Boy Guilty of Stalking; Omaha Westside High Fails The Quiz
Today the Nebraska Supreme Court upheld a ruling that a 16-year old student is guilty of misdemeanor stalking for yelling at another student almost 200 times:
According to court documents, the teen identified only as Jeffrey K. yelled at the girl close to 200 times over two months in 2004 at Omaha Westside High School. He shoved a chair directly into her path, causing her to stumble, repeatedly called her a “whore” and threw food at her, yelling “eat some more, fat ass.”
… and where was the discipline? Educators tout “behavioral interventions” [a phrase popular enough to be the title of a journal] designed to deal with “a multitude of dispositions” to create a “safe school environment” where a student can pursue an education without harassment, intimidation or any other artificial obstacle.
I’ve prepared the following test for those educators:
Q: How many times should you allow one student to harass another [physically or verbally] before dealing with the situation effectively?
A. 200
B. 9,384
C. 52
D. 1
We know that Omaha Westside High School chose A - you don’t have to. [Hint: Westside High failed.] Others can e-mail me their answers or leave them in the Comments section.
Disciplining students involves not only dealing efficiently and effectively with the offender, but also focusing primarily on the victim’s [and other students'] rights to a free environment. The issue here is liberty; the victim’s freedom from harassment is more important than the offender’s freedom to behave like a jerk and get away with it over and over again.
Students hardly report harassment of any kind. The onus is on staff to see the offense - and with 200 offenses, there were opportunities to catch at least a few - and involve the administration to handle the situation effectively. That administration also needs to have the resolve to remove the offender from the school environment instead of wringing their hands over the sad exclusion of a miscreant. My guess is that the time for removal came well before incident #173. Maybe even before #100.
omaha westside IS guilty of not taking action - they repeatedly overlook student behavior and welfare.
Mrs. Smith,
Are there other, newer examples in line with this one?
Matthew
how about a student that made a plea for help, in print by email to a westside counselor, for fear he may “become hostile to others”…. the same week as the recent threats left in the high school…. the windows shot out in the parking lot —- a list of names of students that might wind up dead…. (did you hear about all that? over 600 students were not in school in the days following because of the threats) i appreciate your time, as this isnt neccessarily regarding bullying - but gross incompetence and negligence on the schools part. the student email was not responded to in any way for nearly a week - the counselor claimed she wasnt in the office that week. no collegue takes over when a counselor is out of the office? she doesnt know how to CHECK HER EMAILS???? not one phone call was made to any parent regarding it - even 6 hours after she says she finally did see it.