is schools have turned into some kind of social event --- kids aren't going to learn, they're going to be cool, make friends, go to dances. I think we should maybe consider dumping schools as they're known and replace them with learning centers which would have no social function -- strictly for learning.

221 posted on 05/20/2004 4:16:08 PM PDT by FITZ
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To: jacquej

Schools must do a lot better on discipline

http://www.borderlandnews.com/stories/opinion/columnists/20040520-120436.shtml

This is an interesting editorial ---- in one school discipline cut the class size by 40% That's almost half the kids!! It's become quite a free-for-all in some schools --- and the taxpayers are just having their money wasted. If kids want a social event then let them quit school and join a club.


222 posted on 05/20/2004 4:20:48 PM PDT by FITZ
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To: Puppage

Excuse me for bucking the police-state mentality -- but assigned seating at lunch? Uh, no.


223 posted on 05/20/2004 4:27:25 PM PDT by my_pointy_head_is_sharp
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To: ChinaThreat

Yes. Children need to be taught that every rule, no matter how inane or stupid it might seem, is to be followed. The government knows what's best for you.

Seating restrictions at lunch time is possibly the dumbest thing I've ever heard come out of a public school (and that's saying something). Why not simply make two separate lunch periods to split up the number of kids? There are other, better solutions. These are KIDS. They need to socialize.


224 posted on 05/20/2004 4:35:54 PM PDT by Quick1
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To: FITZ

Unfortunately, middle school kids can't just "quit school and join a club." They and their parents are there under threat of compulsory education laws. Maybe that's what pisses so many kids and their disinterested parents off. Think about it.

Well, it is changing and perhaps for the better. Public schools that are afraid of losing kids to homeschooling are now offering on-line courses for kids who for one reason or another just don't want to attend the local school and put up with all the nonsense. It's a win-win situation -- kid gets to live the life he wants to live, develops his own interests on his own time (considerably more time than if he attended school for 7 1/2 hours a day) and gets an education, and the school gets a chunk of change for providing the service. Neither has to have much to do with the other if they don't want to.


225 posted on 05/20/2004 4:50:45 PM PDT by ladylib
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To: Xenalyte

"Students aren't in school to "interact." "

What would you have them learn? I guess we disagree. Schools have traditionally been expected to serve up moral lessons and good citizenship. How can students learn these things without authentic opportunities to interact with one another?

I'm not saying that the girl shouldn't be punished for challenging a rule, but I am glad that at least one student is doing so!


226 posted on 05/20/2004 5:24:17 PM PDT by zook
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To: iconoclast
Slowly, but surely, the Nazi's are beginning to outnumber the conservatives on this thread.

You noticed that too?

"Laws are for the guidance of wise men and the blind obedience of fools." - Solon, the Lawmaker of Athens, d. 559 BC

227 posted on 05/20/2004 5:33:45 PM PDT by Oztrich Boy ("Despise not the jester. Often he is the only one speaking the truth")
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To: headsonpikes
Why are adults obsessing about controlling, in detail, where children sit at lunch-time? What an un-American attitude!

LOL, it's all a control thing. I can't image some idiot telling me were I have to sit to eat lunch. Except the military or prison. What joke.

228 posted on 05/20/2004 5:34:30 PM PDT by Joe Hadenuf (I failed anger management class, they decided to give me a passing grade anyway)
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To: zook
What would you have them learn?

Oh, I don't know . . . reading and writing English, perhaps, or maybe math or science. Something frivolous and not at all as important as "good citizenship," which of course the parents can't teach at all, so the schools must.
229 posted on 05/20/2004 5:37:14 PM PDT by Xenalyte (I may not agree with your bumper sticker, but I shall defend to the death your right to stick it)
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To: Oztrich Boy

What we need are stricter, crueler, harsher laws for children! (Just kidding!)


230 posted on 05/20/2004 5:37:20 PM PDT by zook
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To: Iron Matron

I can't completly agree. I had assigned seats when I was in school but I've never heard of assigned lunch seats. Unless this school has a major gang problem I don't see the point of this rule.


231 posted on 05/20/2004 5:40:45 PM PDT by thathamiltonwoman
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To: Xenalyte

I understand where you're coming from. Schools need to teach those things. But if that's *all* they're going to teach, then they don't even need to *serve* lunch. They can have kids come in for four hours a day and go home, to work, to music lessons, etc.

But if we're going to keep this current model, where kids go for 6 or more hours per day, where most people expect schools to mold their moral and social thinking, then we're going to need to allow them the freedom to interact with each other.


