let me get this straight.

what you seem to be saying is that, ultimately, the only way to enforce discipline on a high school student who consciously embarks on an unswerving course of civil disobedience is to call the cops.

then we agree. i'm sure the student in question is quietly thrilled at the knowledge that she is finally being treated like an adult.

the funny thing is, no school employee called the cops. but then, you know that already because you've read the police report.

right? you have read the actual report of what happened, right?

because i'd really hate to embarass you by discussing all the finer details of this incident that might not have made it into the summary. and i have a feeling that might not be too hard.

"Be part of a human Beowulf"

uh, you mean a team?

what happens when it's a teacher's judgment that a retarded pacifist kid in a wheelchair needed the crap kicked out of them? are you saying teachers should get blanket immunity from anything? i can't imagine that you would be.

and anyway, these cases are all settled out of court, so police and judges have nothing to do with it. if you have any possible grounds for a case against a school district, file it and they will throw money at you to make you go away. few of these cases are actually adjudicated.

i know it seems like there must be a better way. until laws change, there isn't. write your congressman.

this was TOSA EAST?!

as somebody who attended tosa west (the GOOD wauwatosa public high school) let me just say that i'm not the slightest bit surprised. our ac dec team beat the pants off 'em every year, and probably still does.

wow, you'd think i wouldn't still be this emotionally invested in an old high school rivalry...

tell me where to look it up. because i guarantee you it happens.

a student merely *accused* my dad (public high school teacher) of pushing her - no witnesses, her word against his - and he's in the long, slow process of losing his job over it.

there's no such thing as a "mundane" inappropriate touching.

amen!

with one small correction. calling the safety officer on a kid is actually *easier* than sending them to the principal... what if they just choose not to go?

they took away the teachers' ability to smack around spoiled brats because many teachers were abusing it. many teachers were smacking around whoever they liked. many teachers were doing other kinds of inappropriate touching.

sadly, you can't say it's ok to hit some kids and not others. as adults, we all know there are people who deserve a beating. that doesn't make it any less illegal to assault them.

"The problem with children nowadays is the parents."

this is ten thousand percent true. my mom (a public high school teacher) once had a parent actually SAY to her, "if driving a log truck is good enough for me, it should be good enough for my kid."

without parents to back them up, teachers are worse than powerless - they're forced to watch as the good kids, with good parents, are left by the side of the road while they spend all their time dealing with the shitheads.

public school has become a babysitting service with a side of education.

well, far be it from me to question the neutrality of a slashot editor's summary...

again, the complete disconnect between normal people - like you and me - and the public school system.

i can say without any doubt whatsoever that, while there's a chance that the girl may have had sympathetic parents who would have seen the light of reason, the act of "snatching" would have placed the school in legal jeopardy and the teacher's job in jeopardy of a much more immediate sort.

you can if you like. i'm using this particular case as an example of a larger phenomena.

every day, thousands of cases just as real as this one happen all over the country. if you don't want to address the state of public education at large, that's fine. you don't have to.

on further thought, one thing you wrote i take exception to. it's not our "lawsuit happy culture" that's breaking public education.

granted, the single biggest motivating factor, either direct or indirect, on any given person in the public school system is a lawsuit. and yes, that's because of many lawsuits in the past that have cost school districts (and taxpayers) a great deal of money. and yes, some of those lawsuits were probably spurious.

but many weren't. many were completely justified and laudable. in fact, in many of those lawsuits, i'd say that if the parents hadn't sued the school, they would have been negligent. successful criminal prosecutions of abusive teachers deter would-be abusive teachers - likewise, successful lawsuits of school boards with negligent or corrupt hiring practices serves to teach other school boards a lesson to watch their p's and q's.

sadly, the price of being able to file good lawuits is that others can file bad ones. and the two put together is what is breaking public education. not "our lawsuit-happy culture". that answer is just far too easy and emotionally satisfying to be correct.

jerry, what if you tell the student to leave the class and they refuse? what if you give them a detention and they don't show up? what if you give them a suspension and they DO show up? what if you call the parents and they tell you they don't care? what if the parents get mad - at YOU?

of course there's more civilized ways to deal with problems. and when they work, it's much less hassle for everybody.

but what happens when a kid looks you in the eye, digs in her heels, and says "make me"? what then?

i don't mean this to be insulting, but you appear to be completely and utterly divorced from modern day public education.

you're probably somebody who had a decent high school education. i was too. you would probably be just as appalled as i was if you were to sit through one hour of what both my parents have to put up with every day as public high school teachers.

detention? they don't show up. suspension? they keep showing up. usually just to see their friends and piss off the teachers. at some point, if a kid digs in her heels, gets all dubya, and just keeps saying "make me", given that pretty much any kind of punishment by the school is going to be either unenforceable or circumscribed by administration, you have to do something, or else all the other shithead kids see the rules are hollow while the good kids can't get the time and attention from the teachers that they deserve.

parents? they don't give a shit. their attitude here, and a good handful have voiced this explicitly, is that if driving a log truck is good enough for them it should be good enough for their kids. they get angrier at the teacher for calling them in for a conference then they get at the kids for being shitheads. and that's assuming you don't get one of the "my kid's shits don't stink" parents talking about bringing in their lawyer.

administrators? terrified of the superintendent, who in turn is terrified of lawsuits.

and don't even get me started on the "teachers' union" (tm).

the sad fact is that the single biggest element in the public education equation today is lawsuits. spurious ones as well as those with merit. remember, all you lawyer haters out there, many of those lawsuits that helped break public education were completely justified. there have been many, many cases where teachers abused their powers and/or their students.

sadly, the only solution for that problem appears to be creating a new one. in the past, teachers had some wiggle room with discipline, and students had some wiggle room with unruly behavior. no more. everything, on both sides of the fence, is now by the book. and everybody's worse off for it.

as someone with two parents teaching public high school, i logged in (which i rarely do here anymore) just to tell you that, even though it's only february, this is by far the smartest thing i've read on slashdot all year.

+50 insightful.