Tennesee school goes over parent’s head
Seems like there was a bit of bad behavior on a Friday night off campus, a teacher caught wind of it, and instead of contacting the kids’ parents school officials decided to issue their own punishment. And Travis McGaha of the Seymour Herald — who seems to have a bit of a Libertarian bent — is none too happy about it:
One of the parents contacted an attorney who agreed that the school had violated due process rights by not informing the parent about the appellate process or her rights to have the action reviewed by a higher commission within the school system.
The mother, upon hearing this explanation, was shocked to find that the school could possibly administer stigmatizing punishments so easily for off-campus offenses with the only actionable response being expensive litigation.
Far from a school administration executing punishment in place of a parent who is hours away (by horseback or foot, I might add) to maintain good order, the school executed the over-reactive punishment even though the parent was less than 2 minutes away by automobile.
Even though the children apologized up front and were not disruptive towards the class, the teacher, the school nor the school system, their honesty and good order was met not only with verbal reprimand but by bullish interrogation by the resource officer as well as threats of further citation.
Information from: http://seymourherald.com/opinion/2008/ap...
