Posted on 04/08/2008 6:57:06 AM PDT by mnehring
Melanie Bowers, 13, and her parents walked into Athens High School Monday afternoon to talk to campus police. They were hoping to get some answers.
"It never should have happened in the first place. The whole assignment was a silly assignment and they should have contacted us immediately after it happened," said J.R. Bowers, Melanie's father.
It was an assignment for history class--to make a protest sign for or against an issue, and Melanie said she chose illegal immigration. Her sign read, "If you love our nation, stop illegal immigration." Somehow, Melanie said the sign got passed around lunch and angered a group of Latino students.
"I didn't know any of these people," she said. One young, she claimed, jumped on her back and he put her in a choke hold. "We have brick walls in the middle school and he slammed my face on the bricks."
Melanie said a group of boys also threatened to rape and kill her. Eventually, the boys let her go and when she went for help, she was ordered back to class, and told she could not call her parents, she said.
"They handled this wrong, you know, they put a child back in danger," said J.R. Bowers. "It was a very racially motivated crime."
Athens ISD gave KLTV 7 a statement, confirming there was a disturbance in the hallway, Friday between two to three students. "We have a camera system in the building," said Louis DeRosa. "We are collecting other information and statements from witnesses and this is all the information we have at this time," he said.
Melanie and her parents said they just hope the right thing is done...and quickly.
"I won't be happy until the kids that did this are out of school," Bowers said.
At least give the teachers the benefit that they helped in that process!
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My many nun teachers and a handful of government teachers did send home textbooks and curriculum.
My parents and I did 100% of the work.
You would not have had the work to do without the teacher sending the books home and instructing you on which section to study. Credit where credit is due, is that so hard to understand?
Such a victim mentality. “I didn’t learn anything ‘cause they didn’t try hard enough for meeeeeeeee”
Maybe you didn’t learn enough because you didn’t apply yourself. I applied myself and got good grades. I was on the honor-roll and very eager to stay there. Public school did good for me, and they continue to do good for my kids.
Yeah, I’m all for giving homeschoolers back the money that the state is stealing from them to pay for other people’s education. Nonetheless, throwing money at the problem obviously isn’t working for the department of education. Education-wise, homeschoolers still have the advantage.
Credit where credit is due, is that so hard to understand
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OK...so the classroom nuns and teachers sent home a curriculum that was organized by educators on a higher level.
My parents and I did 100% of the rest of the work.
Oh, really? Well, I demand a baptismal font! And a confessional -- you never know when a person with a guilty conscience will want a throwdown sacrament of penance. And a mikva -- every airport needs a mikva! How can you expect Haredim to get on an airplane with people who've been eating bacon and breathing it all over the place, fly 600 miles with polluted air all over them, and not want to ablute as soon as they land, before they take all that uncleanness home to their families? As for their luggage -- don't get me started on where the luggage has been! We need a teshuva on that, about whether we need standby rebbis in airports, as well as priests ready to hear confessions.
Sounds only fair to me.
Or on the other hands, when Moo's start pushing, we could just tell them, "you get the same deal as everyone else. If you think different, you are free to be wrong."
This is a GREAT paragraph!
“a lot of Homeschool proponents (who still are often attacked and maligned) are acting just like the people many years back on the other side that assaulted homeschoolers with insults and called them wacky nuts. I remember those days well. Now, the homeschooler parents verbally attack people and call them bad parents if they have their children in public schools. I have heard this many times and seen posts that do accuse people of abusing their children by sending them to “gooberment schools” (that cliche, BTW, is getting really old). The reality is that some parents ARE wacky nuts. Some wacky nuts DO homeschool and some wacky nuts send their kiddies to PUBLIC school, and some wacky nuts send their kids to PRIVATE schools. So what? Meanwhile, wonderful parents sent their children to public, some homeschool, etc. etc. (you get the point).”
GREAT PARAGRAPH PAVED PARADISE!!!
You are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!
Good night Tom. What’s in your cofee?
