Student's expulsion rescinded

AJC ^ | 10/24/03 | staff

[CFW]

UPDATED: 12:15 P.M. Student's expulsion rescinded

The Fulton County school system on Friday temporarily rescinded the expulsion of a Roswell High School freshman who wrote a fictional tale in her private journal about a student who dreams she kills a teacher.

School officials said at a news conference Friday they would allow Rachel Boim, 14, to return to Roswell High School until the school board hears more about the incident.

Student expelled over diary

By MIA TAYLOR The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Roswell High School freshman has been expelled for the remainder of the year for writing a fictional tale in her private journal about a student who dreams that she kills a teacher.

Rachel Boim, 14, who moved here from suburban Denver, about 20 minutes from Columbine High School, was expelled after a closed, three-hour hearing conducted Wednesday by a Fulton County school system official.

School system spokeswoman Susan Hale said the expulsion was for "inappropriate writings that describe the threat of bodily harm toward a school employee."

"Anytime the safety and security of our students and staff are put into question, we investigate the situation and, if warranted, take serious action," Hale said. "After reviewing the evidence, the hearing officer felt expulsion was an appropriate disciplinary response."

Rachel will be allowed to attend another school within the Fulton system until the end of the academic year, but the choice must be approved by school officials. The family plans to appeal the decision to the Fulton County school board.

Wednesday's hearing included testimony from Rachel's parents, Georgia's poet laureate and an editor of Five Points, a literary magazine published by Georgia State University. They all testified that the girl's story was nothing more than a work of fiction in a journal filled with drawings, coloring, poems and other creative expression.

Poet Laureate David Bottoms, who was contacted by the family for help in defending Rachel's writing, said Thursday that he tried to convince the hearing officer that the journal entry was a narrative that grew out of creative thought.

"In my opinion, based on my experience as a writer and with more than 20 years of teaching creative writing, this piece of work is clearly an imaginative piece, a piece of fiction -- totally non-threatening," Bottoms said, recounting the statement he made at the hearing.

Teacher seized journal

The journal entry describes a student, who is unnamed, having a dream while asleep in class. In the dream, the student shoots a teacher and then runs out of the classroom, only to be killed by a security guard. After that, the school bell rings and the student having the dream wakes up, picks up her books and walks to another classroom.

The journal does not name a specific teacher, according to Rachel's parents, who described their daughter as a gifted writer and not someone with violent intentions.

The family and Bottoms say the suspension is another example of Georgia school officials failing to use common sense when applying "zero-tolerance" policies. Three years ago, Cobb County school officials suspended a sixth-grader from Garrett Middle School for breaking the school's zero-tolerance weapons policy by having a Tweety Bird wallet with a 10-inch keychain. Cobb officials said chains were prohibited under the weapons policy, and the girl was given the maximum punishment: a two-week suspension.

David Boim said his daughter often carries her personal journal and did not have it in class as part of an assignment when it was confiscated Oct. 7. Art teacher Travis Carr took the journal during the class because Rachel was passing it to a classmate, Boim said.

Carr kept the journal overnight, and on Oct. 8 Rachel was taken from her second-period class by school police and her parents were summoned to the school.

Carr could not be reached for comment Thursday night. Roswell High School Principal Ed Spurka declined to comment.

An honors student

Rachel is an honors student in biology, French and English literature, her parents said. She is the captain of her crew team and a voracious reader, they added. She comes from a family of writers. Her sister edits the Roswell High School literary magazine, and her mother, Kimberly, is a former journalist and has taught literature at Chattahoochee Technical School.

"I think Rachel has been treated unfairly," her father said. "I believe the school system is asking her to cede her Fourth Amendment right, her First Amendment right and her right to due process. Basically, the school system is saying they decide what is an appropriate topic to write about and what is an inappropriate topic."

He said the family moved to Roswell from Colorado three years ago. Because they lived in suburban Denver at the time, the Boims often talked at home about the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, in which two students used pipe bombs and gunfire to kill 12 classmates and a teacher before killing themselves.

"Thomas Wolfe, Faulkner, all wrote about the South because that was their experience," Boim said. "Students today are very aware of the violence around them. The shootings in school, we all hear about that and they affect children. Creative writers, or people who create art, write about what's happening in their society."

Rachel's journal, one of many, contains a whole range of musings, he said -- some dark and disturbing. Others her father described as "springlike" and "very fluffy kind of stuff." The story that prompted her suspension was in a section titled "Dreams."

"She writes about death and pain," Boim said. "But we're also talking about a kid who is a vegetarian because she can't stand the thought of animals being killed. Her writing reflects a full gamut of emotions. . . . We're not saying this shouldn't have been brought to our attention. But the decision was made to expel Rachel without any understanding of the fact that this was just a story."

