Dad Sues Over School Lunch Seating Restriction

WNBC Television ^ | 5/20/2004 | Puppage

[jtminton]

Take the kids who are causing trouble in the lunchroom and discipline them

They do. It's called lunch detention. This girl's beef is that she got sent to lunch detention for causing trouble in the lunchroom by not following rules.

[kjam22]

Yeah I agree. The other side is... all she had to do was eat the lunch detention like she was told to... not tell her folks anything... and then behave in school. She's playing the system because she knows daddy is a jerk who will argue for whatever her little heart desires.

[Liberal Classic]

Obligatory south park image:

[RightWhale]

The girl, who has been punished previously for talking in class and once throwing a calculator onto a desk, is no troublemaker, according to her father.

Not yet, but with Dad industriously teaching her how to flaunt authority, she might grow up to be Che Guevara.

[brownsfan]

Take the kids who are causing trouble in the lunchroom and discipline them.

In the old, pre-pc days, that was the answer. Now if you isolate just Johnny, you have what's going on here. The little girl was punished, and the father raises hell. Schools are a mess because they don't know what they can do without someone suing them. And... there are more than a few that cause trouble these days. Discipline seems to be in short supply in many homes.

[george wythe]

She had an assigned seat, like everyone else. Everyone else seems to have followed the rule, she didn't. She was punished. And now, her whiney father is bent on teaching his little precious some seriously bad life lessons.

I have a friend who told me that daddy's little girls grow up to be bigtime b!tches. Now I know why.

Instead of asking for permission to move to a different seat, or starting friendships with students near her regular seat, daddy's little girl will be taught to be a spoiled brat who demands special treatment.

[SaveTheChief]

They do. It's called lunch detention. This girl's beef is that she got sent to lunch detention for causing trouble in the lunchroom by not following rules.

Understood. However, my comment had to do with establishing a fair policy rather than a over reacting to a large number of kids and imagined problems of the school. An out of hand lunch room is a result of poor supervision and discipline.

Children need discipline, but not an environment in which they are practically tied down every minute of the day.

[television is just wrong]

What a cutie.

[Sub-Driver]

the school DOES have dicipline problems.....that's why this is done.

[glorgau]

Take the kids who are causing trouble in the lunchroom and discipline them.

That sounds like exactly what happened.

[steplock]

It is a stupid rule, but this girl needs to learn there are proper procedures for civilized people to address their grievences - Civil disobedience, glorified by the communist M.L.King - is to reserved a s last resort after all other options have been approached.

That is how we do things in what is supposed to be our representative republic - we are NOT a democracy for mob rule or anarchy.

She needs suspension the next time and her father can go to jail for encouraging truancy .

[SaveTheChief]

I'm glad I am no longer a professional teacher.

[Sam's Army]

We won't entrust the State with educating our kids.

[kjam22]

My wife has two more years and she'll be able to retire from teaching. She's on her 26th year now. It's a different world there than when you and I were kids.

I think that if we start telling teachers that they can't assign seats in the classroom and in the lunchroom, and expect the kids to sit in them like they are told... then we have lost the war.

[Skooz]

Last year, my wife taught at a school where the principal was scared to death of the parents. Anytime a parent complained about anything, the principal automatically believed the parent and never considered the teacher's point of view.

He often went so far as to remove a teacher if the parents complained.

The results were predictable. Anytime a strict or hard teacher attempted to challenge the class with difficult work, or to impose any sort of discipline, the students would whine to the parents, who would whine to the principal, who would remove the teacher--either by reassigning to another grade or outright dismissal.

The students were very keen to this, and openly taunted teachers, saying they could get them fired anytime they wanted, just by complaining to their parents. The teachers were basketcases, never knowing from day-to-day if they were going to lose their job over a complaint by some 12 year-old.

My wife, who is a strict and excellent teacher in every way, got out of that madhouse by the end of the semester.

[Sam's Army]

Well, the school could always drug the kids into submission.

[LibertyThug]

Schools have been increasingly restricting the amount of time kids have for interacting with each other outside the direct control of adults.

I believe the schools have begun doing that so they don't get sued by another idiot parent for something his/her child did while not under direct supervision!

[LibertyThug]

So the teachers are also assigned seats and prevented from moving about without permission?

How old are you?

[Samwise]

I got detention for sharing my locker. It violated my rights, humiliated me, and messed up my whole life. I think I'll sue too.

[Dasaji]

Take the kids who are causing trouble in the lunchroom and discipline them. Lazyness on a part of the school to supervise these kids is no excuse to submit them to a gulag-like environment.

Exactly! I am so tired of hearing restriction after restriction being placed in my 6th grade daughter's school due to the actions of just a few. The kids are not allowed to sit with their friends at lunch, are not allowed to even go to the bathroom or to band class without supervision of an adult.