I love homeschooling and homeschoolers but I think there is value in public education. There should be a choice and it should be equitable.
Vouchers, to me, seems the only trully equitable way to provide for education that the parents are able to maintain their influence and have a choice of institutions where their children attend.
Hey, they’re just suppressing the First Amendment freedoms that Americans won’t suppress.
“They” is a pretty broad brush. Who are “they”? All teachers? Most teachers? Some teachers? This is the problem with these threads. There is much hyperbole going on, and it creates much heat and sheds very little light.
There will be abuses and bad things in all things humans have a hand in. That includes public schools, and that includes home schooling.
I wonder how many people come and read these threads, and never post but come away with the idea that the vast majority of home schoolers are folks who honestly believe that public schools are evil and believe parents who send their kids there are stupid or worse. I have known home schooling parents during my lifetime and NONE of them spouted the nonsense I see here.
I have always been a big proponent of home schooling. I also have seen many problems in public schools. The reality, however, is that many people will never home school (and wouldn’t even if it were the ONLY option) and if the current system of public schooling were shut down we would have many completely uneducated kids. This may have been fine 100 years ago, however these days it would be a disaster.
It would be much preferable for those who want to just wave their hand and call for public schools to be done away with to actually get involved and try to change the things that need changing. There are a few here who certainly can’t see any way they could be changed for the better, but I suspect most people could imagine it being better if they were in charge.
Oh, and Metmom, I hope you weren’t referring to me as a Troll. You and I may disagree on this issue but I’m hardly a Troll.
susie
Do the search and check this outrage offered only to the religion promoting mass murder of innocent people. We live in a country on life support.
Are there exceptions? ...Possibly, but I have never met them.
Well then, we should meet. I would consider myself somewhat academically successful, having graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BA in Exercise Physiology. My parents didn't do much involving my education, my Mom worked (back in the olden days when most Mom's didn't) and they assumed the schools were doing their jobs. Somehow I muddled through. So, you may have to stop saying "all" when you quote yourself next time.
And maybe you should meet my kids too. None were homeschooled (although I would have if I had known it was an option). I did very little helping them with their educations, unless they asked for help, (which they rarely did). All went through the local school's Gift/Talented program, took honors classes and graduated from college.
;)
susie
I so wish we would go to a voucher system.
susie
Uh, yeah. That's a large part of it. I'm not denying it.
In about 5th or 6th grade, they switched to *New Math*. Screwed up everybody and my parents couldn't help because they didn't understand it and they were both good in math.
In 7th grade, my young math teacher was more interested in hitting on the hot girls in class than teaching. In 8th grade, they put me in some experimental LARGE classrooms and I was towards the back and could hardly hear a thing. By 9th grade, at that point, who cared? I had lost so much that it was just a matter of putting in my time.
And phonics? Forget it. I was a great speller and loved to read but I was taught the whole language method. English was a bore. And then after having an English teacher make fun of the topic of a paper I had chose in front of the whole class,.....
I got great grades in science as much as my screwed up math background allowed.
So, by the time I was in high school, I didn't care, I was getting good enough grades to pass, and I can't blame anyone for that but me. But the school system has it's share of responsibility to bear in it as well.
It was only after I graduated and got a job, that I decided to finish up my college degree. Then I WANTED to learn the stuff. The change in attitude made all the difference in the world. I went on to pass calculus with no trig, nothing beyond the algebra and geometry I didn't understand to begin with.
I had to learn everything I needed to succeed in college, while I was in college, how to write a paper and how to do the math to understand and pass calculus. Nothing I didn't learn in high school did me any good.
School administrators (particularly principals it seems) and social workers.
This,IMO, is why the school system is down-playing this event.
http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/tx/district_profile/112?schoolId=504#students
More than a third of the students in the district are Hispanic.
Certainly not! Whatever gave you that idea?
Or that homosexuals could marry. Or that rubbers are given out in schools. Or that teachers can't pray in school.
All of them?
;)
susie
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