What's going to go on this page is verbatum quotes from the newspaper. My comments in italics.
by Michael Pearson
AP, February 15, 1999
GRANITE CITY--A student lashes out at teasing classmates. His family life is a wreck. Administrators learn he has access to guns at home. (Oh joy, parents excercising their natural and constitutional right to own weapons is regarded as a warning sign.)
It could be grounds for counseling, or it could be grounds for expulsion under a new Granite City schools policy.
Believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, the policy uses a 20 point checklist to help school administrators determine whether students pose a risk of violence.
Those deemed to be "high risks" for violent acts can be referred for counseling or expelled--even if they have not violated any school policies of laws.
"In some cases we may have to make decisions that violate their rights." said superintendent Steve Balen. (Hey, news flash. Violating students rights will be nothing new. Free speech--uh uh. Warrantless searches--par for the course.)
So far, the week-old policy has not attracted any complaints--a signal to school board President John Caudron that Granite City residents want to prevent the (photogenic but statistically insignificant) kind of fatal violence that has wracked schools in Kentucky, Oregon and Mississippi.
But district officials say they fully expect a legal challenge the first time they use the policy to remove a threatening student.
"It's a new policy and I know there are going to be bugs. There are always bugs," Caudron said. "But I honestly thing this is a step in the right direction."
The school board approved the policy Feb. 9. It calls for a team composed of a police officer, a social worker, a psychologist and a school administrator to review students whose behavious has provoked concern among employees or other students.
After an initial review of a student's grades, behaviour reports, medical records and other information, the team can seek permission to interview the student and perform psychological tests.
In that phase, the team will be asked to determine the potential for violence, access to weapons and facts about the student's home life.
To help the team, the policy provides a "profile" based on a list of early warning signs developed for the U.S. Department of Education.
The list includes such characteristics as depression, a history of tantrums,
abusive language, cruelty to animals and writings that reflect an interest
in "the dark side of life."
NJ Schools Forcing Students to Submit to
Drug Testing
A high school student from Ewing New Jersey was
recently suspended for refusing to submit to a drug test
for his school.
The student, Michael Glappa, had done nothing more
than put his head down on his desk. Although everyone
one of us has done this many times through our
schooling, Michael´s teacher chose to interpret this as a
sign of drug abuse.
Michael was sent to the school nurse, who interrogated
him about drug use. She asked him to take a drug test, and
when he refused, called the vice-principal to support her
demand. At no point was permission for the test
requested from Michael´s parents.
Michael perceived this as an unfair invasion of his privacy
and insult to his dignity, and continued to refuse.
Michael´s father was then contacted. When Michael Sr.
arrived, he backed his son´s stand. The school responded
by suspending the student from classes.
To prove the point, Michael and his father had a drug test
-- both blood and uring -- performed on their own the
following day. The test proved that Michael was clean.
The student's
version of the story.
Overreaction to School Gun Plot Eyed
By JENNIFER BATOG Associated Press Writer
BURLINGTON, Wis. (AP) -- Back in November, authorities boasted that they
had
averted a bloodbath by arresting a group of boys who planned to steal guns
from one
of their fathers, take high school administrators hostage and shoot students
who had
picked on them.
This agricultural town of 9,500 people, best known for its chocolate factory
and an
annual competition for the world's best liar, seemed to have narrowly escaped
the
tragic fate of communities like West Paducah, Ky., Jonesboro, Ark., and
Springfield,
Ore.
But four months later, the case is limping to a close, with police missteps
forcing
prosecutors into plea bargains. And authorities are having to defend themselves
against accusations they overreacted to the whole thing.
At first, prosecutors wanted to charge the boys as adults, meaning they
could have
gone to prison for 120 years.
But two boys who said they backed out of the plot were never charged. And
the
remaining three, once charged with conspiracy to commit murder, ended up
pleading
no contest to juvenile charges of reckless endangering. Those boys, all
16, can be
held in juvenile detention for only two years, until they turn 18.
Mark Nielsen, the lawyer for the alleged ringleader, said he was baffled
as to how
tough talk from a group of teen-agers who never even touched a gun became
``the
biggest case in America.''
``I don't think there's the slightest question about people overreacting
to this case,'' he
said.
Authorities say they did the right thing, considering the school tragedies
in other
towns. They learned of the alleged plot from an informant.
``The choice comes down to doing something and seeing what evidence there
was or
doing nothing and waiting to see what happens,'' said Ron Patla, police
chief in this
town about 60 miles southwest of Milwaukee. ``I don't think our response
was any
kind of an overreaction at all.''
Added Burlington High School Principal Jose Martinez, one of the targets
of the
alleged plot: ``I'm grateful that the police did what they did. People
want to say that
we overreacted, but what was the alternative? I think the students were
serious.''
