Posted by
mrsbooks on Sunday, May 18, 2008 12:00:00 AM
Doug Giles' newest article called Memphis High School: Reading, Writing And Bumping nad Grinding, was about an isolated incident in Tennesee. Yet, I'm afraid that it might be a new trend for public schools. For example, in Lancaster County, Pa., there was a incident, possibly sexual in nature (the Ephrata Area School District won't divulge what exactly happened), that happened in a middle school classroom. According to an
Ephrata Review (
http://ephratareview.com) article dated on Wednesday, May 14, 2008, the Ephrata Area School District's school board is still maintaining its stance of not telling what happened in a middle school classroom in April 2008. The Ephrata Review states, "A nonviolent, consensual incident occurred between students in April in a middle school classroom. The teacher, who was in the classroom the entire time, was unawared at the time that it occurred. The incident was reported to the teacher at the beginning of hte next class period, and the teacher immendiately reported the matter to the Middle School Office."
Not a big deal, right? The problem comes in when the school district refuses to disclose what the "incident" actually was, leaving the community to wonder what happened in that classroom. The school board maintains that it wasn't neither drugs nor weapons. So what's the alternative? The school district and its board are hiding under state and federal statutes, like the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, citing that the law prohibits, "the disclosure of certain student educational records and personally identifiable information." Okay, I don't want to know who the kids were, but I do want to know what happened, and why did it happen in the first place.
Further on in the article, the author, Gary P. Klinger, noted, "The district acted immediately, beginning its investigation immediately, and the district called the parents in the class immediately. There was no cover up at all, neither by the teacher nor by any member of the administration. Further the school board was fully apprised of the situation, and members were advised by our legal counsel not to discuss the details of the situation with the public."
Well, maybe no cover up, per se, but still all parents should be notified as to what happened. We are paying taxes, and some of us, are sending our children to a school in that district. We don't need to know the grisly details. Just what happened; why did the kids feel free enough to do that; and what the heck was the teacher doing that he/she didn't notice what was going on?
Granted, I'm making a leap of judgement here, but since it wasn't drug or weapon-related, what else could it be? It burns me up that for parents like me, who want their children to get a descent education, but can't afford private school and don't want to homeschool, have no choice but to send them to these moral educational vacuums that we pay taxes for.
First it was kids shooting their classmates into oblivion. Now it's sex in school. What's next? I'm afraid to even contemplate that.