Posted on 02/10/2006 11:25:21 AM PST by edgrimly78
RENO, Nevada (AP) -- The state spelling bee is growing by two contestants to make up for a judging error that had one girl's parents ready to spell "lawsuit." Sara Beckman was disqualified from the Washoe County spelling bee Tuesday despite correctly spelling "discernible." Officials say the word was misspelled on the judges' lists. The Reno eighth-grader's parents said they waited until the end of the round to protest because they didn't want to interrupt the bee. But the rules say a protest must be lodged immediately and Sara ended up third. Her parents hired an attorney. He threatened to sue the local sponsors if something wasn't worked out, and said he would seek an injunction to stop the state spelling bee next month in Las Vegas as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Good for all of them. Seems like the school administrators could spell L-A-W-S-U-I-T, and then made the proper corrections. Shame it came to all of that, but that's the way the square ball skids!
Although I'm against suing over every little thing, it seems to me that the lawsuit could easily been avoided if the contest organizers had used a little common sense in the first place. It was their error. Sending three students instead of two should have been the easy common sense fix and the parents should not have had to threaten to sue.
This reminds me of the Dan Quayle incident when the word potato was mispelled on the flash card the teacher gave to him.
Agree. No one is allowed to use common sense and head these stupidities off anymore.
A spelling bee where the master list had an error....
And none of the adults caught it?
You'd think they'd be more careful considering this makes them seem very foolish. Imagine holding a contest to find the best speller among a bunch of kids and not being able to spell correctly themselves.
This is probably more common than most people think. In fact, this school had a very clear process in place for the spelling bee under which someone could challenge a decision on the part of the organizers about the correct spelling of a word. The parents waited until after the event was over before challenging the result (instead of doing it before the next contestant was given a word -- like they were supposed to), so technically they really were not on solid ground here.
I am almost 70 now but well remember back in 5th grade one spelling bee we had. The last two standing were a boy from my class and a girl from another. The Principal asked the boy to spell"Mutual" but pronounced it as "Musual". The boy scratched his head and spelled "Musual"
The Principal said WRONG. Then to the girl said, spell "Musual" as in The Musual Broadcasting Company. She said, OH! Mutual. Then spelled "MUTUAL"
The Principle said "Correct, you are the champion speller of this school!
Boy were we upset. But in those days kids did not question the Principal.
Ten bucks says these "local sponsors" have just sponsored their last spelling bee. What company or organization in their right mind would ever support something like this if the possibility of a civil suit over something as inconsequential as this is a real possibility?
Oh, I understand the technicality. That isn't in question. I just think that when a word is misspelled on the master list and nobody catches it, that it makes the adults who organized and judged the event look extremely foolish.
As for the rules, I agree that the parents should've challenged the error immediately. The fact that they didn't indicates to me that the rules were not clearly understood by all the contestants prior to the contest, which is another problem the organizers apparently have. While ignorance isn't an adequate defense on the part of parents, it would seem to me that the contest organizers were incomplete in their preparation of the material and the preparation of the contestants.
The error and the ignorance of the rules is indicative of a poorly organized event, which reflects poorly on the part of the organizers, and somewhat similarly on the parents. But I'm glad the girl is going to be given a chance to continue in competition. Being a stickler for the rules in a kids event, when the rules perpetuate an injustice rather than trying to be fair to the child would be sending the wrong message to the kids. We don't want kids growing up believing that they should follow the rules off of a cliff. Doing the right thing is more important than following rules, and accepting responsibility for breaking rules in order to do the right thing is just as important.
Hmmm, I was on the parents' side until I read this.
I thought a better solution would have been to give each contestant little remote keypad entry system, announce a word, and have the contestant type it in, move on to the next word. Everybody does the same words and the winner has the fewest spelling mistakes.
Do a google search with the word 'potatoe' or search on ebay with this word, and you will find a lot of people who spell 'potato' this very same way. Funny.
Anything that advances the cause of literacy is okay with me.
I'm not a bleeding heart for immigrants, but the idea that a child must depend upon her parents to protect them from unfair treatment at a spelling bee seems a little twisted to me. The organizers of the spelling be have a vested interest in fairness and should adopt rules which protect the children.
Had it been my child, I would not have sued, but I would have ridiculed the organizers relentlessly regarding their poor quality control and irresponsible rules.
It's actually a correct spelling, just an archaic one.
"This reminds me of the Dan Quayle incident when the word potato was mispelled on the flash card the teacher gave to him
I think I read somewhere that the kid who spelled potato correctly grew up into a criminal delinquent."
Gosh. If only Al (I'm so smart I invented the internet) Gore had been VP at that time, this chid would have been saved.
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