The three boys arrested had been charged with nine counts altogether, including
three
of conspiracy to commit murder. But prosecutors eventually dropped all
but one
count of murder conspiracy against each, saying that charge would cover
all of the
offenses alleged.
Acting on the recommendation of psychologists, prosecutors also withdrew
their
request to try the boys as adults. Still, the boys could have gotten three
years in
juvenile detention if convicted of murder conspiracy.
Then last week, the case, which was based largely on the boys' statements
to police,
all but collapsed. A judge threw out the alleged ringleader's confession
because of
evidence police did not properly read him his rights and because they used
inappropriate tactics to get the statement. The judge said the interrogators'
jocular
manner did not convey to the boy how serious the accusations were.
Police are reviewing the circumstances under which the boys were read their
rights.
The police chief would not comment on the interrogation.
Paul Houston, executive director of the American Association of School
Administrators, said administrators in Burlington aren't the only ones
more sensitive to
threats since the series of school shootings.
``School people got the message that if people are threatening mass violence,
you
better take it seriously instead of waiting and hoping it's just a prank
or a teen-age
hoax,'' Houston said.
Bill Bond, principal at Heath High School in West Paducah, Ky., said he
wishes
someone in his school had relayed a similar warning. In 1997, a 14-year-old
student
opened fire on a group of schoolmates praying in the hall, killing three.
``It would have been handled before the perpetrator entered the building,''
Bond said.
``You would have never heard of us. We wouldn't have three kids dead.''
http://slashdot.org/articles/99/04/25/1438249.shtml
In the days after the Littleton, Colorado massacre, the country went
on a panicked hunt the oddballs in High School, a profoundly ignorant and
unthinking response to a tragedy that left geeks, nerds,non-conformists
and the alienated in an even worse situation than before. Stories all over
the country embarked on witchunts that amounted to little more than Geek
Profiling. All weekend, after Friday's column here, these voiceless kids
-- invisible in media and on TV talk shows and powerless in their own schools
-- have been e-mailing me with stories of what has happened to them in
the past few days. Here are some of
those stories in their own words, with gratitude and admiration for their
courage in sending them. The big story out of Littleton isn't about
violence on the Internet, or whether or not video games are turning out
kids into killers. It's about the fact that for some of the best, brightest
and most interesting kids, high school is a nightmare of exclusion, cruelty,
warped values and anger.
HUDSON - Karl Bauman has a purple belt in tae kwon do and
likes to watch movies like "Mulan," where the heroes defend
themselves with martial arts. So, when his teacher asked his
third-grade class to write a positive or fun fortune, like
one you would find in a cookie, he wrote: "You will die with
honor."
The result was a two-day suspension for the 9-year-old when
school officials determined he wrote a note that was
"threatening in nature."
Karl's parents, Jean and Mike Bauman, are angry and they are
appealing the suspension.
Jean Bauman said she knows students have been suspended
across Northeast Ohio for cases involving bomb threats, hit
lists, verbal threats and weapons in the wake of the
shootings at a Littleton, Colo., high school.
But Bauman said she and her husband can't understand how her
son's fortune-telling attempt falls in that category.
"He meant something positive - to be a hero and die with
honor," she said yesterday.
Bauman said that during the April 30 class at McDowell
Elementary School, third-graders gathered in a circle and
each one chose a fortune from the pile to read. A girl got
upset when she began to read Karl's fortune and got no
further than "You will die."
Their teacher, Amanda Caine, è000 . 0002.06érecognized the
handwriting and asked Karl before recess if he had written
it. "She took him and the note to the principal," Bauman
said.
Karl is shy and sometimes has a difficult time expressing
himself, she said. So, when Principal Rebecca Spehler asked
him if he thought kids would be upset by his fortune, all he
said was girls might be because that one girl had gotten
upset.
When Bauman was called to the school, she was told Karl was
being suspended for two days. He missed school on May 3 and
4.
An appeal hearing was held on May 6 by Daniel Seiberling,
director of pupil services and principal of Hudson
Elementary School. "Karl was in on a portion of it," his
mother said. "They asked him some questions, but he was so
rattled he said he didn't remember what happened."
The Baumans received a note from Seiberling on Tuesday,
saying that the district "affirmed the suspension and Karl
had written a note that was threatening in nature," she
said.
Bauman said they will appeal to the school board.
She said school officials reiterated during the appeal
hearing that the increased attention to threats is not
related to the Littleton deaths.
In an April 30 press release issued by the district
following the suspension of a high school student who had
made verbal threats, the district wrote: "Any student who
threatens, implies threats, creates disruption or panic will
be disciplined and/or prosecuted to the full extent of our
Board of Education's policies, and t