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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Thomas More ()
Date: February 20, 2011 11:22AM

Drugs are Bad Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No, its about the hundreds of thousands of other kids in the system, who deserve protection.<

From administrators more interested in destroying their lives than helping them mature and grow.

30% of FCPS high school kids admit doing drugs. Your precious one probably has a best friend who's using. There's another in the seat next to them or in front or behind them.

Some of these kids got suspended because they had a birth control pill in their purse.

Or the deceased granddad's keepsake penknife clipped to a backpack.

Everybody else's kid is a threat to your kid, right? They all must be destroyed to protect your kid.

God help you if your kid ever gets caught in this grinder.

Like the girls on the high school field hockey team when one teammate, one, showed up to football game drunk.

The whole team was made to take a breathalyzer. Even girls not sitting next to the drunk.

But your perfect child must be protected no matter the destruction visited on other lives.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: TheProfessor ()
Date: February 20, 2011 11:29AM

Drugs are Bad,

First off, are you by chance a troll? You are aware of the "South Park" parody of ineffective leadership and slavish adherence to policy that encapsulated in the statement "Drugs are bad", followed by "mmmmOkay". If so, and you want to play devil's advocate, fair enough. If not, then your moniker rather unfortunately undermines your cause.

That being said, I’m curious about your statements “Again, other parents have a right that their kids not be exposed to this kind of stuff”, and “…its about the hundreds of thousands of other kids in the system, who deserve protection” (FCPS has, I believe, about 130,000 students). Are you suggesting that the ones needing protection have such poor parenting that they are unable to resist the enticement of illegal behavior when they see it?

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: RiddleMeThis ()
Date: February 20, 2011 11:35AM

Thomas More Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There is a grass roots organization its called
> Zero Tolerance Reform: ZTR.org.

I'll take your word that they are out there, but you can't swing a dead cat without seeing a car magnet for FLAGS or a news story (when it was relevant) about SLEEP and FAIRGRADE. ZTR on the other hand...crickets!

> You want to help or just make snarky comments on a
> blog?


What's wrong with being snarky? ;)


While Josh Anderson and Nick Stuban are extreme cases, it seems like people are upset with the overall discipline process on many levels. If so, why don't we see the school board addressing this or an effort to elect members who will be more sympathetic to this issue?

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Drugs are Bad ()
Date: February 20, 2011 11:49AM

Professor,
Thanks for the argumentative fallacies.

First of all, the argument against simply throwing the malefactors out wholesale, is that they are kids, and kids make bad decisions, and need to be taught to make better ones.

But when someone says, "well, as part of teaching my kid, I'm going to limit his or her exposure to bad influences" that person is a bad parent who's bad parenting has resulted in children too susceptible to bad influences.

See how you contradict yourself?

But you utterly bypass the original point--that there is a line somewhere, the debate is just about where the line is. As many point out, teenagers can legally have guns, its just we don't want them at schools.

Or rather, some might not care, some actively don't want them around, and the compromise is no guns at school.

Drugs are obviously a similar issue. Everyone probably things Heroin dealers should be expelled. What about other drugs?

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: TheProfessor ()
Date: February 20, 2011 11:58AM

RiddleMeThis Wrote:


>
> While Josh Anderson and Nick Stuban are extreme
> why don't we see the school board addressing this
> or an effort to elect members who will be more
> sympathetic to this issue?

I believe an unusually high number of School Board members have indicated that they will not stand for re-election, and to the best of my knowledge, none are planning to "upgrade" to a Supervisor position. Their gross mismanagement, lack of oversight, and rubber stamping of the incompetence of the current FCPS administration has caught up with them. Any member whose been on the board for more than one election cycle is culpable. They haven't been addressing this issue (indeed they've been in active denial) because they are its root cause. As to the importance of this issue with respect to Fall elections, I believe that you will see candidates stress it.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: kidding--right? ()
Date: February 20, 2011 11:59AM

Drugs are bad wrote:

"Or rather, some might not care, some actively don't want them around, and the compromise is no guns at school.

Drugs are obviously a similar issue. Everyone probably things Heroin dealers should be expelled. What about other drugs?"


False analogy: Guns are not the same as drugs.



Drugs are bad wrote:

"But when someone says, "well, as part of teaching my kid, I'm going to limit his or her exposure to bad influences" that person is a bad parent who's bad parenting has resulted in children too susceptible to bad influences.

See how you contradict yourself?"



Huh??? Please rephrase this using English.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Thomas More ()
Date: February 20, 2011 12:50PM

RiddleMeThis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'll take your word that they are out there, but you can't swing a dead cat without seeing a car magnet for FLAGS or a news story (when it was relevant) about SLEEP and FAIRGRADE. ZTR on the other hand...crickets!<

What is it with you and dead cats? Each of your posts has "swinging a dead cat."

The failings of the FCPS discipline system have been the subject of numerous stories in local papers. How do you think they got there?

Tina Hone, School Board member, tried to get several motions included in this years budget to address the FCPS discipline systems failings. Did those motions just fall from the sky?

Cathy Hudgins got a unanimous Board of Supervisors to examine the issue. She dreamed that up exclusively on her own, too?

That's not crickets you hear. It the sound of your own blood course through your skull because you've got your fingers in your ears.

> What's wrong with being snarky? ;)

Because two beautiful young men are lost to their family, friends, their community, our Commonwealth and our country, forever. I pray they are the last.

Even more kids never finish high school after experiencing the tender mercies of the FCPS discipline system. Never mind those broken in spirit, depressed, isolated and dealing with the humiliation imposed by this system for no good purpose.

> While Josh Anderson and Nick Stuban are extreme cases, it seems like people are upset with the overall discipline process on many levels. If so, why don't we see the school board addressing this or an effort to elect members who will be more sympathetic to this issue?<

Tina Hone's motions lost by 7-5 and 8-4. Most of those that voted against those motions are not seeking re-election. Allah be praised.

The BOS motion on the issue passed unanimously. All hope is not lost.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Taxpayer ()
Date: February 20, 2011 12:51PM

Dale and co.:

We pay for education, the buildings, and the roads to get there. We don't pay for hearing officers and administrators to gang up on students. Mom and Dad can take care of the punishment, and if not, that's where the community steps in to respond with isolation, ostracizing, burning at the stake, etc. We have a good record on that, the schools do not.

We do not pay "the help" to play judge and jury of our children. Especially while we pay Central Office Staff six figure salaries (throw in the car to drive to the NON-SCHOOL facility) to cook the books and ignore public calls and subpoenas for meeting minutes.

Adding insult to injury, the M.O. is plain rude. Intimidation (bullying) kids into desired results, while the few good teachers, parents, and staff who remain active in the SCHOOL-BASED world walk around on eggshells. The public outreach is a nice touch, we common folk don't understand grief and loss until our money is used to counsel us by an outsider (as you deem appropriate and necessary).

Get a real job. At the very least, it will reduce traffic around all the offices you call facilities, and relieve future boundary studies.

And no, I do not live or go to Clifton, my children have zero drug experience thus far, have not been suspended, etc. Just sick and tired of being sick and tired.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: TheProfessor ()
Date: February 20, 2011 01:35PM

Drugs are Bad Wrote:

My comments are interspersed.
-------------------------------------------------------
> Professor,
> Thanks for the argumentative fallacies.

Huh? Do you mean rhetorical fallacies? Fallacies cannot be described as "argumentative" as they are abstractions, not concrete beings that can engage in debate.

>
> First of all, the argument against simply throwing
> the malefactors out wholesale, is that they are
> kids, and kids make bad decisions, and need to be
> taught to make better ones.
>

Parse this statement, carefully. If this is your intent, it does not support what I take to be your position, which is something along the lines of: "rules are rules, rules protect 'good' kids from the 'bad' kids, and if the rules state that the rule breaker should be removed from the school, that is right and just". Stripped of its strained construction, it actually says "the argument against throwing 'bad' kids out is that they are still kids, they have made bad decisions, and we should use the disciplinary process to teach them the error of their ways". And you DON'T agree with this?


> But when someone says, "well, as part of teaching
> my kid, I'm going to limit his or her exposure to
> bad influences" that person is a bad parent who's
> bad parenting has resulted in children too
> susceptible to bad influences.
>
> See how you contradict yourself?

