Posted on 10/14/2013 12:12:38 PM PDT by matt04
It’s tough for Eleanor Cox to talk about how heartbroken her daughter Erin is over the punishment she received for doing what she thought was right.
“She’s very fragile and I’m worried about her. Very worried about her. She didn’t do anything wrong,” Cox told WBZ-TV on Sunday.
Two weeks ago, Erin received a call from a friend at a party who was too drunk to drive. Erin drove to Boxford after work to pick up her friend. Moments after she arrived, the cops arrived too and busted several kids for underage possession of alcohol.
A North Andover High School honor student, Erin was cleared by police, who agreed she had not been drinking and was not in possession of alcohol. But Andover High told Erin she was in violation of the district’s zero tolerance policy against alcohol and drug use. In the middle of her senior year, Erin was demoted from captain of the volleyball team and told she would be suspended from playing for five games.
...
Neither the school district nor its attorney could be reached for comment Sunday, but the Cox family is hoping they’ll listen to the host of supporters who’ve stood behind Erin.
“She didn’t do anything wrong. She did what she thought was right, and I’m very proud of her,” Erin’s mother said.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.cbslocal.com ...
OK, what you say may be true. What business is it of the school’s?
>> not making excuses for bad behavior
I see your point. The young sober HARD WORKING girl who took pity on a classmate (and society) and gave the classmate a ride to prevent a horrible accident was guilty of bad behavior.
She should be punished so damn hard that she’ll never even *dream* of doing something stupid like *that* again.
LORD have mercy! In our self-righteous zeal we have lost the ability to find goodness in the midst of evil.
In our zeal to Set The All Important Good Example, we trample the very one who did.
(well, if not we, at least one of us...)
School's right.
That's what she gets for being friends with the wrong kids.
I’m not sure why I suspect you’ve not yet raised teenaged kids. Even the good kids who don’t themselves drink will do as Erin Cox did, and come to the rescue of a fruebd who behaved improperly. News flash: kids, especially teens, behave improperly from time to time. Usually, they outgrow it.
There’s no guarantee that would have been the outcome and it’s not her responsibility either way. If she’s constantly making herself available as a free ride for her friends to drink then she is enabling them, because they know they can use her as an escape route every time. If she said no then the other kid would have had more difficulty getting out of her jam and would have thought twice about getting herself into that situation the next time.
There are maybe seven kids in the country who haven’t attended a drinking party at one time or another in their overly protected lives. Kids will be kids and all the nanny state efforts will not stop that.
I gather, then, that you disagree with all those designated-driver PSAs. That you think public policy should be to encourage drunks to get behind the wheel and drive home (or not).
No, maybe he doesn’t drink next time at all because he realizes his friends aren’t supporting him. Or maybe his parents punish him when they find out and take control of the situation. It’s difficult to grasp how you can’t see that if a law-abiding friend constantly makes herself available to drive the getaway car how that encourages the illegal behavior.
>> There are maybe seven kids in the country who haven’t attended a drinking party
...and we’re honored to have three or four of ‘em right here on this thread! How cool is that?
This is no different than that case in Virginia recently of school administrators suspending some boys who were playing with toy guns on private property. In neither case should the school be involved, period.
You're making assumptions that are unwarranted in order to support your (IMO) exceedingly narrow viewpoint.
There’s nothing “nanny state” against enforcing actual laws about alcohol or drugs. This isn’t about putting veggies on the school lunch menu. This is dealing with poisonous, addictive substances that destroy the lives of people of all ages.
Bring civil suits against the school “officials” for defamation of character.
” In the middle of her senior year, Erin was demoted from captain of the volleyball team and told she would be suspended from playing for five games.”
Two weeks after school’s over no one is going to care what sport she played. Her revenge should be to become successful, make lots of money, and rub it in the school administrators’ faces every chance she gets.
>> That’s what she gets for being friends with the wrong kids.
When I was Erin’s age, I might have been her friend. As EDINVA pointed out, kids do dumb stuff... often they outgrow it.
Do you know what was the strongest influence on me to stop doing stupid stuff? Not my parents, not my school, not the police. It was my PEERS who had more sense than I did who set an example that shamed me and caused me to want to change to be more like them.
I’d ask that you consider the effect of a strong good example like Erin on kids who need such, when you’re deciding who should be friends with whom.
You were a hall room monitor, right?
Praise to the school for actually having some measure of moral, ethical and legal standards for its students' conduct. You shouldn't have to go to a religious school to be taught how to lead a moral and ethical life. Proper learning isn't limited to academics and athletics. Not to mention, any abuse of drugs or alcohol spills over into other aspects of someone's life, including their academic and athletic performance. You can't focus on academics in a vacuum and ignore illegal, abusive behavior that is likely to impact on it. Not to mention behavior that very well may kill your students.
Of course not. It's perfectly possible that the drunk girl would have negotiated the two-lane road back to North Andover without doing a head-on and killing herself and who knows how many others. I'll bet Henri Paul could have, although we'll never get to find out, since Monsieur Paul is no longer coming down for breakfast.
If she’s constantly making herself available as a free ride for her friends to drink then she is enabling them, because they know they can use her as an escape route every time.
She was merely trying to mitigate a bad situation she had no role in causing.
If she said no then the other kid would have had more difficulty getting out of her jam and would have thought twice about getting herself into that situation the next time.
Yeah, there's a public policy. Punish the drunks by making them drive themselves home! With luck, they'll be alone or with fellow drunks and only hit a tree or a support column.
It’s not an assumption. If you do it one time that implies to the other person you will do it again. It’s wrong to do it even one time because it sets up the expectation you will do it repeatedly.
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