Posted on 09/22/2006 5:42:21 AM PDT by laotzu
I used to think vice principals had it easy. All they did, I thought, was administer licks to wayward students. Back in the day, they called it "paddling." Today, they call it "child abuse."
Vice principals have among the toughest jobs of all — administering discipline in a hypersensitive, lawsuit-fearing, politically correct public school system.
Try dealing with the student who yells at you, swears at you, threatens you. "That happens everywhere," one school administrator said Thursday.
Then there's the kid who takes aim at your reputation. Ask Anna Draker. As assistant principal at Clark High School, she can tell you all about it.
Over the course of the 2005-06 school year, Draker disciplined one particular student on multiple occasions. In return, the student savaged her in cyberspace.
Last spring, a dean showed Draker a Web page from MySpace.com. On it was her face, lifted from Clark's Web site. Also on the page were lewd comments, obscene pictures and images of sexual devices.
Thanks to an act of student revenge, Draker became an unwitting target of sexual propositions on MySpace. She also became the talk of the school. Almost everyone but Draker seemed to know about the Web page.
The offending male student admitted to making the MySpace post. He did it during nonschool hours, on a computer at home, with help from at least one friend.
For defaming an assistant principal, the student received a three-day suspension.
Was that enough?
I don't think so.
The District Attorney's Office doesn't think so. Prosecutors are pursuing a case against the Web page creator, alleging retaliation and identity theft.
Anna Draker does not think enough was done, either. She is pursuing a lawsuit, alleging defamation against two students and negligent supervision against their parents.
At this point, I can hear moms and dads everywhere going, whoa!
How am I, a single mother, supposed to work, cook, clean, do laundry, review homework and police my three kids on the computer?
Or:
How are we supposed to take one kid to soccer, a second to piano, a third to karate and monitor the fourth on the Internet?
Good questions. Draker's lawsuit will certainly spark debate on parental responsibility.
But I hope the suit answers another question about the wild frontier of cyberspace: What should be done to the student who defames a teacher or administrator on the Internet?
There appears to be little case law on the subject.
In Georgia earlier this year, a science teacher claimed a 15-year-old student defamed him on MySpace. The student wrote that the teacher wrestled alligators and midgets, liked Michael Jackson and enjoyed having "a gay old time."
The teacher filed criminal charges; a Georgia court dismissed them as "unconstitutional."
By comparison, that case pales compared to the one here.
"It's not like somebody called Anna Draker a name," said Murphy Klasing, a Houston lawyer representing the assistant principal. "This was four pages of filth. It rose to a level which was so unbelievably vile, the only thing we could do is what we did."
The suit against the Clark students does not specify the damages sought. Klasing says the intent is not to bankrupt the families — "or the suit would say we're seeking a million dollars" — but to hold them accountable.
Five months after the Web posting, Draker may get her wish. By pursuing charges against the Web page creator, she has given the Northside Independent School District a new disciplinary option.District policy precludes harsh penalties for off-campus transgressions — unless criminal charges are filed.
Now that prosecutors are pursuing the case, NISD could re-assign the student to an alternative school.
"That hasn't taken place," said district spokesman Pascual Gonzalez, "but that is a possibility."
No one knows if the criminal case will collapse, if the civil suit will succeed. It appears Anna Draker may be plowing new legal ground, and that's some job. It's one thing to be an assistant principal. It's another to be a pioneer.
Any parent who allows their kid an account of myspace.com should have their head examined. There's nothing but filth there.
"At this point, I can hear moms and dads everywhere going, whoa!
"How am I, a single mother, supposed to work, cook, clean, do laundry, review homework and police my three kids on
How are we supposed to take one kid to soccer, a second to piano, a third to karate and monitor the fourth on the Internet?
Good questions. Draker's lawsuit will certainly spark debate on parental responsibility. "
Teach your kids right and wrong and you don't have to worry.
follow-up to yesterdays article
I would bet that 99% of the viewers of the web pages intuitively knew that they were fiction, that they were viewing a train wreck, and that it really reflected the wisdom, (read lack of wisdom), of the creators.
Parents ought to keep their computers in common areas and install tracking software or at least sift through the kids' cookies once in a while.
OMG MYSPACE IS TEH DEBBIL!!
If this were a matter of payment for service, the parents would recognize that it be to their benefit to make the child behave (they want the service after all or they wouldn't be paying for it), and it would be in the interest of the faculty to handle discipline discreetly and with the parents' cooperation (they want the money).
So if the local newpaper published fictional stories and pictures about you on page one, you wouldn't sue for libel/slander (cannot remember which one is for print)? Defamation is still actionable. It also says the kid is charged with identity theft. That is a huge issue as well.
Your post misses the point. This kid didn't post his opinion of the teacher, he setup a page claiming to be this person and defamed her. If he had just posted his opinion, he would not be charged.
I thought the kid was writing about the woman on his page, because he made it look like it was her page, I agree, it is a horse of a different color.
"Teach your kids right and wrong and you don't have to worry. "
I agree with the first part of your statement but not the second part. Yes. You should teach your kids right and wrong. You still need to worry however. Kids are perfectly capable of acting in ways which are contrary to the values they have been taught. If you have not experienced this in your own family, or seen it with close friends, you are very blessed.
My children will never have a myspace account. My daughter has a friend who has already suffered because someone knew her password and went in and said some terrible vulgar stuff.
And Third of all, it is San Antonio, a septic tank of liberalism. They cant complain about this, they created it. They sh!t in their mess kit and how they are having to eat from it.
Thanks.
Agreed!
Easy way to remember, speech starts with an S so slander is for speech.
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