No, I don't contradict myself at all. You misconstrue the first statement and concoct the second. The two are not addressing the same point.

Lets look at this another way. Suppose there are two Parents, A and B. Parent A teaches her kids illegal drug usage is bad, period; but she drinks too much, and while having high expectations for her offspring, she doesn't spend much time with them. Parent B teaches her kids that rules are for societal benefit and that illegal drug usage is accordingly not condoned. She works a schedule that gets her home at the end of the school day, and she makes time for the kids first. One day, the daughters of each parent are caught behind the school with the self-described "cool kids" who are doing drugs by the school's Asst. Principal. There is no suggestion that either girl was herself using drugs.

Parent A calls the Principal and the Police, demanding action be taken against the "kids out back" so that their attempts to lead her child astray are thwarted. She tells here daughter that the school needs to put someone out there 24/7 so that this doesn't happen again. Parent B congratulates her child and takes pride in the fact that their relationship has enabled the girl to internalize the lessons her parents teach her by word and deed. She calls the Asst. Principal and thanks him for seeing the situation for what it was.

Hopefully, we would all like to be Parent B, because the values she imparts will endure, even in the shakiest of moments. Parent A, though she believes she is a good parent, is trying to erect unsustainable barriers to protect her daughter, while not actually taking the time to show and tell her the skills she will need to protect herself.

>
> But you utterly bypass the original point--that
> there is a line somewhere, the debate is just
> about where the line is. As many point out,
> teenagers can legally have guns, its just we don't
> want them at schools.

Why would I challenge a statement that is true. There is indeed a line somewhere that delineates tolerable vs intolerable behavior. We don't have to go looking for it, however, its already drawn. We call it the law.

>
> Or rather, some might not care, some actively
> don't want them around, and the compromise is no
> guns at school.
>

Since you spoke earlier of fallacies, I should point out that this reasoning commits the fallacy of weak analogy. Guns and drugs are entirely two different entities, regardless of your personal feelings. Guns are instruments of killing, and are used actively. Drugs are a number of things, an escape, a means of acquiring acceptance, and so on; and while their use may result in death, it is passive. If someone points a gun at me and fires, I have no choice about the consequence. But if someone offers me drugs, I do. Repeatedly.

> Drugs are obviously a similar issue. Everyone
> probably things Heroin dealers should be expelled.
> What about other drugs?

Obviously then, they are not. I don't think Heroin dealers should be expelled, per se. I think the school should leave law enforcement up to the police and the courts. Selling controlled substances is a crime in our society. It doesn't matter where. If a judge orders a dealer removed from school and put in alternative schooling, I would agree with it, because it was a decision made in a larger context. Principals don't have badges. Their disciplinary actions should concern matters between minors such as fights, non-criminal disruptive behavior, and the like. And here the "worst" punishment they should be able to give out would be school supported counseling. This would be far, far less expensive than the path of suspension to expulsion to prison for yet another undereducated member of society.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Washington Post ,only good for the hamster cage ()
Date: February 20, 2011 01:53PM

Thanks goodness my kid finishes this year.If doing away with sanctions for drug possession happens , it will be as successful as doing away with having penalties for bad attendence.Have an ambulance standing by in the school parking lots to handle overdoses.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: ZT_Sucks ()
Date: February 20, 2011 02:12PM

How do we get the Tea Party involved with this? They seem to know how to make change happen.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Drugs are Bad ()
Date: February 20, 2011 02:20PM

Professor,
Number 1, what the hell is a "rhetorical fallacy"?

There are logical fallacies, and I would say argumentative ones (where an argument leads to contraries, which philosophers generally describe as the primary method of discrediting others arguments--by showing they lead to contraries) but since rhetoric is the art of persuasion, how could it be fallacious.

Something either is or isn't persuasive. True is a different matter.

I'm just going to completely pass over your very vividly rendered hypothetical. We'll, I'll make one comment which should be self evident--any solution to the problem of your kid bringing drugs to school which consists in telling me how to parent is a non-starter.

As to the rest, what I cited was not an analogy, it is a continuum. First a continuum of illegal drugs. And then a contiuum of behavior legally proscribed from school properties.

Therefore, NECESSARILY school officials must concern themselves with interdicting illegal behavior on school property since some behaviors are defined as illegal specifically because they are occuring on school property (ie. having guns on campus.)

Guns are legal, but not on campus, so your intire dichotomy between disciplinary and legal enforcement is fallacious. The school must enforce that law since it doesn't obtain anywhere else.

Moreover, since you are legally required to send your kids to school, the state must ensure that your rights as a parent, and the rights of the children are protected in that environment. That's why the govt. can step in and say guns, which are legal everywhere else pretty much, are not legal here.

As the article above points out, that's why the State of Virginia mandates the type of action people here blame on the school system. So your problem is with the law and the political process, rather than all these claims of usurpation and lack of due process.

And that's how it should be. I think heroin dealers should be expelled, per se. We disagree, and in this country when we disagree, instead of me beating you up so I don't have to hear your nonsense, we vote, form political parties. . . . What I'm saying there is that we are at an impasse--we have fundamentally irreconcileable positions that we must present to the polity to see which one they find more reasonable.

And I think letting heroin dealers ply their trade in tax-payer funded compulsory educational facilities is not going to get too many votes. Who knows, anymore, though? Maybe people are nowadays so committed to excusing their deviant behavior that they'll let you experiment on their kids rather than acknowledge some simple truths about right and wrong.

We shall see.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Drugs are Bad ()
Date: February 20, 2011 02:29PM

Thomas More,
I like the way you use "precious" sarcastically, when you deride my parental concerns, but when your little St. Reefer Madness has to face the consequences of his actions, its all "precious" this and "poor little immature and susceptible" that.

Have you ever seen "A Man for All Seasons"? I think the line from that play, in the mouth of your namesake is particularly apropos here. To paraphrase, "if you cut down all the laws in your pursuit of the devil, what are you going to do when he turns on you and you have nothing to hide behind"

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: TO Just Say No ()
Date: February 20, 2011 02:40PM

Drugs are Bad:

Look what I googled!

http://projects.uwc.utexas.edu/handouts/?q=node/30

Rhetorical Fallacies
Rhetorical fallacies, or fallacies of argument, don’t allow for the open, two-way exchange of ideas upon which meaningful conversations depend. Instead, they distract the reader with various appeals instead of using sound reasoning. They can be divided into three categories:


1.Emotional fallacies unfairly appeal to the audience’s emotions.

2.Ethical fallacies unreasonably advance the writer’s own authority or character.

3.Logical fallacies depend upon faulty logic.


Keep in mind that rhetorical fallacies often overlap.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Drugs are Bad ()
Date: February 20, 2011 02:47PM

to just say no--if you are saying rhetorical fallacies are just things like "begging the question," "straw man" and other ploys which are commonly recognized--what I mean by "argumentative fallacies"--then its just a difference in terms which is no problem.

I just didn't understand the distinction TheProfessor was making between "argumentative" and "rhetorical" fallacies.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Thomas More ()
Date: February 20, 2011 03:13PM

Drugs are Bad Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "if you cut down all the laws in your pursuit of the devil, what are you going to do when he turns on you and you have nothing to hide behind"<

So now our kids are devils, Roper?

Of course, you mean everyone else's kids, that is. Not your perfect angel who will never get caught in the maw of this system.

The Lord Chancellor was speaking of adults, of course, in that quote. Not children to whom he was reportedly very indulgent.

Our laws include the Constitutions, its promise of a public education (Virginia's Constitution) and due process and its protection against self incrimination and cruel and unusual punishment. Our laws include the FCPS regulations against a principal questioning a child about a disciplinary matter until after the parents have been notified. Our laws include the right to counsel which FCPS actively discourages. Our laws also allow a person to record any proceeding against them. FCPS doesn't.

Our laws regarding juveniles takes into some account the limitations on their ability to exercise self control and judgment. Shall we ignore those too like, just like FCPS.

Shall we only pay attention to the "laws" that keep your child in a cocoon against all unpleasantness in the world.

