Sunday, June 25, 2017



Evergreen College President: Disruptive students will be given a stern warning

You knew this was going to happen. Last week Evergreen State College President George Bridges wrote a piece for the Seattle Times. In the piece, he said disruptive students at the school were still being investigated and added that anyone found to have violated the student code of conduct would face sanctions. I wrote at the time, “anyone who saw Bridges pathetic performance when confronted by progressive students on his campus has to wonder just how seriously these violations are going to be taken.” The answer is not very seriously at all.

Tuesday, Bridges told state lawmakers disruptive students would be disciplined but then made clear that amounted to a warning not to do it again. “We are sending each individual student who we can identify from video footage of the protest at Bret Weinstein’s classroom a letter of notification and warning and the warning will be quite clear. If they repeat this type of disruption in the future they will be adjudicated under our conduct code,” Bridges said.

Later, during questioning by one of the state lawmakers, Bridges clarified that adjudication under the code of conduct was “a fairly lengthy process that involves protecting the rights of those alleged to have committed conduct code violations.” In other words, the school will walk through a process where students will once again be given the chance to disrupt and claim they are being treated unfairly.

Meanwhile, Thurston County Chief Deputy Dave Pearsall told lawmakers Evergreen students have been doing this sort of thing for some time already without any disciplinary response from the school. He pointed to the swearing in of new police chief Stacy Brown back in January. “Several students, I think there was probably 20 or 30 students there, decided that they were going to get up in front and take over the entire event, with noisemakers, and drums, and horns and the PA,” he said. Pearsall continued, “They actually went and took one of the microphones out of, I believe it was the vice president’s hand, just jerked it out of her hand. They were cursing, saying all kinds of things. It just went on and on. It was complete chaos.

“It got to the point where, after about 15 minutes President Bridges decided that the ceremony wasn’t going to happen. I personally watched some of these students go up to Chief Brown, right up to her face, and call her all kinds of names, cursing at her. As well as, she had her young children with her who were fearful of what was gong on.”

Asked if he was aware of any disciplinary actions taken against the students, Pearsall replied, “I am not.” Afterward, President Bridges claimed the students were disciplined following that incident but he couldn’t recall what disciplinary measures were taken. Pressed on the point, Bridges said he believed three students were put on probation, meaning they could face further discipline if they acted out again. You get the impression that there are a lot of warning at Evergreen but no actual discipline.

Bridges did apologize for one error. He asked Chief Brown to come to campus without her weapon, concerned it might agitate the students he is now promising to discipline. “I asked Chief Brown to come without her firearm and that was wrong. And I’ve apologized to her for it,” Bridges said. Here is video of the testimony.

SOURCE 






Lacking Common Sense about discipline

The young woman looked nervous as she knocked on the window of my classroom door. "Excuse me, class," I said as I stepped out to speak. She was a former student and substituting in the next classroom.

"A boy is throwing things at other students. He won't stop, and he refuses to go to the principal's office. Can you help me?"

"Sure," I said. The boy wouldn't make eye contact when I entered the room. Every other student did though, waiting to see what would happen.

"Bobby," I said (not his real name). "Miss Fellows told you to go to the principal's office and now I'm telling you." He just sat there, still not making eye contact. "Bobby," I repeated, "Maine law say that if a student is a danger to others and refuses to leave the classroom, the teacher can use the necessary force to remove him. Now I'm telling you again to go down to the principal's office."

That got no response either.

"I'm going to count to three. If you're not moving at three, I'll move you. One, two, th..."

He got up, went out the door, and headed for the stairs. I picked up the wall phone and called down to say Bobby was on his way. "Thank you," said Miss Fellows.

"You're welcome," I said, then returned to my classroom and forgot about it.

The following Monday, Jim Underwood, the principal, came into my room during my free period. I liked Jim. He was a very effective administrator. "Tell me what happened with Bobby," he said, because he'd been out of town when I dealt with the incident and had appointed another teacher as acting principal. I filled him in.

"If you had removed him," Jim said, "I would not have backed you up."

That surprised me. Like I said, Jim was a good principal, one of the best I ever worked with. "Jim," I said. "That is state law. I have a copy in my briefcase."

"I know it is," he said, "but the courts are interpreting it differently now."