[OXENinFLA]

Bump

[Naspino]

I guess thats what happens when 90+ percent of the people disagree with it. Plus what was this crap about allowing her to go to another school but requiring APPROVAL from the current school that expelled her. Since when does a school have guardianship over our children?

[xrp]

For government schools, zero tolerance = zero brain power required.

Complete dumbasses are employed in government schools.

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP - A modicum of sanity

[ladylib]

Maybe she should withdraw and look for a private school -- one that exercises a little common sense, like that girl with the tweedy bird chain did a couple of years ago. If I were her mother, I wouldn't want to send her back there.

TOO MANY STUPID PEOPLE IN AUTHORITY TODAY HAVE TOO MUCH POWER TO DESTROY YOUR KID'S LIFE FOREVER.

Think about it.

[doodad]

what was this crap about allowing her to go to another school

And the worst part is the school they would have sent her to, Liberty High School, is where the pregnant teens and delinquents are sent. The damn school has a daycare. Nice environment for a young girl.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

Damn, outlaw Shakespeare.

They would, if he'd written, "The first thing we do, let’s kill all the teachers."

[PA Engineer]

Zero Tolerance = Institutionalized Child Abuse = Zero Accountability?

[Kit]

I live in Georgia and once long ago attended a great public school here. Now, you would not believe how ridiculous and obtuse most public school administrators are in this state. We have the NEA and the GEA to thank for this, as well as a fully operational Peter Principle.

There are some amazing and wonderful teachers still here, but the bulk of personnel are driven by PC agenda issues and self-aggrandizement. No wonder we're at the very bottom in the nation scholastically. It's sickening.

[xrp]

But...but...but, I thought Georgia was at the bottom because SO MANY Georgia students take the SAT whereas in other states only the high achievers take the SAT...but but but...

[freeeee]

Nice to see FReepers standing up for freedom of speech for a change.

[ladylib]

It's not just Georgia. Zero tolerance/zero brains has infected most public schools in the country.

All it does is destroy kid's lives and makes them hate the public schools and those who run them, something that public school officials should worry about in the future, considering these people are going to have kids one day, and there are new educational options on the horizon all the time.

Don't think that some parents who can't afford private school and turn to homeschooling do it because they feel they can give their kids a better education. They just want their kids out of the public school system because they don't want an incident which was considered insignificant ten years ago to become a potential detriment to their children's future.

It also makes public school officials look like blithering idiots, but if they don't care if they look like flaming you-know-whats, that's okay I guess.

[Kit]

Oh, yeah, right...

(BTW, there's this bridge in NY...)

[mikegi]

I hate to think of where I would have ended up if today's rules were in effect in the past. When I was in the sixth grade, a friend and I decided to collect our jokes together and make a "magazine" to sell to the other students. Our teacher somehow got wind of this and asked us if we wanted to open it up to the whole class for a project. We agreed and ended up selling 600 copies at 10 cents a piece to other kids at the school (we called it KORN Magazine).

Anyway, the story I wrote for the magazine was one where the kids attack the school and take it over. We kicked out the teachers, tied up the principal, dug trenches, etc. This was published! Can you imagine what would have happened to me if I were a kid today and wrote this??? Back then, I was only told to edit out some of the jokes that showed the principal in an especially bad light.

PS. I remember we took the proceeds from the magazine and had a class party at the local skating rink.

[Kit]

The demographic make-up of Georgia metropolitan public schools doesn't look much like the overall demographic picture of the state, expecially economically. Almost anyone in a metropolitan area who really cares about their kids' education, safety and moral character, and can afford to do so, sends their kids to private schools, regardless of race, or else homeschools.

And it's not that public school officials don't care that they look like blithering idiots: they don't even realize that they do. So many think they actually command respect in the community. It would be pitiable if it weren't so damaging for the kids.

[thirdheavenward]

Zero Tolerance has always been about avoiding embarassment. Perhaps it even goes back to collective guilt mistakes(*). If one is in the spirit of saying that the the real tradgedy is not that kids might die, but that kids might die HERE, then at all costs one will try to prevent kids from embarrassing the school. The school board thinks: if it becomes public that a kid in the school writes about murder, paranoid parents may think twice about going to that school, and moving to that neighborhood - and buying that house, and keeping those property values up! The administration thinks: If I want my career to advance, the last thing I want is a school with a reputation of violence under my watch! So what is the best way for a school to distance itself from a "violent" student? Detention doesn't work - that's like saying "don't worry folks, we know how to fix the kid" and then their reputation would be on the line to fix the kid. No, suspension or something equivalent is the only way for a school to disown a student. Zero Tolerance policies are policies to eliminate embarassment.

[Oztrich Boy]

Zero Tolerance has always been about avoiding embarassment.

That can't be right. The people who enforce ZT are *beyond* embarassment.

"Laws are for the guidance of wise men and the blind obedience of fools."
(Solon, the Lawmaker of Athens, d. 559 BC).