West Valley (AZ) student gets diploma after threat of lawsuit

AZCentral.com/The Arizona Republic ^ | 6.10.02

[mhking]

Just damn.

[Numbers Guy]

It will even out eventually. The daughter's going to be even lazier now and she'll continue to screw up in everything even more. The best thing that could have happened to the daughter would have been to flunk and had to take summer school courses. It would have taught her some responsibility and how to take pride in earning an achievement.

Instead she got something she didn't deserve delivered via a Mommy lawsuit threat. The lesson won't be "work hard and good things will happen". Instead it will be "Mommy will always bail out your lazy butt". Again, she'll pay a price down the road, bigtime.

[another cricket]

Joice responded the same day in a two-page letter that she would be remiss in her duties as a teacher if she passed the student. The letter stated the student was given every opportunity to pass the class and that her parents were aware of their daughter's lack of academic progress.
"Caving to your demand, and the demands of (the student's) parents to pass her when she does not deserve to pass, would not be fair to all of my other students," Joice wrote.

I support the teacher, the girl should have had to go to summer school at the least.

a.cricket

[mhking]

This is one case where I have to ask, "Where's the union?" You would think that they would protect one of their own in an asanine situation like this.

There's no excuse for this. I agree with you, this rich brat is gonna get a rather rude awakening at some point down the road. The sad part is that Mommy won't be getting a similarly rude awakening.

And the sorry excuse for a superintendent is not much better in this case.

[mhking]

Black conservative ping

If you want on (or off) of my black conservative ping list, please let me know via FREEPmail. (And no, you don't have to be black to be on the list!)

[Digger]

I'm a Michael Savage listener & if you kow this man he will State that the PC lawyers probably are the worst enemy that America has. I concur. They represent .002% of the population but will be this nations downfall.

[gueroloco]

Good teachers leave in droves due to bullshirt like this. Essentially, public schools have NO standards, and are apparently only accountable to shyster lawyers. The liberal parents of this girl must have swelled up with pride seeing her do the FRAUD walk across the stage to receive a diploma she DID NOT EARN. This chick will end up in public housing and on food stamps later in life because mommy protected her from facing the consequences of her irresponsibility. Thanks for nothing, cowardly cave in school district. Public schools are sh*t, a waste of money, and should be abolished!

[glc1173@aol.com]

""Of course, all information regarding your background, your employment records, all of your class records, past and present, dealings with this and other students becomes relevant, should litigation be necessary," he wrote to the teacher." (Arizona Republic)

Now ask yourself why that teacher was so afraid for the truth about herself - and her teaching "standards" - to become public!

Was it that this teacher had a demonstrable record of inconsistent grading, favoritism toward "teacher's pets" or children of wealthy parents, professional misconduct discipline, or other "problems?"

Before crying out for schools to always stand behind teachers in the name of "standards," ask yourself if the reason many won't is that the particular teacher demonstrably has no consistent standards.

Anyone who's been a student - or a parent of one - in a government school knows that many teachers just shouldn't be teachers. They range from martinets to those playing favorites to worthless affirmative-action quotafillers.

Inside the NEA

[mafree]

Thanks for the ping.

Unfortunately, there are many graduating this year who really know little and can do nothing. They'll have a hard time in college and at work.

[pubmom]

This girl's stepmother has done her a great disservice, she has missed the opportunity of learning from her mistakes.
I have had experience with this type of parent, when you see them everyone says "Oh, no," and gets out of their way.

The teacher's position should have been supported though. I imagine the school district lawyers didn't wish to do battle.

[Unknown Freeper]

And now, that school district probably will lose that teacher. What lesson have all the students at that school learned? And what will happen to that daughter every time she goes to interview for a job? Will mommy be there to sue the HR Rep who doesn't hire her?

[swheats]

Everyone loses in this one. The student gained a piece of paper that is most likely worthless to her. She's learned nothing about real life.

[gueroloco]

You bring up an interesting question. I'll play devil's advocate for a moment and consider that the teacher "may have something to hide". I certainly don't know the answer to that supposition. I do, however, know that the teacher is named. The child,parent, and the official who authorized the sham are not named- owing to privacy laws and privacy protection aims. What THEY are hiding is the absolute shame they feel-assuming they have a moral compass or one of those "conscience" thingies. The teacher should countersue!

[chaosagent]

The way I read the article was that the teacher stood her ground but was overruled by her bosses.

[bescobar]

She learned about law, she'll be a great lawyer if she ever gets off welfare

[swheats]

Before crying out for schools to always stand behind teachers in the name of "standards," ask yourself if the reason many won't is that the particular teacher demonstrably has no consistent standards.

But doesn't it go even higher than the teacher concerning standards? Apparently there was no oversight into monitoring teacher's performance. It took the threat of a lawsuit for this particular school to realize they would not be able to withstand an audit of their methods and procedures. Even still, we cannot waive the students' responsibility of accomplishing whatever assignments that are placed before them. The final test was, I'm sure, a small portion of the overall grade.

[DoughtyOne]

[Isadora Duncan]

I agree with you. It seems the teacher definitely stood her ground. The teacher didn't attend the graduation. That appears to me to reaffirm that they took it over her head when the threats didn't work.

[swheats]

These are the latest stats for Nevada:

Two education stories hit the papers this week: (1) Nevada school Teachers are the 12th best-paid educators in the country according to an American Federation of Teachers survey, and (2) Over 1,000 Clark County high School seniors flunked the Nevada High School Proficiency Exam last month. "Of The seniors from regular high schools who sat for the exam," reports the Las Vegas Sun, "62 percent failed writing, 68.5 percent failed reading and 66.6 percent failed math."

Stats from Chuck Muth weekly email. A real eyeopener into why students have no desire for school and what could they possibly being doing 5-6 hours per day 5 days a week. A terrible waste of time.

[ratdog]

Maybe her name will get out through the papers or word of mouth and she won't be able to get a job even at MickyD's.

I thought only coaches gave multiple choice tests in high school.