232 posted on 05/20/2004 5:43:31 PM PDT by zook
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To: iconoclast
>>Maybe. But I'd bet for damn sure we won't be a drone.<<

No she won't be a drone but she could be the low paid CNA serving up your strained peas at the nursing home because she doesn't feel she has to follow the rules of any other position.

If she doesn't like where she is sitting on a job, does she take over the President's desk?

As I said, she should have gone to her dad the first time of the three (normally, verbal warning, written warning then detention - in due process) and tried to change it then. No matter how stupid the rules are, a parent will get farther with the administration if the kid is not pegged as a troublemaker.

Now he's suing, GREAT! Lawyer's fees that come out of the communities property taxes. Good Job!
233 posted on 05/20/2004 5:44:34 PM PDT by netmilsmom (Supporting our troops, 5/27 - M59 & Old Van Dyke! Yoller if you see us!)
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To: Xenalyte

And let me add, when I speak of molding moral and social thinking I mean in the positive kinds of ways in which schools have traditionally done this; e.g., don't steal, don't lie, follow the golden rule, etc.


234 posted on 05/20/2004 5:45:42 PM PDT by zook
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To: netmilsmom

Here's what I'd like to have seen. The students request a change in the rules. Ideally, the school would take them seriously and allow a change on an experimental basis. But if the school said no, then I'd be proud to see those kids engage in civil disobedience inside that school. On a given day all 267 of them walk in and peacefully sit where they like.



235 posted on 05/20/2004 5:49:33 PM PDT by zook
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To: Puppage
Assigned seating for lunch?! WTF?!

The idiots have completely taken over.

236 posted on 05/20/2004 5:54:29 PM PDT by zoyd (Hi, I'm with the government. We're going to make you like your neighbor.)
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To: zook

The school administration would just have the kids arrested for "disrupting the educational process" no matter how peaceful the kids were.

If they're really unhappy with it, the parents can let the administration know and maybe there'll be a change.

There was a change in policy when one principal in the same state wanted a "silent" lunch for middle school kids and curtailment of bathroom "privileges" this past year, and unhappy parents let the administration know that the kids didn't want to come back next year.

It's all about money and the potential loss of it if no one wants to go to your school.


237 posted on 05/20/2004 6:01:21 PM PDT by ladylib
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To: zook

I'll give ya that one!
Sounds good, but one disruptive student, does nothing. She's had detention before. Maybe she was the wrong one to take the stand.

Also, this is middle school. Why weren't the parents involved if it was so awful for the kids? Perhaps this is an isolated incident.


238 posted on 05/20/2004 6:01:51 PM PDT by netmilsmom (Supporting our troops, 5/27 - M59 & Old Van Dyke! Yoller if you see us!)
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To: Puppage

What would you say if the discipline rationale were only a smokescreen and the real reason for seating assignments was to prevent RACIAL SELF-SEGREGATION that is reported in most school lunchrooms and other free social settings? I checked 236 messages no one has thought of that.


239 posted on 05/20/2004 6:05:18 PM PDT by UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide (Give Them Liberty Or Give Them Death! - Islam Delenda Est! - Rumble thee forth...)
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To: Puppage; inflation; Sloth; zook; SaveTheChief; Skooz; Dasaji; malakhi; Bella_Bru; Poodlebrain; ...
Galloway Township Superintendent: "It's just decorum."

Nah. Not "decorum" -- order it is, and a harsh forced order too. Too much forced order certainly is something that cramps and breaks the high human spirit that real character growth needs. Decorum this is not -- it's too orderly for most Americans to tolerate in most circumstances.

Yet it is a totally proper decision -- the proper and well-used authority of the school board, of the superintendent, of the principal or of the lunch-room staff to make and enforce and in doing so not being subject to overrule. Unles there are very strange facts not reported any judge who tarries with this case -- this frivilous suit and attempts to overrule legitimate authority acting in its porper role -- that judge himeself or herself is a rogue and overrreaching in misfeasance.

The father has a legimate complaint but has sought the wrong venue -- his recourse is through the school, or the school board -- or through the public election process. There are his proper lines of attack -- or even to place his child in a school whose operations better temper to his own.

Not decorum at all! Too much like a jail house mess for free men -- and their children too!

It is legitimate and sometimes necessary in wild districts to use such stern measures. Adults in full sanity and good experience know when to apply such measures in measured ways.

Yet by that very word of the Superindent "decorum" -- it's hideous misuse in context -- a fair guess is he's a master who knows not fish from fowl.

240 posted on 05/20/2004 6:13:59 PM PDT by bvw
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