Posted on 11/04/2015 11:48:10 PM PST by grundle
OVIEDO, Fla. - The family of a girl who was given detention for hugging a classmate has hired an attorney.
In a press release from the attorney's office, Morgan & Morgan, Matt Morgan said the law firm was hired to help raise awareness.
The incident happened Monday at Jackson Heights Middle School in Oviedo.
"I'm definitely hoping that we're bringing light to this subject," said Kathy Fishbough, whose daughter, Ella, was issued the detention. "I really didn't expect this."
Morgan said he believes there may be policies in place that discourage children from being kind to one another.
"According to these alleged policies and procedures, a simple hug given to a friend in their time of need is apparently worthy of reprimand," the law office said in a statement. "We believe this conduct sends the wrong message to our children. They should be encouraged to be kind, not discouraged. The family hopes to bring awareness to this issue in an attempt to make our school systems a more compassionate and loving place for children to spend their days."
Since News 6's story aired, the girl said they've been bombarded with interview requests from national media.
For the first time, on Wednesday, News 6 heard from the Seminole County School District. Representative Michael Lawrence said that while the district has been criticized for banning hugs, the real issue is how far students can go in showing affection.
"If you're hugging your friends, you just won a big game," Lawrence said. "They're all mobbing you and giving you a hug, or you just saw your friend over the summer and you're greeting them briefly for the first time -- that's OK."
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Nonetheless, banning hugs is what's gotten most of the attention. That's partly because Jackson Heights' own planner, which is given to all students, clearly states "no hugging."
Lawrence said that statement might go too far.
"They get those planners year after year," said Lawrence. "That's something that we will review and if it needs clarification, we can tweak the verbiage of that particular area."
In the meantime, the Fishboughs have a meeting with the principal Thursday, when they'll get to see the school security video that shows the actual hug.
"I'm hoping to have a better understanding of what was witnessed, what took place, and maybe then we can shine a little light on both sides of the story and come together as adults and figure out what we can do from here forward," Fishbough said.
Ella's detention is set for Friday. Her mother told News 6 that no matter what happens in the coming days, her daughter will be there, because she broke the rules.
If she hugged another girl, she’s definitely got a discrimination case.
Very good, then in sex ed class they learn to put condemns on cucumbers,
I’m hoping all this will trigger a massive backlash in the 2016 elections.
The country is insane with garbage like this.
Non-homosexual behavior will no longer be tolerated.
Need to fight back against the liberals on everything. Never give in. The liberals only go after soft targets.
And where will that leave us if we keep electing folks like Paul Ryan and my phony conservative congressman, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, among others?
It will leave us another day older, deeper in debt and heading towards bankruptcy as a nation.
It will leave us closer to Amnesty to flood our nation with cheap labor hurting the child in this case and other children and grandchildren who will have almost slave labor wages to look forward to when they graduate from school.
So you don’t see any hope?
when I was in high school 30 years ago. me and a friend had a scam that allowed us to hug any cute girl we wanted. both of us guys would find target girl and from about 30 feet away from each other would yell out each others name and then run to each other as if we wanted to hug the other. but of course the girl would be in the way and end up getting a hug from both of us. we only did it to girls we knew and they always loved it when we did it. today I am sure we would be kicked out of school and maybe arrested for sexual harassment.....
I see nothing wrong with the occasional hug. I think it can brighten the day when it has been bad. but problems happen when it is unwanted or when it is a pretext for something sexual. I think that the schools need to start using some judgment on whether it is unwanted or sexual in nature and punish where appropriate. I am guessing that this hug was not one of the two I mentioned but who knows.
Ruining a kid’s life for giving her pal a hug - someone should lose his job for this.
I laid out the harsh realities of being emotionally swayed by any issue from this one to countless others into voting for the 95 percent of Republicans who currently hold office.
Re-electing them or voting for Republicans like them would be futile.
It’s way past time to stop being ‘suckers’ for Fox News, talk show hosts, websites etc. that use these emotional issues to get us so lathered up we think the Republicans are the answer.
I will soberly look to God and vote my conscience. Vote for good candidates in primaries on the ballot or write-in, vote third party in the general elections or write-in.
I will never vote for business as usual Republican politicians like Mr. Ryan in any election under any circumstance.
I think there’s a difference between the GOP and GOD if you will.
The latter is really in charge of everything in the end and will deliver us from evil. Why do people end up around elections thinking the former will deliver them and end up either being sorely disappointed or blind to what they do when elected?
I don’t like Ryan, McConnell, and the GOPe either.
What you described has been the case, but I think the voters want more conservativism, shown by the elections since 2008, and that the voters are onto the GOPe shell game, shown by the popularity of outsider presidential candidates.
And the Repub politicians are getting better at the state and local level (at least in NC).
I think the 2016 elections could give us a better bunch of Repubs at the federal lesson. Even the incumbents learn a lesson sometimes, as when the defeat of Cantor scared the Repub leadership in the House away from amnesty.
The problem isn’t just who’s being elected, but that they’re being elected by the majority of the voters. If we’re going to get Conservatives instead of RINOs nominated and elected, we’ll have to win a whole lot of voters over to Conservative values.
There "MAY" be policies in place? When/if there is no policy to support your actions, guess you need to wing it or suggest there might be some off the wall rule to support your absurdity.
I’ve run into that, where they tell you there’s a policy, and when you dig into it, well, they never got around to putting it in writing.
What would these people have done back in the 50s and 60s? My first kiss was in the 1st grade. In elementary school we even carried knives and played mumbly peg and streatch!
Morgan’s a big supporter of Charlie Crist. Ugh.
You certainly don’t mean Governor Pat McCrory of NC, who said the state didn’t need religious freedom legislation to protect conscientious objectors to gay marriage.
The state legislature should have passed the kind of law that made the big corporations angry with Indiana and Arkansas earlier this year, but since there are a lot of those in NC, they went with a law applying to government officials only, which McCrory vetoed, forcing an override.
You also certainly don’t mean the fake conservative member of Congress from NC named Renee Elmers, who was called a “Tea Party nurse” but was really from the Obamacare friendly health care industry that Obamacare bails out.
I think you paint a pretty rosy picture just the GOPe wants us to see........
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