Girl gets detention for hugging – Education – MSNBC.com — When you boil it down these rules are precautionary measures to prevent sexual harassment. Another Nanny state issue. These administrators do not care about the kids, they are worried about lawsuits and losing their jobs. With these posts we can never be sure what top banner to use!
Two hugs equals two days of detention for 13-year-old Megan Coulter. The eighth-grader was punished for violating a school policy banning public displays of affection when she hugged two friends Friday.
“I feel it is crazy,” said Megan, who was to serve her second detention Tuesday after classes at Mascoutah Middle School.
“I was just giving them a hug goodbye for the weekend,” she said.
Megan’s mother, Melissa Coulter, said the embraces weren’t even real hugs — just an arm around the shoulder and slight squeeze.
“It’s hilarious to the point of ridicule,” Coulter said. “I’m still dumbfounded that she’s having to do this.”
District Superintendent Sam McGowen said that he thinks the penalty is fair and that administrators in the school east of St. Louis were following policy in the student handbook. It states: “Displays of affection should not occur on the school campus at any time. It is in poor taste, reflects poor judgment, and brings discredit to the school and to the persons involved.”
School or factory?
related story:
This all stems from a rigid interpretation of a court decision. Another girl sent home for hugging.
found by Aric Mackey
It’s becoming like that all over the place, even in Canada.
Add that to the virtual ban on talking to elders and strangers and you have to wonder what kind of social beings we are raising – or creating in the rest of society.
RBG
Let me be the first to offer a warm an friendly “fnck off” from Canada to District Superintendent Sam McGowen for his excellence in the retardation of principles and principals.
To the Coulter family… time to move to someplace nicer.
John, aren’t schools factories (figuratively speaking)?… “a person, group, or institution that produces a great quantity of something on a regular basis or in a short space of time”.
Are we making DRONES??
I would rather the kids Hug, and maybe show abit of affection then to have Some bastard come Shooting into the school, when the ONLY attention he got was being Belittled, and stomped on..
“It’s hilarious to the point of ridicule,” Coulter said. “I’m still dumbfounded that she’s having to do this.”
She doesn’t HAVE to do this… Grow a spine and fight.
Jesus fucking Christ people… I’m not worried about the stupid policies of school systems. I’m worried about the culture of jellyfish that allow the stupid policies of school systems.
So hugging is in poor taste, reflects poor judgment, and brings discredit to the parties involved?
What the hell?
No displays of hostility.
No displays of affection.
No displays of any emotion.
We are vulcans and emotions are illogical.
If I were the pop I’d get the girl out of that school, and into a proper one. And if I coudln’t I’d give the principal a hug myself.
You people might call it a headlock, but it’s still a hug
The mother & daughter look a lot like the same from the cast of Dead Like Me. Joy & Reggie.
http://www.deadlikeme.tv/characters.php
There is absolutely no problem with schools in Canada over similar stuff, teachers / staff will say to the student(s) to remain respectable.
It would take multiple repeats & warnings to get into “detention” stage.
Similar story to the maniac mom that found a spent .22 casing at a school parking lot.
I hope everyone here emails these morons and lets them know how you feel about this. As the father of a three year old, I really worry about sending her to public school. Something has to change.
You can’t blame conservatives, neo or other-wise for this crap. It comes straight out of the liberal agenda.
I for one support the school District. an almost similar thing happened here in Orange County not too long ago, an Asian girl was suspended for kissing her girlfriend (lesbians.) When the parents asked why she was suspended, the Principal told the parents why. the Principal outed her in the process and now the ACLU took her case. She lost in federal court but wants to take it to the Supreme Court all because her Privacy rights were violated. the Court Ruled that she had no Privacy rights in a hallway of a public school.
the point is that people will sue first chance they get, and rather then spending millions defending the public schools, the Districts decided to have Zero tolerance policies on everything. So to close, Its Societies behavior towards lsuing to get what they want that created these stupid rules that kids have today.
Is the main qualification to be a principle or be on a school board having an IQ of 80 or less? Morans.
The responsible parties are the Conservatives, religious and other neo wacko’s that are driving to refrain from anything that remotely points to sexual advance.
These wacko clowns are so sexually uptight, they can’t stand to see it in the communities outside of their suburban cocoon.
#10: You can’t blame conservatives, neo or other-wise for this crap. It comes straight out of the liberal agenda.
Good for you. Finger-pointing is a most constructive way to solve problems.
And you, #13. Got to be fair, after all.
Just don’t go !!!
If I were her parents, I would give her the choice to not go to detention. After explaining the whole deal to her and letting her make up her own mind.