"So, if I wasn't to remove him, what was I supposed to do?"

"Call the police."

"You're kidding," I said.

"Nope."

"That's crazy. I'm supposed to leave two classrooms full of students sitting on their hands and wait for the cops because of one disruptive student?"

"Yup. That's what they're telling us now."

Bobby went to the office on his own because he knew I wasn't bluffing. Calling the police would ruin half a day for about fifty students and at least two teachers. Clearly, things were getting much too complicated and I wondered how long I could continue in the teaching profession.

In July of last year a similar case came before our newest Supreme Court Justice, Neil Gorsuch, when he was on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. A middle school boy in New Mexico had disrupted class by generating fake burps. He wouldn't stop and was sent into the hall, but he kept opening the door to "let out a giggling belch" as the Daily Signal described it. Then:

    "a school resource police officer placed the student under arrest ‘for interfering with the educational process.' The 13-year-old then spent approximately one hour locked in a juvenile detention facility before he was released to the custody of his mother. He was never charged for his misbehavior."

The boy's mother filed suit claiming her son's civil rights had been violated. This was an even less serious case than the one I dealt with because there was no danger from flying objects, yet the student had been arrested and incarcerated, however briefly. Ten years had passed and the teaching profession had continued its decline. A minor incident became a federal case and made it to a high court, which, in a 94-page ruling decided in the school's favor.

Gorsuch wrote only four pages in dissent. According to the Daily Signal again: "Gorsuch . . . explain[ed] that a reasonable police officer should have understood that arresting a ‘class clown for burping was going a step too far.'"

Indeed.

Gorsuch concluded that: "the statutory language on which the officer relied for the arrest in this case does not criminalize ‘noise[s] or diversion[s]' that merely ‘disturb the peace or good order' of individual classes."

Referring to his colleagues on the 10th Circuit, he said: "Often enough the law can be ‘a ass-a idiot,'" quoting Charles Dickens, "and there is little we judges can do about it, for it is (or should be) emphatically our job to apply, not rewrite, the law enacted by the people's representatives. In this particular case, I don't believe the law happens to be quite as much of a ass as they do."

Ouch.

Common sense is often a misnomer when applied to educational and judicial practice these days, and it's refreshing to have a Supreme Court justice willing to point that out.

SOURCE 





Australia: Teachers agree that children with disabilities disrupt normal schools

Sunrise host David Koch has questioned the education minister about how children with disabilities will receive the attention needed in mainstream schools following Pauline Hanson's controversial comments.

Pauline Hanson refused to back down on Thursday following her comments in parliament that children with autism are putting a strain on classrooms in schools and Koch put the dividing question to Education Minister Simon Birmingham.

The host claimed even though Pauline Hanson's comments seemed confronting, teachers have emailed the network claiming they do struggle to seamlessly include children with disabilities into the classrooms due to a lack of funding.

'Whenever Pauline says anything it's like using a sledgehammer and we all react against her because we all want inclusion in our schools,' Sunrise host Koch said on Friday morning.

'But a lot of teachers emailed us and said Pauline is right, because we don't have the funding and we don't have the teachers aids to be able to integrate kids with disabilities into the classroom. We want more funding.'

While disagreeing with the way the One Nation leader expressed her opinion, Mr Birmingham does accept there needs to be more support in mainstream classrooms.

'Well I don't agree with the way Pauline put her comments at all, but I do accept there is a need for additional support for schools, teachers and classrooms to be able to support all students with disabilities, including the number of students with autism,' the education minister said.

'What Pauline did last night to her credit and a number of minor parties, with the Turnbull Government's leadership, was back fairer funding arrangements for students with disability.'

The education minister said thanks to One Nation and other parties backing Gonski 2.0, it will provide funding to schools to help students with disabilities - especially children with higher needs - while still remaining in the school environment.

Walled Aly, The Project Host on channel 10, said the One Nation leader missed the mark and that funding for teacher's aids would go a long way to helping autistic children thrive in the classroom.

On Thursday, Federal Labor MP and proud mother Emma Husar fervently demanded One Nation leader Pauline Hanson apologise to children with autism.

The mother-of-three, with a son with autism, claimed Hanson's comments were 'ill-informed' and she owed parents of Australia an apology.

SOURCE



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