It seems the ones "cutting down all of the laws" is FCPS and the other defenders of the current disciplinary system. Are you to be counted among them?

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: T. Payne ()
Date: February 20, 2011 03:33PM

I think you better reread some documents, the Constitution doesnt apply to some of the items you are addressing. Wrong information is dangerous information.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: RiddleMeThis ()
Date: February 20, 2011 04:12PM

Thomas More Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> With that said, if parents are so concerned and
> convined that there is blood on FCPS'hands then
> why haven't we seen a wrongful death suit filed
> against them? Surely there must be lawyers around
> here who would take on this case if it was so
> clearly cut and dried.

It's called sovereign immunity.

As I am not a lawyer, can you explain what this means? Don't parents sue FCPS on a regular basis for things like access to services?

In the future I promise to refrain from making any references to dead cats, but I reserve my right to be snarky.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Dane Bramage ()
Date: February 20, 2011 04:14PM

another Mantua mom Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> To Nick's parents Steve and Sandy,
> I send my Congratulations for the courage to go
> public with the story of your family's journey
> (Front page, Sunday Washington Post) and to
> include personal photographs for the story. It
> must have been really difficult to do all that,
> but know that we admire you for it. How I wish
> that Nick was still with us all! It is hard to
> imagine any mother reading to the end of that
> story without dissolving into tears like I did.
> With much love,
> another Mantua mom.


+1

Hope some good comes from it. Dana Scanlan must be heartless.

-------------------------------------------------
“We don’t have any rude, unpleasant people here. We’re different!”

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Thomas More ()
Date: February 20, 2011 04:19PM

T. Payne Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think you better reread some documents, the Constitution doesnt apply to some of the items you are addressing. Wrong information is dangerous information.<

And a troll wastes everybody's time. Read the post again.

Va. Costitution provides a right to a public education. US & VA Constitutions cover due process, the right against self incrimination and cruel and unusual punishment.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Thomas More ()
Date: February 20, 2011 04:20PM

RiddleMeThis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> It's called sovereign immunity.
>
> As I am not a lawyer, can you explain what this means? Don't parents sue FCPS on a regular basis for things like access to services?<

goggle the phrase or look it up on Wikipedia

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: RiddleMeThis ()
Date: February 20, 2011 04:24PM

Thomas More Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> RiddleMeThis Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> > It's called sovereign immunity.
> >
> > As I am not a lawyer, can you explain what this
> means? Don't parents sue FCPS on a regular basis
> for things like access to services?<
>
> goggle the phrase or look it up on Wikipedia


Awww....but you seem so smart and I thought that you could explain what it means in laymans terms. How do find this google you speak of?

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: RiddleMeThis ()
Date: February 20, 2011 04:31PM

Thomas More Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> RiddleMeThis Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
>
> > It's called sovereign immunity.
> >
> > As I am not a lawyer, can you explain what this
> means? Don't parents sue FCPS on a regular basis
> for things like access to services?<
>
> goggle the phrase or look it up on Wikipedia


OK, so I found the google, but it seems to refer to Federal court and government agencies. Can FCPS say "sorry, we have soverign immunity...bugger off now", or does it come from somewhere? Are they liable if a student is injured as a result of a poorly maintained facility? What about an employee suing for employment discrimination? The boundaries seem rather vague.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Drugs are Bad ()
Date: February 20, 2011 04:45PM

Thomas More,
I think the "laws" in this case would be the procedures and policies preventing the dysfunctional, whether temporarily or more profoundly, from turning the schools into dangerous areas.

And on St. Thomas' indulgence, he was an avid burner of heretics, wasn't he? And saw the persecution of heretics as necessary not only for the preservation of the Faith, but also for the maintenance of public order.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Tell your kids ()
Date: February 20, 2011 04:51PM

Tell your kids if they are ever called into the office for any reason that they should not say a word. The school should call a parent if the child is in trouble. Also tell your child not to sign anthing till a parent is present. I do NOT trust FCPS!

I know we should be able to trust the school system but after what I have read I have doubts they give kids a second chance.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: so see where it lands ()
Date: February 20, 2011 04:54PM

Thomas More Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> T. Payne Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I think you better reread some documents, the
> Constitution doesnt apply to some of the items you
> are addressing. Wrong information is dangerous
> information.<
>
> And a troll wastes everybody's time. Read the
> post again.
>
> Va. Costitution provides a right to a public
> education. US & VA Constitutions cover due
> process, the right against self incrimination and
> cruel and unusual punishment.


Yes and a douch bag wastes everybodys time comparing apples to oranges. FCPS does not deny anyone an education, it might not be the location of ones preference but the last I heard everyone can graduate.The right against self incrimination refers to criminal matters which personally I think would be an outstanding idea, do away with administrative bullshit hearings at Gatehouse, immediately notify the police and go staight to obtaining a juvenile petition and go before a judge with all the attorneys you can afford to waste your money on. Be careful what you wish for here. Expensive and long term consequences which involve more than just being transferred to another school. Which leads us to cruel ? and unusual? punishment. Transferring to another school probably is not what the founding fathers had in mind by those terms.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: info on sovereign immunity ()
Date: February 20, 2011 05:03PM

Here is something about sovereign immunity. A very confusing concept indeed.


http://www.vsb.org/docs/valawyermagazine/apr00anthony_mcmahon.pdf

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Thomas More ()
Date: February 20, 2011 05:24PM

so see where it lands Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yes and a douch bag wastes everybodys time comparing apples to oranges.<

I would be so harsh on yourself. No one called you a douch bag.

> FCPS does not deny anyone an education,

An expelled or suspended student is deprived a public education.

> but the last I heard everyone can graduate.<

We know that many never graduate

> The right against self incrimination refers to criminal matters , , ,

Police officers are present at most of these interrogations which have the potential for criminal prosecution. Thus, the right against self incrimination applies to the questioning of students by principals and SROs.

But you knew that already.

> which personally I think would be an outstanding idea, do away with administrative bullshit hearings at Gatehouse, immediately notify the police and go staight to obtaining a juvenile petition and go before a judge with all the attorneys you can afford to waste your money on.<

Kids actually are better treated in the JDR courts than by FCPS.

> Which leads us to cruel ? and unusual? punishment.<

No JDR judge would denigrate and humiliate these kids the way many principals, SROs and hearing officers do.


Why do you hate kids so much?

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Any Lawyers on here? ()
Date: February 20, 2011 05:46PM

I am a good student but I wonder what my rights are as a juvenile? Do I have the right to a phone call to my parents if I am called into the principals office?

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: FCPS Parent ()
Date: February 20, 2011 06:22PM

It seems the punishment did not fit the mistake. I pray for Mr. and Mrs. Stuban.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Thomas More ()
Date: February 20, 2011 06:40PM

Any Lawyers on here? Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I am a good student but I wonder what my rights are as a juvenile? Do I have the right to a phone call to my parents if I am called into the principals office?<

Yes but they will browbeat you into not calling them.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Do students have any rights? ()
Date: February 20, 2011 06:54PM

Do we?

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: realization ()
Date: February 20, 2011 07:03PM

Thomas More Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> so see where it lands Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Yes and a douch bag wastes everybodys time
> comparing apples to oranges.<
>
> I would be so harsh on yourself. No one called
> you a douch bag.
>
> > FCPS does not deny anyone an education,
>
> An expelled or suspended student is deprived a
> public education.
>
> > but the last I heard everyone can graduate.<
>
> We know that many never graduate
>
> > The right against self incrimination refers to
> criminal matters , , ,
>
> Police officers are present at most of these
> interrogations which have the potential for
> criminal prosecution. Thus, the right against
> self incrimination applies to the questioning of
> students by principals and SROs.
>
> But you knew that already.
>
> > which personally I think would be an outstanding
> idea, do away with administrative bullshit
> hearings at Gatehouse, immediately notify the
> police and go staight to obtaining a juvenile
> petition and go before a judge with all the
> attorneys you can afford to waste your money on.<
>
> Kids actually are better treated in the JDR courts
> than by FCPS.
>
> > Which leads us to cruel ? and unusual?
> punishment.<
>
> No JDR judge would denigrate and humiliate these
> kids the way many principals, SROs and hearing
> officers do.
>
>
> Why do you hate kids so much?


