There Really Are Thought Crimes These Days: Girl Suspended For Diary Entry Mentioning Pot
Claudette Riley writes in the Springfield News-Leader that a Buffalo girl was suspended from high school for more than half a year for her journal entry, found by school officials, in which she wrote about experimenting with pot and contemplating bringing it to school:
Tom Grayhorse said his daughter, Krystal, had never been in trouble before she was called into the office and suspended May 9. Originally, she was ousted for 10 days, but it was quickly extended through the end of the 2014 calendar year.Unable to finish her junior year, her grades plummeted and she lost out on credits needed for graduation. Grayhorse hoped the district would reconsider, allowing her to return last month so she had a chance of graduating with her class in May.
...Dallas County Superintendent Robin Ritchie said her hands are tied, legally, in terms of answering specifics about this situation. But she agreed to talk in generalities.
"Anything that's drug-related or alcohol-related, we are going to have zero tolerance," she said.
Even if you have no fucking evidence that it happened anywhere but in somebody's head?
Yet another administrator proving that the people most in need of common sense on high school campuses are probably the people in charge.
There was this:
The superintendent of the Dallas County school district said that is "not the full story" but declined to provide any details, citing student privacy laws.
Anyone else smell the wafting manure blowing across the plains?
What more could be written in a diary that could reasonably lead to a kid's suspension?
Also, if you find a diary, the polite thing to do, vis a vis how a person's private thoughts are not for public consumption unless they so decide, would be to return it unread -- not greedily paw through the pages.
So the school stole her private property and punished her for thought crimes?
Seriously, when does the shooting of brain dead government bureaucrats start?
lujlp at September 16, 2014 12:21 AM
This is the natural progression from "hate crimes".
Radwaste at September 16, 2014 3:02 AM
Exactly right in how you characterized that, luj. You find somebody's private property; the answer isn't to rifle through it but to figure out who it belongs to and return it to them.
As I write in "Good Manners For Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck", your right to privacy -- to control the public use of your words, thoughts, etc. -- does not end because you've lost an object that belongs to you.
Amy Alkon at September 16, 2014 5:38 AM
And up to, but not limited to, your body, including, but not limited to, naked pictures OF said body.... Just sayen. I mean, if they had found pictures of the girl, would they have suspended her and claimed she was a porn star after passing around the pictures?
Lee at September 16, 2014 7:15 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/09/16/there_really_ar_1.html#comment-5086030">comment from LeeIt's your diary. If you want to put naked pictures of yourself in it -- or anything else -- this is not the business of your school.
Amy Alkon at September 16, 2014 7:18 AM
"Grayhorse hoped the district would reconsider,"
um, he should have known when they went that route, there was only one way to make them reconsider, and that's to make it painfully expensive...
I understand the go along to get along feelings, very much, but you can tell that they were making an example, where their wasn't one, and the only way to fix that, is to make it apinful for them.
SwissArmyD at September 16, 2014 9:34 AM
Krystal, her dad and the school might not realize it yet, but by kicking her out that school did her a favor. She'll be better off spending her time in the real world outside the fence.
Krystal's dad says he's worried that she won't be able to graduate from high school and go to college. More people need to know that their kid doesn't need to graduate from high school to go to college.
Ken R at September 16, 2014 9:35 AM
If she was a decent student she should just get her GED and move on. It may even count as a plus for college if she has the SAT scores along with it.
Ben at September 16, 2014 10:32 AM
If she was a decent student she should just get her GED and move on. It may even count as a plus for college if she has the SAT scores along with it.
Ben at September 16, 2014 10:32 AM
If she was a decent student she should just get her GED and move on. It may even count as a plus for college if she has the SAT scores along with it.
Posted by: Ben at September 16, 2014 10:32 AM
I agree. I had to struggle to keep my daughter in a high school she hated. Finally when she was going to have to go an extra semester to get a diploma, we did it the easy way. I enrolled her in the local community college, for two classes that she needed, and mailed the transcripts to the school district, who issued a diploma.
It is such a worthless document these days, I am not sure why we bothered,
Isab at September 16, 2014 11:05 AM
You don't even need a GED. My oldest daughter started enrolled at a community college when she was 15. She got her GED shortly after she started taking classes. My younger daughter enrolled at the community college when she was 14. She got her GED when she was 16. Both daughters graduated from a well regarded university when they were 19 and 20 (that was in 1998). They covered 2/3 of the $24,000/year tuition with scholarships. Neither of them ever went to any school before they started college. They weren't the only ones. Dozens of other kids their age graduated in the same ceremonies with them.
Ken R at September 16, 2014 10:27 PM
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