Posted on 04/14/2003 10:40:44 PM PDT by Coleus
Boy sticks out tongue, is suspended
David Crowder, El Paso Times
Sal Santana II, a 12-year-old Magoffin Middle School student, said he stuck his tongue out at a girl who declined his invitation to be his girlfriend. School district administrators viewed the incident as sexual harassment, suspended him for three days and are considering placing him in an alternative school.
"This is crazy," said Sal's mother, Silvia Santana. "It's a shame that a guy trying to be cute with a girl can get himself into this much trouble. I don't think he even knows what sexual harassment is."
El Paso school district spokesman Luis Villalobos said no one with the district can comment on the case, but he said the events leading to Sal's punishment were witnessed by a teacher at the Northeast El Paso middle school.
"This is a real sensitive issue, but nonetheless one that is covered in the student handbook, which we enforce," Villalobos said. "He's facing the discipline measure that's appropriate for the offense."
The school district has received four other reports of sexual harassment at the middle- and high- school levels this year, two of which were substantiated, Villalobos said.
Last year, four incidents -- two from middle schools -- were reported. Villalobos could not say what disciplinary actions the district took in any of the cases.
Silvia Santana and her husband, Salvador, have a meeting today with the district's director of student services, Gloria Boyer, who has the authority to set aside the planned disciplinary measures in Sal's case.
Salvador Santana said they will appeal to the school board if necessary and will probably sue the district regardless of what happens.
"It's got to be done because God knows how many other kids have been involved in something like this," Salvador Santana said, adding that his son has had no disciplinary problems in school this year.
He said the family received a detailed account of what allegedly occurred during a meeting last week with Magoffin Principal Rose Rios and a district representative.
"The teacher said he stuck his tongue out and moved it back and forth and waved at her like you were patting someone on the back and that that constitutes sexual harassment," Salvador Santana said. "She said the girl was upset and scared."
The district's student code of conduct states that "sexual harassment of a student by another student includes unwanted and unwelcome verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature, whether by word, gesture or any other sexual conduct, including requests for sexual favors."
Sal said he doesn't remember receiving any instruction about sexual harassment in class. But Villalobos said Rios reported that there have been at least two training sessions for students this year.
Psychologist Karen Gold said it is not only important that students receive sexual harassment training in the sixth or seventh grade, but that they understand it, as well.
"There's a question mark: Was the lesson properly taught and learned?" Gold asked. "There's also a question here of the punishment fitting the crime."
She suggested that Sal should have been given an opportunity to apologize to the girl if his behavior was inappropriate.
"Not being able to make amends does not give the child the chance to learn the appropriate behavior," Gold said. "The school should be a training ground, not an arena for punishment. Teachers are there to teach, and kids are there to learn."
Sandra Lloyd, chairwoman of educational psychology at UTEP, said schools need to be sensitive to young students and careful in judging their actions.
"That's particularly true at that age when boys and girls are just beginning to get interested in each other," Lloyd said.
But, she said, "I have heard of some terrible examples of harassment at this age level, though this doesn't seem to sound like one.
"Sometimes the punishment may seem extreme, but on the other hand, if we don't have some kind of policy in place for this, then that is also a problem."
Some parents of seventh-graders at Magoffin Middle School were surprised to hear last week that a student was being disciplined for alleged sexual harassment.
"That's something new to me. I never heard of it," Eduardo Marquez said. "It's ridiculous to do that to a little boy. If he touched her or looked up her dress, that would be different."
Marquez said he knows from his son that there is a lot of pressure to have a girlfriend or boyfriend at the school.
"It's stupid," Mercedes Nolan said of Sal's punishment while waiting for her seventh-grade daughter. "But at 12, kids have no business going out on dates or anything. They should be studying."
Sexual harassment cases at high schools and middle schools in the area's three largest school districts:
El Paso: Five cases reported this year and four last year. No information was available about the disposition of the cases.
Ysleta: Information unavailable because the district has no specific category for sexual harassment complaints.
Socorro: Two students placed in alternative school this year. No cases of students suspended or sent to an alternative school last year.
David Crowder may be reached at dcrowder@elpasotimes.com
Well my daughter is in the seventh grade. Big deal. Some of the most depraved and disgusting things that I have seen and heard came from the fairer sex.
Once again you are wrong Bill.
Nope, I stick with murdering him in the most horrible way so that the other kids will learn a lesson. His punishment in no way fit as is, so why not turn the heat up a little more.
We will turn America into Saddam's Iraq as long as we keep going this way.
What kind of perverts want to teach sexual harassment?
Seems to me the teacher got turned on by the innocent gesture, which would have only got me stuck in the corner for a while. But then I went to a gender segregated elementary school, and the nuns lived a moral ethic that makes today's teachers appear to have the mindset of a hooker.
Suspended? This is an unadulterated power trip, practiced on defenseless kids. The admin is as sick as the teacher.
As for the kid's old man; he must be so old he's forgotten his response to girls after puberty.
If public schools were serious about making their campuses centers of learning, they would have segregated them by gender long ago. However, they are brainwashed by the sex that inundates the public in print, film and electronic medium. Constant sexual innuendo embedded in the public's collective brain is the root of the reaction against this poor kid.
Thanks Hollywood and Madison Avenue. The only secret Victoria has is her cup size.
Madison must be turning in his grave at the thought that his name is associated with the sexual innuendo employed to manipulate the public mind.
Pity the manipulated, for they know not what they do.
Whenever I hear stories like this, I am reminded of a National Geographic article on North Korea from sometime in the '70's. In the article, there was a photo of an elementary school classroom, where there were cartoons on the wall showing small children shooting automatic weapons at a "U.S. imperialist monster". I remember thinking at the time how much more advanced we were than those animals, who would use mere children to advance their murderous political agenda.
When we start inflicting politics on the lives of children at such young ages, we stoop to the level of Kim Jong-Il and the rest of the Stalinist maniacs in Pyongyang. My only hope is that people will begin to notice the leftist insanity that pervades the public school bureaucracy and pull their children out and either homeschool them or send them to private schools that are not tainted by leftist political agendas.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.