Dont hate kids, its called holding people accountable for their actions, by not doing this to juveniles, you are setting then up for failure as the current school setting and overprotective parents are doing now . At 18 its a whole new game. Learn the rules, try to obey the rules, realize there are consequences when you dont and realize they are not the end of the world, there are people to help you work through them, not cover for you.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Thomas More ()
Date: February 20, 2011 07:39PM

realization Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dont hate kids, its called holding people accountable for their actions, by not doing this to juveniles, you are setting then up for failure as the current school setting and overprotective parents are doing now . At 18 its a whole new game. Learn the rules, try to obey the rules, realize there are consequences when you dont and realize they are not the end of the world, there are people to help you work through them, not cover for you.<

"life's tough better toughen'em up early"

Adolescents are not small adults. A punitive approach will not produce a healthy adult but a fearful, constricted creature.

Your comments reflect a gross misunderstanding of adolescent development, cognitively, emotionally and biologically.

Please stay away from any children before they are permanently warped by your destructive ideology.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: TO: realization ()
Date: February 20, 2011 07:41PM

You make no sense. Are your for kids or against? Kids are not adults. That is why we allow them to make mistakes and learn from them.

I think it has been a long time since you were a teen. Being a teen today is hard. We need to support our youth.

Zero tolerance needs to be run over with a fine tooth comb. Our SB is failing our kids.

No more suicides, no more lost kids. We need to find a common ground to help all kids in FCPS. Maybe another lawsuit should be a start.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: RiddleMeThis ()
Date: February 20, 2011 07:59PM

With all the kvetching about the failings of the FCPS disciplinary process I have yet to hear alternative solutions put forward. Can anyone outline a brief plan of how you would change the system to make it more workable and fair? Does it start with simply tossing out major sections of the SR&R which are extreme? Is it simply a question of reforming the hearing and appeal process? How much transparency should there be?

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: TheProfessor ()
Date: February 20, 2011 08:34PM

Drugs are Bad Wrote:

Sigh. I'm not going to debate actual philosophy with you. You are unarmed.
-------------------------------------------------------
> Professor,
> Number 1, what the hell is a "rhetorical
> fallacy"?
>
> There are logical fallacies, and I would say



> As to the rest, what I cited was not an analogy,
> it is a continuum. First a continuum of illegal
> drugs. And then a contiuum of behavior legally
> proscribed from school properties.

Decided to invent our own language, have we?

>
> Therefore, NECESSARILY school officials must
> concern themselves with interdicting illegal
> behavior on school property since some behaviors
> are defined as illegal specifically because they
> are occuring on school property (ie. having guns
> on campus.)

Oh, this is too easy. How does one "concern" oneself "with interdicting illegal behavior"? Watch that use of the thesaurus. Translating your statement back into English (using actual word meanings), what you have said is "Therefore, NECESSARILY school officials must concern themselves with prohibiting illegal behavior on school property..." Yes, they must indeed prohibit illegal activity. I think the point you are trying to make is that school officials must take action against guns on campus because guns are banned by law. What a keen sense of the obvious you have. Where does this go?

>
> Guns are legal, but not on campus, so your intire
> dichotomy between disciplinary and legal
> enforcement is fallacious. The school must enforce
> that law since it doesn't obtain anywhere else.
>

Incorrect use of the words "obtain", "dichotomy", and "fallacious". As they say in Calculus textbooks, "the proof is left as an exercise to the reader". So what you are saying is schools must enforce the ban on guns on campus because that is the only ban on guns in place? Really. Try taking a Glock to the airport, the White House, your local jail or state capitol, and see what sort of reception you receive.

> Moreover, since you are legally required to send
> your kids to school, the state must ensure that
> your rights as a parent, and the rights of the
> children are protected in that environment. That's
> why the govt. can step in and say guns, which are
> legal everywhere else pretty much, are not legal
> here.

The government's ability to interdict (correct use) guns on school property does not obtain (correct use) from the legal requirement that a parent send his/her kid(s) to school. There is no such requirement. A parent is required to provide for the education of his/her children, not "send them to school". Home schooled kids and kids privately tutored don't go to school, at least not in the sense that you are using, which is physical plant. If we allow for your logic, however, then guns are prohibited in the private homes of persons who home school. Is that what you are suggesting?

>
> As the article above points out, that's why the
> State of Virginia mandates the type of action
> people here blame on the school system. So your
> problem is with the law and the political process,
> rather than all these claims of usurpation and
> lack of due process.

You must be doing this deliberately. I believe I have been clear in my support of the law. My "problem" is with school systems placing students in double jeopardy. If behavior is criminal, then bring in the appropriate and duly sworn authorities. If I may hazard a guess, it is almost as if you are afraid to turn these matters over to the police and the courts. Why? Do you think the punishment will somehow be more lenient?

>
> And that's how it should be. I think heroin
> dealers should be expelled, per se. We disagree,
> and in this country when we disagree, instead of
> me beating you up so I don't have to hear your
> nonsense, we vote, form political parties. . . .
> What I'm saying there is that we are at an
> impasse--we have fundamentally irreconcileable
> positions that we must present to the polity to
> see which one they find more reasonable.
>

Fair enough. One point, though. The word "polity" is not a synonym for voters. It refers to a state, a government of a specific geographical area.


> And I think letting heroin dealers ply their trade
> in tax-payer funded compulsory educational
> facilities is not going to get too many votes. Who
> knows, anymore, though? Maybe people are nowadays

Your rhetorical flights of fancy are amusing, but tell me where you got the notion that anyone favored "letting heroin dealers ply their trade in tax-payer funded compulsory educational facilities". This is a textbook example of the Straw man fallacy.



> so committed to excusing their deviant behavior
> that they'll let you experiment on their kids
> rather than acknowledge some simple truths about
> right and wrong.
>

Are you speaking of me personally when you speak of "experimentation" on kids? I'm an engineer, not a social scientist or in the biological sciences. I wouldn't want to fill out the paper work to work with human subjects.

But I'm not about to "acknowledge some simple truths about right and wrong" if these are the truths you are espousing here. You haven't proven your point in a consistent and logical way. Let me give you an unsolicited piece of advice. Tone down the hyperbole and use of "big words". You are not skillful enough in writing. Use short, declarative statements with clear examples, and you might be more convincing. It's perfectly okay to make solid arguments without trying to sound like, well, a college professor.


> We shall see.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Thomas More ()
Date: February 20, 2011 08:35PM

Montgomery County has adopted a more educational, therapeutic model for most offenses that should be Fairfax's model. So have other leading systems. Punishment is not the object. Learning, growth and maturation are the objectives.

After exploration, drug use is mostly about self-medication to relieve other mental health issues. Get to those issues and get the kid help.

Yes, we don't need a 60 page tome that no one can read or understand with all of its citations to the Va. Code. E.g, "insubordination" is an offense for which suspension is a punishment?! Is this a military organization? Don't we want students who question authority?

Parents must be called before questioning begins. The SRO should not be allowed to be involved if there is not clear and immediate threat to personnel safety. If an SRO is in the room, Miranda warnings must be given and can only be waived by a parent or guardian.

Appeals officers should not be consulted by principals during the imposition of punishment at the school. Appeals officers should never engage in humiliating conduct toward student or parents. Transcripts of the hearing should be provided to all parties.

3000 suspensions and 700 expulsions is too damn many, even if the expulsions are commuted to involuntary transfer to another school.

That's a start.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: TheProfessor ()
Date: February 20, 2011 08:42PM

Well put, excellent analysis.