If it were me, I’d go to detention and hug everyone, that did not smell…
#10 – You can’t blame conservatives, neo or other-wise for this crap. It comes straight out of the liberal agenda.
Bullshit.
That’s a boldface lie and typical of conservative talking points to try and smear the left with this bullshit. It isn’t liberal or conservative, and honest conservatives know this. There is a third party at work here… the moron party.
You guys need to separate what actual political liberals, you know, the serious men and women who actually are inside the process, versus the assorted nutbag liberals, who live in polyamorous marriages, attend Wiccan rituals, and hand out leaflets by the L stop. Those nuts are just as irrelevant as right wing nuts… The Montana Freeman, the Klan, and whoever McViegh worked for.
Im waitning for ALL human contact to be condemned…NO MORE shaking hands, it spreads germs..
“She doesn’t HAVE to do this… Grow a spine and fight.”
1) They do plan on going to the school board.
2) The media didn’t call themselves. Perhaps they called the media, to bring attention to the issue, to help them fight the school.
I am actually all in favor of all these zero tolerance policies. shows these kids the true face of authority in all its arbitrariness.
the lesson is that the people in charge do NOT care about you, and are not concerned with fairness, proportionality or even sanity.
learning that is a valuable thing.
I think it was best said by Thomas Paine:
That government is best which governs least.
Just in case you missed, I’ll say it again twice:
That government is best which governs least.
That government is best which governs least.
Now, I know that Thomas Paine was a bleeding heart liberal, the sort of which any right thinking person should despise for his seditious philosophies (and for the fact that he was an immigrant), but I still think that if anyone summed up the key to successful governance in one short sentence he is the man: That government is best which governs least.
#20 – You are right. I stand corrected.
#21 – Bullshit. If you want to draw a line between the people and the government and claim that the people are not the government, then go find a failing Eastern Bloc country to live in. This is OUR nation, and WE are in charge.
Only the intellectually lazy claim otherwise.
Yeah, avoiding lawsuits is priority number one. Start shutting down some of these crazy lawsuits, and maybe things will approve.
How was Thomas Paine a liberal? He was a free thinker and a classical liberal (but that is not the same as a so-called left wing liberal). I think you might want to go read Common Sense, Agrarian Justice, The Age of Reason and the Crisis Papers again.
Secondly, challenging Christianity does not make one a left wing or right wing classical liberal (i.e. moderate). It does not even make an individual an atheist. Nor does creating a plan for an economic safety net to secure the country against civil unrest due to class warfare. A stable country after all does benefit the wealthy. This hardly makes him a social liberal.
Finally, I would go into a debate about libertarianism or by extension its more radical free market anarchism, but the trouble is that most modern conservatives (Bush, Cheney, Limbaugh) do not subscribe to the writings of Coke, Sir Edmund Burke or Locke, but rather to a mixed mode system of contemporary communitarianism. In other words, they are not really classical liberals who subscribed to conservative ideology, but rather classical liberals that support a very hardened version of the social contract (and mass expansion of the State). It would, however, be a mistake to align them with a social liberal.
The principal said that hugs “lead to other things…”
I agree. It’s a gateway hug!
8. Mark Derail
Cleveland Elementary, North Vancouver, Canada
Code of Conduct
“Keep hands to yourself.”
http://www.nvsd44.bc.ca/Sites/SitesViewDefault.asp?SiteID=16
RBG
#25 – Wow… Did you ever miss the joke there Professor…
No “we” are NOT in charge of any given situation – we have delegated our power to officials, elected and otherwise, who can exercise that power in an arbitrary and capricious manner. individual acts of injustice (like the one here) very rarely result in negative consequences for the officials.
talk about bullshit
and even if theoretically true – the electorate can be indifferent towards “you … fairness, proportionality or even sanity.”
people should be heartily skeptical about the actions of “their” government – as well as other authority figures, such as corporate and other organizational officers – and the sooner they learn this, the better.
the whole concept of checks and balances in the US Constitution is based upon this principle.
It would appear the School screwed up. The Superintendent said
“Displays of affection should not occur on the school campus at any time. It is in poor taste, reflects poor judgment, and brings discredit to the school and to the persons involved.”
Since a mere “Good Morning” is a sign of affection, that very act would most definitely have hung several teachers by now. So would a “good job” or “have a good day”.
On the other hand, IF the administration has completely stopped all familiarity, then what kind of environment is that giving the students? Can you imagining the football or basketball not being allowed to congratulate each other on a good play?
Actually, if this ever went to court, showing athletes congratulating each other should be enough to demonstrate the unevenness of application. The school administration would lose in a heart beat.
This all comes from the liberal promoted “everything is a hate crime/sexual harassment” school of thought.