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Ohio student suspended for staying in class during National Walkout Day

leekohler2 said:
Cool story bro, except that’s not what happened here. Fox News lied again. Read the thread.
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You were in the parking lot of my high school on the first Earth Day?
 
j-mac said:
Well, so much for the argument that if they didn't want to participate, then they didn't have to....

So tolerant.
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He didnt want to hang out, being supervised, with his laptop or phone in study hall....so?

That was the rule, they didnt want students hanging out unsupervised in the school...they are still responsible for his safety and liable for school property.

He got suspended for saying 'no,' he wouldnt comply with the rules, not for not participating in the protest.
 
Saladin4 said:
Story sounds like something Russian Bots put out...To rile up the trump base
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Jeez....good point. Perfect example...and reaction.
 
prometeus said:
What a load of stupid crap. Why the total dishonesty?
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J-mac isn't even aware it's a lie. Right-wing sources told him what he wanted to hear, so he assumed it was presented accurately. He's unaware that he's been duped.
 
code1211 said:
You were in the parking lot of my high school on the first Earth Day?
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Like I said, cool story. It has nothing to do with the OP, since the article in it was BS.
 
j-mac said:
Well, so much for the argument that if they didn't want to participate, then they didn't have to....

So tolerant.
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The article clearly says that the student was given the option to stay in school common area and not participate in the walkout. He refused both choices.
 
Saladin4 said:
She wasn't...But most likely you weren't either
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Well, I was.

As a naive and trusting teenager, it was my first brush against the contrived imaging of the politically active.

The Student Council President, a pretty good friend of mine at the time, was the planner of this and he arranged for the "monitors" to perform their function and then participated in an interview on the local evening news or newspaper. The image was of the empty parking lot and the message was that the student body was 100% on board with the no cars on the planet idea. I'm not 100% on which it was- print or electric- that was a long time ago.
 
Lursa said:
... they didnt want students hanging out unsupervised in the school...they are still responsible for his safety and liable for school property.
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Then the teacher should have been in the room.

Was it class time?
 
j-mac said:
Well, so much for the argument that if they didn't want to participate, then they didn't have to....

So tolerant.
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Once you look at the actual facts, the student was punished for being where they shouldn't be when they shouldn't be there.

The student did not take the position that "I am protesting against the protest and I am doing that by remaining in a locked classroom.". Rather the student took the position "I do not agree with the protest so I am not taking part in it.".

Quite frankly the student could have not taken part down at the nearest McDonald's if they had felt like it and they would have been just as errectively "not taking part in" the protest.
 
I'm still not sure why the kid couldn't just hang out in the empty classroom for 20 freaking minutes. What was the school afraid was going to happen? He'd hang himself in protest over the teacher's desk? Spontaneous combustion?

If he'd gone to study hall would he be allowed to rejoin the class after everyone else came back?
 
JMaximus said:
Then the teacher should have been in the room.

Was it class time?
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Who says, you? The school apparently had different plans for the protest and chose to assign resources as they saw appropriate.
 
JMaximus said:
Then the teacher should have been in the room.

Was it class time?
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The teacher was supervising the entire class outside of the room as had been planned and communicated. It's like a student refusing to go on a zoo field trip because he doesn't support putting animals in captivity. Only this student was given an alternative. He refused that too.
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
Once you look at the actual facts, the student was punished for being where they shouldn't be when they shouldn't be there.

The student did not take the position that "I am protesting against the protest and I am doing that by remaining in a locked classroom.". Rather the student took the position "I do not agree with the protest so I am not taking part in it.".

Quite frankly the student could have not taken part down at the nearest McDonald's if they had felt like it and they would have been just as errectively "not taking part in" the protest.
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He had a separate, supervised option if he didn't want to participate in the protest. He refused both options.
 
eman623 said:
I'm still not sure why the kid couldn't just hang out in the empty classroom for 20 freaking minutes. What was the school afraid was going to happen? He'd hang himself in protest over the teacher's desk? Spontaneous combustion?
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Who knows? That's the point. Parents and communities tend to get a little agitated when students are injured or killed at school.

If he'd gone to study hall would he be allowed to rejoin the class after everyone else came back?
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Yes. The study hall lasted as long as the protest did because it was an alternative option to participating in the protest.
 
An elementary school in Alabama asked my parents for permission to paddle me when I refused to participate in a game of dodgeball as a child. Schools are heavily authoritarian institutions by nature—which has nothing to do with the political spectrum, but only of ensuring other people's children are in a structured and supervised environment.

Similarly, this student was not punished for exercising, or refusing to exercise, any particular political belief, but for refusing to cooperate in heading to one of several designated supervised areas during a school-wide event, as is plainly stated on the suspension paper. This student was asked to go to either area, but instead actively refused, even after being repeatedly warned that he could not remain in the classroom alone.

"If he went outside for the walkout, he said, he would be supporting gun control. If he stayed in the common area of the school, he said, he would be seen as supporting gun violence and disrespecting the 17 lives lost in the Parkland, Fla. High school shooting the month before," reports Fox News.

So the student argues that other students not engaging in the main protest were perceived to be pro-gun, or even possibly to support the shooter. However, it doesn't matter what political position this student perceived the students in the study area to support. He could have easily expressed his intentions to any of his student peers who might ask him why he didn't participate in the main protest outside.

If all students are instructed to go to a school-wide pep rally in support of the football team, but this lone student had refused, acted insubordinately, and instead decided to remain in the empty, unsupervised classroom, it is likely he would have faced the exact same consequences.
 
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apdst said:
Thst should have never been allowed.
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You mean like every time an entire class leaves a classroom? Field trips? Pep rallies? Good weather days when class can be taught in the grass? Think about what you're saying.
 
apdst said:
Thst should have never been allowed.
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So... it's okay for a child to disobey instructions from a teacher to go to a designated study hall but forbidden for teachers to supervise students taking part in a national protest? I think your NRA butthurt is showing. I am against gun control but still think this kid was just a brat.
 
apdst said:
Why wasn't he supervised in the classroom?
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Because it was an empty classroom with no class in session. You can't just walk into a random empty classroom and decide to hang out there.
 
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