Thomas More Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Drugs are Bad Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > "if you cut down all the laws in your pursuit of
> the devil, what are you going to do when he turns
> on you and you have nothing to hide behind"<
>
> So now our kids are devils, Roper?
>
> Of course, you mean everyone else's kids, that is.
> Not your perfect angel who will never get caught
> in the maw of this system.
>
> The Lord Chancellor was speaking of adults, of
> course, in that quote. Not children to whom he
> was reportedly very indulgent.
>
> Our laws include the Constitutions, its promise of
> a public education (Virginia's Constitution) and
> due process and its protection against self
> incrimination and cruel and unusual punishment.
> Our laws include the FCPS regulations against a
> principal questioning a child about a disciplinary
> matter until after the parents have been notified.
> Our laws include the right to counsel which FCPS
> actively discourages. Our laws also allow a
> person to record any proceeding against them. FCPS
> doesn't.
>
> Our laws regarding juveniles takes into some
> account the limitations on their ability to
> exercise self control and judgment. Shall we
> ignore those too like, just like FCPS.
>
> Shall we only pay attention to the "laws" that
> keep your child in a cocoon against all
> unpleasantness in the world.
>
> It seems the ones "cutting down all of the laws"
> is FCPS and the other defenders of the current
> disciplinary system. Are you to be counted among
> them?

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: TheProfessor ()
Date: February 20, 2011 09:01PM

What IS it with you? Who is advocating that schools, whether by commission or omission, be "turned into dangerous areas"? Your statement is absurd prima facie. You must be a troll. But that's okay, you're amusing regardless. I should be grading, but I'll play a little longer.


Drugs are Bad Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thomas More,
> I think the "laws" in this case would be the
> procedures and policies preventing the
> dysfunctional, whether temporarily or more
> profoundly, from turning the schools into
> dangerous areas.
>
> And on St. Thomas' indulgence, he was an avid
> burner of heretics, wasn't he? And saw the
> persecution of heretics as necessary not only for
> the preservation of the Faith, but also for the
> maintenance of public order.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: TheProfessor ()
Date: February 20, 2011 10:10PM

An excellent start. What "Drugs are Bad" and others appear not to appreciate is that this is not advocacy of a "Wild in the Streets" approach to school management, it is the removal of extra-legal and abusive policies and procedures from the school's "arsenal".

Should then schools be deprived of the ability to discipline students for infractions of school rules? Of course not. Fear of punishment remains an effective tool in maintaining order, until such time as the individual develops a mature social conscious. But every single disciplinary action needs to be evaluated for educational intent and soundness. Correction not retribution needs to be the overarching principle. Suspensions and Expulsions (full or modified) contradict the purpose of education, and should be eliminated. Only an idiot can't see that.

Note that I don't say students can't be removed. When the "offense" violates statutory law, then a court can decide if the danger the student poses to himself or others is sufficient to abrogate the student's federally guaranteed right to a free and appropriate public education. In such cases, alternative education is arranged.

Unless this system, which broke in the 1990s, is fixed, we will see more horrible tragedies like the one that spawned this forum. I believe the school did not involve the police because they knew that no crime had occurred. Instead, they choose to pursue this through "internal security", so that they did not have to worry about legal niceties (the things St. Thomas More was defending in the movie quote introduced by "Drugs are Bad"). They could railroad the student with impunity.

Why? Because they must maintain the illusion of safety and security at all costs, especially in light of Columbine, Va. Tech, and others. What they fear is the endless drone of helicopter parents filing endless lawsuits about school safety. Tossing a few confused kids to the proverbial lions is a small price to pay. FCPS is self-insured. They have a small legal staff and use the services of one of the better law firms in the county. They are well positioned to stave off the occasional lawsuit from the parents of a child already tainted by their hermetic disciplinary apparatus. They would collapse under the weight of scores filed by parents angry that little Skippy and Hoppy are scared of the loud boys at the other end of the cafeteria. It's a simple (depraved) calculus.




Thomas More Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Montgomery County has adopted a more educational,
> therapeutic model for most offenses that should be
> Fairfax's model. So have other leading systems.
> Punishment is not the object. Learning, growth
> and maturation are the objectives.
>
> After exploration, drug use is mostly about
> self-medication to relieve other mental health
> issues. Get to those issues and get the kid help.
>
>
> Yes, we don't need a 60 page tome that no one can
> read or understand with all of its citations to
> the Va. Code. E.g, "insubordination" is an offense
> for which suspension is a punishment?! Is this a
> military organization? Don't we want students who
> question authority?
>
> Parents must be called before questioning begins.
> The SRO should not be allowed to be involved if
> there is not clear and immediate threat to
> personnel safety. If an SRO is in the room,
> Miranda warnings must be given and can only be
> waived by a parent or guardian.
>
> Appeals officers should not be consulted by
> principals during the imposition of punishment at
> the school. Appeals officers should never engage
> in humiliating conduct toward student or parents.
> Transcripts of the hearing should be provided to
> all parties.
>
> 3000 suspensions and 700 expulsions is too damn
> many, even if the expulsions are commuted to
> involuntary transfer to another school.
>
> That's a start.

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Drugs are Bad ()
Date: February 20, 2011 10:29PM

Professor,
I think you overestimate your intellectual gifts. Otherwise you would have remained on point rather than insulting your interlocutor.

I think it is a mark of intellectual weakness when one has to resort to slights and the like rather than respond to arguments. As for my use of philosophical terminology and the like, I wont be submitting those usages to your judgement. I daresay I have more education in the matter than you, having taught philosophy at a college. Have you?

Your "corrections" of my use of "inderdict", "obtain" and "polity" are nothing of the sort. And your definition of polity is not correct anyway. Look it up.

But your pedantic approach has served a purpose--to reveal an overweening concern with who "appears" correct.

So let me give you another try--your ploy is an attempt to say that school officials are, or should be, unable to enforce laws.

My refutation of this is that they already are in that position, on the matter of guns.

So your attempt to propose somekind of law-neutral environment fails.

Then, seeing your failure, you try to retreat to a claim that double jeopardy is your real point.

But that's, again, facetious, given that transferring someone from one school to another constitutes legal "punishment" only in the mind of a teenager. As many point out above, the entitlement to public education is served wherever the child is educated.

The interdiction of behavior (from the latin "inter" preposition, taking the accusative, and added to the perfect passive participle of dico, dicere, dixi, dictus--to speak, and therefore meaning to speak or proscribe in between) does not refer to the meeting out of penalties, but rather the safeguarding of facilities from that behavior.

Finally, you said that you didn't believe heroin dealers should be expelled. This means you favor letting them ply their trade on school grounds. No straw man there, you said it. It seems a bit of an experiment to me, given that most would think that is not currently what would be allowed.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Date: February 21, 2011 08:26AM

I graduated from WT Woodson in 2001 and if nothing has changed (which I believe is the case) the school probably has a heavy hand in this child's suicide. When I attended I heard about suicides all the time, some initiated by administrators and principals who decided their own authority was more important than the well-being of the school. I am willing to make the bold statement that W.T. Woodson killed Nick Stuban, a promising athlete and human being. I know this much, if he was using the synthetic marijuana, legal or not, that was probably the reason he was suspended for so long. It was also probably the reason his school leaders told him he needed help, that he had a problem, maybe even suggested suicide to him as cautionary tale to help him SHAPE UP.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: James K. ()
Date: February 21, 2011 08:47AM

FCPS failed Nick Stuban. They imposed the harshest penalty for one legal pill. Kids make bad decisons and they scewed this kid over one bad decison. How about giving kids another chance for small infractions?

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Saddened ()
Date: February 21, 2011 12:25PM

Thomas More Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Drugs are Bad Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > No, its about the hundreds of thousands of other
> kids in the system, who deserve protection.<
>
> From administrators more interested in destroying
> their lives than helping them mature and grow.
>
> 30% of FCPS high school kids admit doing drugs.
> Your precious one probably has a best friend who's
> using. There's another in the seat next to them or
> in front or behind them.
>
> Some of these kids got suspended because they had
> a birth control pill in their purse.
>
> Or the deceased granddad's keepsake penknife
> clipped to a backpack.
>
> Everybody else's kid is a threat to your kid,
> right? They all must be destroyed to protect your
> kid.
>
> God help you if your kid ever gets caught in this
> grinder.
>
> Like the girls on the high school field hockey
> team when one teammate, one, showed up to football
> game drunk.
>
> The whole team was made to take a breathalyzer.
> Even girls not sitting next to the drunk.
>
> But your perfect child must be protected no matter
> the destruction visited on other lives.

