Do schools have right to discipline students for off campus activity?

[CaptainCrunch]

The biggest question is when can we bring back the strap, and how many lashes should they get?

[OffsideSpecialist]

I'm grateful that teachers focus on more than academics. I suffered from social ineptitude as a child and the teachers were awesome for kind of helping me get out of my shell and make new friends.

With regards to this incident, I think it would be totally wrong for the school to ignore it. It would show the kids that it's okay to sexually harass people. As kids spend so much time at school, schools are also largely responsible for forming them as human beings.

[malcolmk14]

First of all, principle and principal are two different words that mean different things.

Second of all, we don't have all the details in this case. We don't know if the comments were another incident in a long line of harassing behavior. We don't know if the teacher and the students had a discussion or multiple discussions that didn't lead anywhere and the teacher felt the need to get administration involved. Whether the teachers safety was actually threatened or not is not as big of a deal as whether they felt like it was threatened; and I don't just mean physical safety but also their emotional state.

Finally, it is well within the rights of the Principal to suspend a student for sexually suggestive comments made about one of his/her teachers on a social media website. As a teacher, I have to be very careful about what I put on my Twitter page and how I am represented online. If some student thinks I'm a big jerk and continuously tweets insults about me, I would absolutely expect my administration to step in and discipline that student if I were unable to do it myself. The reality of social media is that it's widespread and accessible to everybody, you can't expect something controversial or insulting that you post on Twitter to not impact other related aspects of your life.

The principle should focus on providing an education environment and stop with their "god" complex.

That's exactly what the Principal in this case is doing. The teacher and administration feel that the sexually suggestive comments posted have had a destructive effect on the learning environment. Right in the article, it says they were "deeply inappropriate" and have "negatively impacted the school community".

[malcolmk14]

Originally Posted by JohnnyHowDoO'duya

I am curious if the CBE has a published mandate stating otherwise?

CBE has some goals on their website which include but aren't limited to:

- Be technologically fluent, able to use digital tools critically, ethically and safely.

- Understand the rights and responsibilities of citizenship in local, national, and international contexts.

- Make lifestyle choices based upon healthy attitudes and actions, and be able to assume responsibility for personal well-being.

- Be able to lead and follow, as appropriate, and to develop and maintain positive relationships with other individuals and groups in order to manage conflict and to reach consensus in the pursuit of common goals.

- Each student will demonstrate good character, act morally with wisdom, and balance individual concerns with the rights and needs of others.

I think all of those are relevant, the students being suspended may or may not be a good way to teach all or some of those things, and it shows that schools are definitely NOT just places that teach academics, nor should they be.

[JohnnyHowDoO'duya]

Thanks for all your inputs, good points and I stand corrected. I still have some feelings about it, but accept the logic presented.

[Dorkmaster]

Originally Posted by JohnnyHowDoO'duya

Fair enough but does that means all children get treated like their parents are derelect drug addicted criminals?

Do you have kids in the Calgary school system? I do, I have found the principles that I have dealt with to be arrogant and deem themselves to be better than "parents".

We are even categorized as something that principles have to deal with a as a job hazard.

Anyhow, off topic now. If I feel like ranting, I can find a RGMG thread.

While irritating at times, you have to also realize teachers probably deal with tons of students that need all the help they can get. There are arrogant teachers but you can't dismiss them all just because of your own personal experience. On top of the that this article has nothing to do with the question you have in mind, but as others have mentioned, a discipline for harassment and protecting their own staff members.

[JohnnyHowDoO'duya]

Originally Posted by Dorkmaster

While irritating at times, you have to also realize teachers probably deal with tons of students that need all the help they can get. There are arrogant teachers but you can't dismiss them all just because of your own personal experience. On top of the that this article has nothing to do with the question you have in mind, but as others have mentioned, a discipline for harassment and protecting their own staff members.

For the record, I was talking about Principals, not teachers.

I know quite a few teachers and they are great people doing society a great deed. My respect to them, even the ones who are showing burnout, its not an easy job.

I don't have the same level of respect for the administrators and bureaucrats though.

[Cowperson]

Rosie DiManno in the Toronto Star - "Don't Tweet If You Can't Take The Heat"

In olden days — and I’m talking, geez, maybe a decade ago — nasty notes surreptitiously passed around the classroom by students would draw a teacher’s wrath if intercepted.

If sufficiently objectionable, porn-y, vicious, threatening, there might be hell to pay: detentions, suspensions, parents summoned to the principal’s office. (During my youth, a few smacks with a ruler against the palms. Yes Mr. Woods, I do remember.)

The quick-thinking kid, given half a chance, might even eat the evidence before it became Exhibit A for the inquisition.

But you can’t eat a tweet . . . .

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/arti...-take-the-heat

Cowperson

[Titan]

Even though the debate is over I did find the acceptable conduct and discipline policy and it specifically indluces cyber bullying. http://www.cbe.ab.ca/policies/policies/AR6001.pdf

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by JohnnyHowDoO'duya

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2.../20376321.html
Clearly I have a problem with kids who cyber bully and make sexually suggestive comments to teachers and would discipline my child for it, but I take offense to the school suspending the kids.

A bit away from the actual debate, but you've been referring to the students as kids which I'm not quite sure I agree with. Not that it's technically wrong, and based on their actions they are far from adults, but odds are of the nine grade 12 students at least one of them is legally an adult and even if they aren't the majority of them will be in the upcoming months. For that reason alone I'm happy the principal is taking action against the young adults - let them learn their online actions have consequences before it actually costs them more than a day in school and a supper without desert.

As for the actual debate, I feel in this case it's pretty clear cut as it involved school staff and share the sentiments as the majority in this thread.