I can understand a school official wanting to discourage this sort of thing - what might the next Romeo wannabe do to top that? - but this was a massive overreaction to say the least.

Yes.

By the way, my junior high school gave me a ladder to use after I won a mural-painting contest and had to reach the high parts on the junior high hallway wall.

Nobody even told me to be careful using it.

I agree; this seems awfully heavy-handed, and my usual gut reaction to things like this is that some people should never be put in positions of authority. The comments on both linked stories seemed to swing to the extremes: "The headmistress was a total witch" one the one hand and "Rules are rules, and you have to follow them" on the other. I didn't see too many comments taking the middle ground.

Have I no sympathy for Headmistress Smith? In a way, I do. I have no idea if she made the rule in question or not. And while the rule seems misapplied in the Tate case, leniency on her part would likely haunt her later, when some malefactor who really deserves being banned from prom argues for the same treatment Tate got. It's a situation which requires judgment, and people would come gunning for her either way.

Amy, is your cute little film available to watch anywhere? You've spoken of it before. I'm curious.

You are such a tease! Please, no more details! That sounds awesome. I'm having trouble squaring this information. The only aliens you write about now are illegal aliens. Too funny.

Darn it, I ask for no more details and you give them anyways. To begin, I love your writing (it's what keeps me here). It's to the point, precise, well reasoned (even though I often disagree, even if I can't express how), and entertaining(topic allowing). But with that, I just can't imagine my conception of you having made a movie about an alien from another planet played by a guy named Ari. That is genuinely the best mind boggler I've had in at least three days. I really wish I could see it.

About the school thing: this is, of course, just part of a general disease going around - the idea that the valedictorian and the thug have to be treated the same.

That's what parents have actually pushed for. How else could it be codified?

The zero-tolerance policy helps the administration avoid the slippery slope of the valedictorian vs. thug question - I assume the headmistress does not wish to appear weak, which could lead to a constant barrage from helicopter parents during any similar future episodes. I don't agree, but I empathize. I also think the school's major failure was in suspending the kid instead of celebrating his creativity. Ferchrissakes, it's a private HS!

Happily, a local radio station has decided to throw James his very own prom!

DaveG, where did you get the idea that Shelton High School is private? It's a public high school.

Here's the thing: In the school policy, it states that any pupil who gets an in- or out- of school suspension (James and his 2 buddies that helped him got 1 day in-school suspensions) after April 1, is not allowed to attend prom. In one article in the local paper, it was stated that the kids OMG trespassed onto school property after hours to put up the sign. Okay maybe they shouldn't have done that. But what they did, instead of oh, spray-painting the message on the side of the building, was TAPE a cardboard sign on the side of the building. I think the one-day suspension was a little over the top; had the headmistress been thinking more rationally, rather than just giving her first knee-jerk reaction punishment out, she might have punished the boys by making them pick up all the garbage around the school and giving them a week's detention maybe. The punishment did NOT fit the crime, and I'm glad she relented, although she left it up to the school superintendent and the mayor to actually say that James and his friends could go to prom; all she said was she didn't expect the "international notoriety".

In any case, they're all going to prom, although one of the boys had already told his date to go with someone else, because he didn't want her to miss the prom. From today's CT Post:

"Smith lamented the "international notoriety" of her decision to ban Tate from the prom after he and two friends taped a note asking a girl to the prom on the side of the school.

"I never thought this would lead to international notoriety, as I make tough, unpopular decisions on a daily basis. I have considered the effect this incident has had on the individual student, the entire student body and my staff and the Shelton community. ... Throughout the past week, the level of distraction created by this incident has affected the culture of Shelton High School, one that I have worked hard to establish."

But she never actually said that Tate and his two friends, Andrew Boretsky and Christian Lombardi, could go to the prom. That was left to Schools Superintendent Freeman Burr and Mayor Mark Lauretti to do after Smith was gone.

"It's obvious from Dr. Smith's remarks that they can go," Burr said, even though it wasn't to many in attendance. "Yes, they can go," added Lauretti."

And:

"But it is Boretsky, the so-called "ladder man," who suffered the biggest loss in all this.

After he was banned from the prom, he told his date to go with someone else, and now he is dateless.

"I didn't want her to miss the prom because it meant so much to her, so I urged her to go with someone else, and she is," he said. "The guy she is going with is a friend of mine, so I can't break them up. Maybe I will just go with Lombardi.""

Read more: http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/James-Tate-allowed-to-go-to-prom-1379594.php#ixzz1MR7mPSqP

Flynne, I didn't do my homework. I thought I heard someone say "private school" on the radio, and since when does a public HS have a headmistress? That's so 1800s.