+1

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Truth Be Told ()
Date: February 21, 2011 12:48PM

Ladies and gentlemen,
This whole thread is a giant example of the “Pussifiaction of America”! Get ready for the North Korean invasion, while you debate the system. Making excuses you your own flawed kids. Notice the parents that raised their children right, aren’t on FU.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Yo momma ()
Date: February 21, 2011 02:45PM

Shit, that dumb nigga used to live right by me.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: rrrfffff ()
Date: February 21, 2011 03:39PM

My Daughter went to middle school in FFX and we moved due to the issues there, 2 shootings and she was asaulted in the hall, when I went in to talk to the people taking care of it, they blamed her. we moved.
I pitty anyone living there who cant move.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: rrrrffff ()
Date: February 21, 2011 03:42PM

I think it is a matter of the low hanging fruit. If a kid is very bad, it is harder for the administration and it is intimidating for them. on the other hand, a stupid mistake is a good outlet for them, the administration, so they throw the book and claim 0 tollerence and let the monsters go unrestrained.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: curious ()
Date: February 21, 2011 04:13PM

Jeff Yost, Principal

Administrative Assistant:
Deb Boullianne
703-503-4607

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: woodson mom ()
Date: February 21, 2011 05:53PM

My son is a sophmore at Woodson and knew Nick from freshman and JV football. We attended Nick's viewing and memorial and the memory haunts me every night. This morning my husband and I were furious after we read the quote from one school board member admitting that the act of transferring students was punitive and not for the good of the student or the school which has been the Board's mantra throughout this issue. And, after reading that the school had Nick sign a confession of sorts before his parents arrived prompted my husband to admonish our son to never sign anything without one of us being there. Finally I was incensed to read that some administrator(s) discouraged the Stuban's from consulting an attorney for the initial hearing. What right has the administration to get underage students to sign anything without parental consent and to discourage consulting attorneys for a legal process? I've thought that Jack Dale needs to be fired for years. Now I think there are a whole lot of school board members need to go as well.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: firedale ()
Date: February 21, 2011 07:34PM

I agree completely with "Woodson Mom". Jack Dale needs to be fired over this in addition to the school board members and Mr. Yost!! These so called educated individuals should have known better to handle this situation differently.

I was SO angry after reading the article in the Washington Post about what really happened to Nick......OVER synthetic marijuana (LEGAL)!!! Thank you to the Stuban family for sharing this information. This was unfair...this was WRONG!! To have Nick sign a confession (and to even talk) without the presents of his parents and then later discouraging the Stubans from consulting an attorney, is criminal. After all that has happened to Steve and Sandy, I hope they have the strength to sue the hell out of FCPS. If possible, the law suit should force the resignation of Dale, Yost and everyone else involved in this terrible tragedy and force criminal charges on them!! After reading the article my husband and I pulled our kids together and instructed them to NEVER EVER sign or talk with FCPS officials or police if something has happened at school, without our presents. AND we will have an ATTORNEY with us!!

I have children in Woodson who have known Nick since Mantua Elementary. Though my kids had lost touch with Nick as they got older, they always had kind words for him! I, myself, remember Nick from the times I volunteered at Mantua. What a beautiful smile he had!!

I went to Nick's viewing at the church. There wasn't a dry eye in the church!! The pictures of Nick as a baby, a young boy and then a teen were adorable. My heart broke at the picture of a young Nick hugging Sandy.

I have lost faith in our school system being there for "our kids"! I do not trust them or their motives!

Steve and Sandy, I am so sorry you are going through this. My thoughts are with you and have been since the day this happened. Nick is looking down at you and is proud of what you are doing to open up our eyes to the problems at FCPS.

Rest in peace Nick.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: yeah_ok ()
Date: February 21, 2011 07:43PM

yeah, suicide...the blame is placed everywhere but to the person that took their own life....yeah, discipline in school sucks, yeah cloudy rainy days suck, yeah, beltway traffic sucks....but the decision is made by one person...accept it

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: it's not okay ()
Date: February 21, 2011 08:02PM

To yeah_ok:

None of us live in a vacuum. Interactions with other people matter. How we treat our kids matters.

Can you "blame" a kid who was despondent and whose world had been crushed? He was not a rainy day or traffic on the beltway. He was a kid who was crushed by the very system most of us trust to take care of our kids. It's hard to believe you would make those analogies.

Someday you may go through some difficult situation where you feel powerless and it is hard to move on in life. I do hope that someone will treat you like a little bit more than a rainy day or beltway traffic.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Thomas More ()
Date: February 21, 2011 08:17PM

woodson mom Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Now I think there are a whole lot of school board members need to go as well.<

Tina Hone, Dan Storck, Sandy Evans and Patty Reed voted to investigate this issue. Hone is not running for re-election.

Storck, Evans and Reed need your support in November.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: beenthere ()
Date: February 21, 2011 09:37PM

HB 1548 - which passed in the VA House, Failed in the VA Senate. This bill would require the school to notify the parents of any disciplinary action.

FCPS lobbied against the bill - yes parents and taxpayers, your dollars spent to lobby against the bill that would protect your child.

Do not think it cannot happen your child. They could be dragged out of class, taken to an office, grilled for hours, forced to sign a "confession" and you may not hear of it for a long, long while.

I had to retrain my child - I used to say you can trust a policeman, teacher, etc. No more. Zip your lips and only open them to demand to call your parents.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: yeah_ok ()
Date: February 21, 2011 11:15PM

it's not okay Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> To yeah_ok:
>
> None of us live in a vacuum. Interactions with
> other people matter. How we treat our kids
> matters.
>
> Can you "blame" a kid who was despondent and whose
> world had been crushed? He was not a rainy day or
> traffic on the beltway. He was a kid who was
> crushed by the very system most of us trust to
> take care of our kids. It's hard to believe you
> would make those analogies.
>
> Someday you may go through some difficult
> situation where you feel powerless and it is hard
> to move on in life. I do hope that someone will
> treat you like a little bit more than a rainy day
> or beltway traffic.


ok, been there too, lost several people to suicide...you can blame all you want on everything else..should we blame his family, should we blame a teacher inthe hallway, no, he got in trouble and there must have been other things going off along with this, but again..lash out, blame everything and everyone else while trying to make an irrational act seem rational...obviously you were lost on the traffic/rainy day pseudo analogy....oh well, blame me...

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Seeker ()
Date: February 22, 2011 01:02AM

beenthere Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> HB 1548 - which passed in the VA House, Failed in
> the VA Senate. This bill would require the school
> to notify the parents of any disciplinary action.
>
>
> FCPS lobbied against the bill - yes parents and
> taxpayers, your dollars spent to lobby against the
> bill that would protect your child.

What was the rationale for opposing HB 1548? There must be something more to this.

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: TheProfessor ()
Date: February 22, 2011 11:45AM

My comments are interspersed...

Drugs are Bad Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Professor,
> I think you overestimate your intellectual gifts.
> Otherwise you would have remained on point rather
> than insulting your interlocutor.

You are my what, "interlocutor"? Are you certain about that? And actually, my point was to insult you.


>
> I think it is a mark of intellectual weakness when
> one has to resort to slights and the like rather
> than respond to arguments.

What arguments?

As for my use of
> philosophical terminology and the like, I wont be
> submitting those usages to your judgement. I
> daresay I have more education in the matter than
> you, having taught philosophy at a college. Have
> you?

Nope, never have, though curiously enough, my undergraduate degree is actually in philosophy. My Masters and PhD are in a STEM area, shall we say. What college hired you? To protect your privacy, you don't have to give out the name, just enough of a description so that I could identify it. I think you are lying. Your phrasing is awkward and shows no knowledge of higher education. An academic would say "I have more education in the 'field' or 'discipline' than you not 'matter'". Moreover, your phrasing implies that because you "taught philosophy at a college" you have "more education...than" me "in the matter". That's backward. So I know for certain you didn't teach Symbolic Logic.


>
> Your "corrections" of my use of "inderdict",
> "obtain" and "polity" are nothing of the sort. And
> your definition of polity is not correct anyway.
> Look it up.
>

You are using a dictionary of the English language, right?


> But your pedantic approach has served a
> purpose--to reveal an overweening concern with who
> "appears" correct.
>

What in the world are we to make of this? "Pedantic approach"! An "overweening" concern with who "appears" correct. What fustian bombast!


