Student was in trouble for "liking" photo of airsoft gun

[JediSkipdogg]

School administrators are well paid because they supposedly posses superior intelligence, education and judgement. Then they blindly follow some brain dead zero tolerance policy. Ridiculous. No excuse. Might as well go get a monkey and train it to push the expel button any time it sees anything resembling a gun.

That said, I can understand how we got here. Whenever there is a shooting in a school, a mass shooting anywhere for that natter, there is a lynch mob comes out to search for someone to blame OTHER THAN THE ACTUAL SHOOTER. School administrators are right in the line of fire. no wonder they are paranoid.

And just like we say "this kids parent's should sue" you have the other side saying the same thing if a shooting does occur. So which do you take, sued for suspending/expelling one student and maybe losing $100k on a settlement (I couldn't find a single suspension case where more was given out) or risk losing millions and making national news because you did nothing when a student did something online that purported to be a possible threat.

[WY_Not]

Unless the incident happened on school property, on school time then the school should have absolutely NO say in the matter, NO authority to punish, no involvement in the matter. If admins want to bring it up to the parents to discuss their concerns that is one thing but the admins went WAY over the line on this one. There was no threat implied or overt made towards the school or anyone associated with the school or anyone at all. There was simply a delicate little snowflakes acting as a school admins who nearly wet their pants at the mere sight of an inanimate object. And rather than discussing it like rational adults with the parents to find out if there was an issue, they went full blubbering idiot and punished a kid with no information, no due process, no nothing.

[Brian D.]

"Minority Report", the book was better than the movie because I like my protagonist types to be taller than 5'6".

But we do seem to be inching closer to Future Crimes Police. .make that School Boards.

[JediSkipdogg]

So does this change anyone's mind on the incident....

One student posted a picture of a firearm on social media with the caption, "Ready.” Another student, who "liked" the post, then texted a friend and said he was going to bring a gun to school in his hoodie, the sheriff's office said.

http://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/but ... ler-county" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Seems like he didn't just like it, but made a threat of bringing a gun to school. Should that threat not be acted upon by school officials?

[Javelin Man]

So does this change anyone's mind on the incident....

One student posted a picture of a firearm on social media with the caption, "Ready.” Another student, who "liked" the post, then texted a friend and said he was going to bring a gun to school in his hoodie, the sheriff's office said.

http://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/but ... ler-county" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Seems like he didn't just like it, but made a threat of bringing a gun to school. Should that threat not be acted upon by school officials?

Are you implying that the MSM was selective in their "unbiased" reporting of the facts?

[WY_Not]

Two very different stories.

Doesn't change any of what I wrote though. If something doesn't take place on school time/property the school admins shouldn't be able to punish a student. If something does happen that is or threatens criminal behavior then let the police handle it.

[WestonDon]

Just wondering how much time and money is spent by schools to monitor their students social media? Is there an employee with the responsibility to snoop on the kiddies or did another student complain? Are our schools just full of whiny little budding snowflakes?

[JediSkipdogg]

Just wondering how much time and money is spent by schools to monitor their students social media? Is there an employee with the responsibility to snoop on the kiddies or did another student complain? Are our schools just full of whiny little budding snowflakes?

So a kid saying he is going to bring a gun to school in his hoodie shouldn't be investigated?

[WY_Not]

Let the police handle such matters if they rise to the level of illegal activity. If not and if it did not happen during school and on school property, then the school should not be punishing kids. In the original story, the school had no business getting involved. In the second story their role is to hand over the info the police. Schools have enough to deal with during school hours without spying on the kids after hours.

Personally I'd be very {inappropriate language} if some snowflake admin tried to pull this crap with my kids. Two of my three like hunting and Appleseeds. I'll be damned if anyone thinks I'd just stand by and accept such nonsense and any punishment because they shared pictures or conversation regarding these activities with a friend outside of school.

Just wondering how much time and money is spent by schools to monitor their students social media? Is there an employee with the responsibility to snoop on the kiddies or did another student complain? Are our schools just full of whiny little budding snowflakes?

So a kid saying he is going to bring a gun to school in his hoodie shouldn't be investigated?