> So let me give you another try--your ploy is an
> attempt to say that school officials are, or
> should be, unable to enforce laws.

My what? My "ploy"? My "cunning plan"? You never taught philosophy. You lack fundamental reading comprehension, and are sadly obsessed with using words whose meanings you don't know. I'm not being "overweening" here, I'm frustrated. My position is simple. If school officials believe the law has been broken, they should turn the matter over to law enforcement. Let 5,000 years of legal tradition handle it. If they don't believe the infraction violates law, then any disciplinary action should be corrective, and not punitive. A 10 page essay would have far greater impact (and in many cases be far more painful) than a 10 day suspension. Is this clear?

I don't want someone without training in law and/or law enforcement enforcing laws. We have a word for that as well...vigilantism.

>
> My refutation of this is that they already are in
> that position, on the matter of guns.
>
This is stupid. You persist in a line of argumentation predicated on false premises.

> So your attempt to propose somekind of law-neutral
> environment fails.

My "attempt to propose somekind [sic] of law-neutral...". Do you actually read what others write, or just make it up as you go along.

>
> Then, seeing your failure, you try to retreat to a
> claim that double jeopardy is your real point.

This is painful.

>
> But that's, again, facetious, given that
> transferring someone from one school to another
> constitutes legal "punishment" only in the mind of
> a teenager. As many point out above, the
> entitlement to public education is served wherever
> the child is educated.
>

Tabernac! Facetious means flippant, funny in an irreverent way! The word you probably intended to use is specious, S P E C I O U S. You fail.



> The interdiction of behavior (from the latin
> "inter" preposition, taking the accusative, and
> added to the perfect passive participle of dico,
> dicere, dixi, dictus--to speak, and therefore
> meaning to speak or proscribe in between) does not
> refer to the meeting out of penalties, but rather
> the safeguarding of facilities from that
> behavior.
>

You know what, stupid should be painful. You evidently went to the dictionary for this definition, and you still don't understand it.


> Finally, you said that you didn't believe heroin
> dealers should be expelled. This means you favor
> letting them ply their trade on school grounds. No
> straw man there, you said it. It seems a bit of an
> experiment to me, given that most would think that
> is not currently what would be allowed.


No, it means I don't think they should be expelled. But I'll give you an assignment, with should be simple in light of your extensive background in philosophy. Use Hume's "Ought-Is" dichotomy to prove the fallacy in my position.

I'll return in a day or so for your answer.

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: anon user ()
Date: February 22, 2011 12:20PM

Seeker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > FCPS lobbied against the bill - yes parents and
> > taxpayers, your dollars spent to lobby against
> the
> > bill that would protect your child.
>
> What was the rationale for opposing HB 1548?
> There must be something more to this.


Agreed, and I was wondering the same thing.

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Drugs are Bad ()
Date: February 22, 2011 12:42PM

Professor,
Please. No one here is interested your thoughts of me or mine of you, least of all me.

Yes I taught college. If I'm lying how could you possibly confirm it either way. But I'm not. I have 2 masters and was ABD Ph.D in philosophy, after I scored in the 99th percentile on the verbal GRE (95 math, you've got me there probably).

I can read Latin, which means I didn't look any of those words up.

And yes, I meant specious rather than facetious. I mistyped (I was thinking the one and not the other) and I'm not proofing. Because I don't care.

My point is clear enough--your argument that school officials aren't involved in law inforcement is stupid.

Truancy, gun free zones, Trespassing, . . . . they are involved with reporting all of these things and administering them. If you want to say they are not involved with punishment, well, neither are cops, but we are not talking about punishment.

As has been pointed out ad nauseum above, transfers aren't punishment. Expulsion is something that is state-mandated for certain offenses (which was my point way back when I originally joined this thread, and which someone else above reiterated). So your problem is with the legislator.

All the rest of your puerile (from puer, pueri-2nd decl. meaning boy) "I shall see you on the field of honor on the morrow, my good man" stuff, save it for someone who cares.

If you feel like arguing the point, continue. I might respond after I finish leveling up on Call of Duty after grading papers. Or don't.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Dale's Response ()
Date: February 22, 2011 03:03PM

From Dale:
Thank you for your letter. I want to assure you that we do annually review our discipline policies. This year’s review is scheduled for a Spring work session with the School Board. At that time we will also review any new laws passed by the Virginia general assembly. I note the General Assembly because you might be interested to know that many student discipline laws passed by the Virginia General Assembly compel us to take certain actions with given infractions – invariably, the law requires us to expel a student from his/her school. For example, most drug and weapon related infractions require an expulsion from school. Our staff and this School Board invariably find alternate placements for our students – in other regular or alternative schools – instead of expelling completely from our schools.

I have also included a link to our Student Rights and Responsibilities: http://www.fcps.edu/dss/ips/ssaw/SRNR/2010-11-SRR.pdf. Pages 7-9 delineate the changes in the SR&R since the prior year review. You will also note several references to state code. Your analysis of the state code and its impact on children might be useful information for our elected officials. The state code seems to have ‘zero tolerance’ for certain infractions. The due process requirements are also in the state code, and perhaps should be reviewed as well.

Again, thank you for your comments.

Jack Dale


Someone shut him up.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: The Post today ()
Date: February 22, 2011 03:09PM

But the hearing board showed the Stubans no compassion and no understanding. It stuck to Page 20 of the school system's disciplinary manifesto - the Student Responsibilities and Rights Handbook - that parents and students are required to sign each year.

On that page is explicit detail about Stuban's offense, saying that it "shall result in a ten-day suspension from school and recommendation for expulsion."

Fine. But why in the world didn't the hearing board disciplinarians consider something in the spirit of Page 23 from the same handbook: "Notwithstanding the foregoing provisions, the School Board may determine, based on the facts of a particular situation, that special circumstances exist and that no disciplinary action or another disciplinary action or term of expulsion is appropriate."

When you look at this family's situation and the student himself, Page 23 seems a much more reasonable place to begin.

If Page 23 doesn't exist for someone like Nick Stuban, than who can it possibly be for?

And yet, the hearing board stuck to Page 20, kicking a good kid out of school, a kid who needed the embrace of his school community more than anything else.

The whole ugly process went on for almost two months. During that time, Nick wasn't allowed to go to class or to his Boy Scout meetings or to sports activities. He became withdrawn and increasingly depressed. He'd been at his new school, Fairfax High School, for just a few days when he killed himself.

Stuban is the second Fairfax County student in two years to kill himself during the disciplinary process. Josh Anderson, a 17-year-old football player at South Lakes High School, did the same thing in 2009.

An entire organization dedicated to the school system's disciplinary policies and parents' experiences with it has sprung up: Fairfax Zero Tolerance Reform.

The people who want change aren't saying that kids shouldn't be disciplined when they do something dopey. But they argue that most don't deserve to be treated like criminals, either.

Here's what the zero-tolerance policy has taught folks in Fairfax: When kids get in trouble for a minor offense, they need to clam up while their parents lawyer up. Families who treat a kid's screw-up head-on, with honesty, integrity and sincerity, as the Stubans did, will pay a price - sometimes a terrible price.

Expelling kids for shooting plastic pellets out of a pen case, strip-searching them in a hunt for Ibuprofen or writing a 6-year-old up for sexual harassment after a playground booty smack is not education. It's an over-lawyered response that flies in the face of common sense.

Fairfax Superintendent Jack D. Dale said that zero tolerance was not a factor in the Stuban case and that the disciplinary process wasn't a factor in Nick's suicide. He called that conclusion "erroneous."

Here's the word I'd use to describe all of it: cruel.

E-mail me at dvorakp@washpost.com.

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Woodson Mom ()
Date: February 22, 2011 07:26PM

there were so many things in the last two Post articles that continue to fuel my anger at Jack Dale and some of the school board members but one thing that I can't get out of my head is why he was so cavelier when he indicated they'd review the policy in the spring as if this was just any other yearly policy review. Is his system so inflexible that he couldn't possibly imagine reviewing the policy now. Like, right now? Jack Dale cannot afford to suffer more of these battles.

I assume that the disciplinary review board and the hearing officials' names are confidential?