[WestonDon]

Just wondering how much time and money is spent by schools to monitor their students social media? Is there an employee with the responsibility to snoop on the kiddies or did another student complain? Are our schools just full of whiny little budding snowflakes?

So a kid saying he is going to bring a gun to school in his hoodie shouldn't be investigated?

This is not an either/or situation.

Two separate questions here. First I am questioning the extent to which schools routinely surveil students social media. Just because they can. They shouldn't. The second is whether a report of impending criminal activity should be investigated. Of course it should. By the police.

[M-Quigley]

Two very different stories.

Doesn't change any of what I wrote though. If something doesn't take place on school time/property the school admins shouldn't be able to punish a student. If something does happen that is or threatens criminal behavior then let the police handle it.

Agree with this. One situation is criminal, the other is not. (at least not yet ) If a student posts a picture of a car or truck, it would be unreasonable for anyone to merely assume criminal behavior, either in posting the pic or someone "liking" it. Any school administrator that suspended a student over a mere car photo would be fired. OTOH, if a student allegedly text's someone and says they want to take said car or truck and run people over at some outdoor school event, get the police involved. The two situations are different.

[OhioPaints]

Would you really want your kids educated by these morons?

I know, sadly the alternatives are limited, but suspending or expelling is probably a positive move for the kids.

[bignflnut]

Just wondering how much time and money is spent by schools to monitor their students social media? Is there an employee with the responsibility to snoop on the kiddies or did another student complain?

Ding Ding Ding (finger on nose)

Perhaps this was done using a "school laptop"?

So declares an assistant principal at Intermediate School 339 in the Bronx borough of New York, a "former technology coach" (PDF) named Dan Ackerman (but not to be confused with CNET's Dan Ackerman). You might imagine that he's wandering around a classroom looking over kids' shoulders as they fiddle about on their laptops. You might imagine, then, that storks deliver milk as well as babies.

This remarkable 2009 footage from the PBS show "Frontline," promoted on its site earlier this month and thrust into the limelight on Thursday by the people at Boing Boing, might just make your own moral code offer a boing or two, as you view the apparent normality of a school administrator peeping into his students' lives through software installed on their school-issued laptops.

The entertainment begins at around the 4:30 mark. We watch him watching a girl comb her hair, using her Mac's Photo Booth application as a mirror. He then observes the editing of a MySpace profile page, reportedly via a program called Apple Remote Desktop, marketed as enabling teachers to "pause all of their [students'] screens, give them new instructions, and start them up again when [they're] ready."

Perhaps the most chilling line of the video, especially in the context of this week's revelations at Harriton High School in Pennsylvania--which allegedly used security software to surreptitiously activate a school-issued laptop Webcam when off-campus--is when Ackerman utters these words with almost a chuckle: "They don't even realize that we're watching."

They seem to realize something, though. As Ackerman demonstrates how he "always [likes] to mess with [students] and take a picture" by remote-controlling the Photo Booth software, a girl ducks out of shot.

To be clear, this student should not be punished for "liking" a photo.

Students and their families are backed into a corner. As students across the United States are handed school-issued laptops and signed up for educational cloud services, the way the educational system treats the privacy of students is undergoing profound changes—often without their parents’ notice or consent, and usually without a real choice to opt out of privacy-invading technology.

Students are using technology in the classroom at an unprecedented rate. One-third of all K-12 students in U.S. schools use school-issued devices.1 Google Chromebooks account for about half of those machines.2 Across the U.S., more than 30 million students, teachers, and administrators use Google’s G Suite for Education (formerly known as Google Apps for Education), and that number is rapidly growing.3

SNIP

In short, technology providers are spying on students—and school districts, which often provide inadequate privacy policies or no privacy policy at all, are unwittingly helping them do it.

[Bruenor]

Like the Telescreen from Orwells 1984..

The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

Nice statement from the Super.... LINK.

Superintendent Russ Fussnecker sent a statement to WBRC defending the school’s actions and stating that the school has a “zero tolerance policy” for any inappropriate behavior, including “misbehavior” that occur off school property.

The Village is raising your kids, you just thought you were their parents.

[bignflnut]

Here's the Frontline clip previously mentioned