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: form letter ()
Date: February 22, 2011 07:32PM

This is no excuse--but Dale's letter almost sounds like one of those form letters you get when someone has not really read what you wrote. Kind of like when you write a Congressman or a School Board member. I wonder if his assistant just punched it in.......

Personally, I think it more likely that he would not respond at all to their letter. That would be better than the one they did get.

He needs to go.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Is he a parent? ()
Date: February 22, 2011 09:32PM

Did Jack Dale ever have any kids? Just curious.

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: remove the rot ()
Date: February 22, 2011 10:02PM

Woodson Mom Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I assume that the disciplinary review board and
> the hearing officials' names are confidential?

These are the people in the hearing office (straight from the FCPS website) - completely public information.

Eileen Grattan, Hearing Officer
Anne Benedicto, Admininistrative Assistant
Brenda Adams, Assistant Hearing Officer
Lisa Felix, Assistant Hearing Officer
Pam McMillie, Assistant Hearing Officer
Dana Scanlan, Assistant Hearing Officer
Benita Toler, Assistant Hearing Officer
Kathy Bacon, Administrative Assistant
Sheena Cox, Administrative Assistant
Donna Dixon, Administrative Assistant
Elaine Scott, Administrative Assistant
Ella Stites, Hearing/Legal Tech

One of them (I think) was posting on FU a while back, defending the process. Posting as 'fcps employee and parent' on 01 Feb, they wrote:

"The hearings office isn't that bad but remember every day they hear this same story... Accept the suspension - don't fight that but first (again if your son's record is straight) politely request that he not be suspended"

So we're being coached by these people on how to show up on bended knee to plead for mercy. It's Kafkaesque.

We need a lot of sunshine on this process.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Meerow ()
Date: February 22, 2011 10:05PM

"....What is it with you and dead cats? Each of your posts has "swinging a dead cat...."

I remember when every thread on this forum had dead cat posts, cartoons and photos. Long live FfxULOLCats. Ahhh, the good ole days.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Newspaper reader ()
Date: February 22, 2011 10:58PM

I am wondering what happened to the student who offered to sell Nick Stuban drugs more than once? The Washington Post article did not address that, and perhaps that information is not public. But I am sure someone reading this will know and people who post messages here seem to share info, and many people probably are wondering like I am. How did the FCPS system deal with that individual -- expelled completely? Or just suspended & for how long? Longer than Nick? How many others were caught up in this drug-reaction discipline besides Nick? Or was Nick the only one subject to the discipline because of this drug transaction, even though the other person in the transaction was also a student? I'm a little unclear on what transpired....
Thank you.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: WTW upperclassman ()
Date: February 22, 2011 11:40PM

The kid that sold it to him was a special ed kid/shoulda been in special ed kid if he wasn't, and was expelled. I don't know if he even realizes the part he played in this whole story.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: FFX Momuv3 ()
Date: February 23, 2011 07:46AM

So did any of you get the letter from FCPS school board member?

As follows:

Dear parents:  

By now, you are likely aware of the recent suicide of a Providence District FCPS student that was profiled on the front page of the Washington Post on Sunday, February 20 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2011/02/19/AR2011021904528_Comments.html

This is a tragedy for our whole community.

As your School Board member and Board liaison to the Fairfax County Partnership for Youth, I recognize there are many facets to student discipline, mental health and suicide.  The issues that have been brought to the forefront by the recent tragedy must be addressed by our community, FCPS and your School Board.  

Some of these perspectives include:

*A perceived excessive use of expulsions from base FCPS high schools for first-time, non-violent offenders, with no student emotional support services for impacted students.
* Belief that a parent should be present when a student is questioned and/or charged with a violation.
* Support for existing policies that protect the health and safety of each and every student.  

Clearly, it is time for a review of FCPS discipline policies and practices for fairness and effectiveness.  The review process should be transparent and should include many perspectives.

Two weeks ago, the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution encouraging a partnership between FCPS and county services to assist our troubled youth and to solicit input from the public to seek improvements to the disciplinary policy.  I support these collaborative efforts and believe that we need to have an open and honest dialogue with our community about how these and otherpolicies and issues are affecting mental and physical health of our students.  

I campaigned on the pledge that Your Child is My Top Priority and I take that pledge very seriously.  I value your input and I want to hear from you; I will represent your views in this important discussion because it impacts all of our children and our community as a whole. I can be reached at:Patricia.Reed1@fcps.edu.

Sincerely,

Patty Reed
Fairfax County School Board Member
Providence District


Not sure what all this means but let's hope they seriously consider how things are currently being handled.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Viv ()
Date: February 23, 2011 07:59AM

I like the letter. It seems like Patty Reed is sincere. Alas, Liz Bradsher is the school board rep for my area. She's far too busy with salvaging her thwarted political career to be concerned about draconian discipline measures that destroy students.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: too polite ()
Date: February 23, 2011 08:08AM

Patty Reed is trying to do damage control. The first thing she should do is call for Dale's ouster. He is her employee and his message is directly counter to hers. Isn't that a problem?

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: very sad ()
Date: February 23, 2011 08:19AM

Is damage control all these people ever do around here?! So Patty Reed *might* mean well, but delivering spin after the tragedy is all residents can ever expect?

Why do they try to restructure their policies so that students who struggle with these issues have a resource to turn to, instead of just being slapped in the face, head, and tush and shown the door?

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: give Reed a chance ()
Date: February 23, 2011 09:47AM

Give her a chance. She is new to the board. She is not my representative--but I wish she were. She voted against the budget along with Hone. Hone is liberal and Reed is conservative, but it appears that they are the only members with a lick of common sense. The others appear to rubber stamp anything that Dale does or wants.

The budget the board passed is totally unrealistic. They made no effort to cut anything that was fluff. They are holding up full-day Kindergarten to parents as a carrot to get people to write the Board for more money.

I am writing the Board of Supervisors to withold any increase until the SB is responsive to the students and parents of Fairfax County.

I think the only way to get rid of Dale is through the SB. The only was that will happen is to have a huge turnover--but I don't think I would get rid of Reed.

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: investigate! ()
Date: February 23, 2011 10:16AM

FFX Momuv3 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So did any of you get the letter from FCPS school
> board member?
>
> As follows:
>
> Dear parents:  
>
> By now, you are likely aware of the recent suicide
> of a Providence District FCPS student that was
> profiled on the front page of the Washington Post
> on Sunday, February 20
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/articl
> e/2011/02/19/AR2011021904528_Comments.html
>
> This is a tragedy for our whole community.
>
> As your School Board member and Board liaison to
> the Fairfax County Partnership for Youth, I
> recognize there are many facets to student
> discipline, mental health and suicide.  The
> issues that have been brought to the forefront by
> the recent tragedy must be addressed by our
> community, FCPS and your School Board.  
>
> Some of these perspectives include:
>
> *A perceived excessive use of expulsions from base
> FCPS high schools for first-time, non-violent
> offenders, with no student emotional support
> services for impacted students.
> * Belief that a parent should be present when a
> student is questioned and/or charged with a
> violation.
> * Support for existing policies that protect the
> health and safety of each and every student.  
>
> Clearly, it is time for a review of FCPS
> discipline policies and practices for fairness and
> effectiveness.  The review process should be
> transparent and should include many perspectives.
>
> Two weeks ago, the Board of Supervisors passed a
> resolution encouraging a partnership between FCPS
> and county services to assist our troubled youth
> and to solicit input from the public to seek
> improvements to the disciplinary policy.  I
> support these collaborative efforts and believe
> that we need to have an open and honest dialogue
> with our community about how these and
> otherpolicies and issues are affecting mental and
> physical health of our students.  
>
> I campaigned on the pledge that Your Child is My
> Top Priority and I take that pledge very
> seriously.  I value your input and I want to hear
> from you; I will represent your views in this
> important discussion because it impacts all of our
> children and our community as a whole. I can be
> reached at:Patricia.Reed1@fcps.edu.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Patty Reed
> Fairfax County School Board Member
> Providence District
>
>
> Not sure what all this means but let's hope they
> seriously consider how things are currently being
> handled.


What a tragedy that they need blood on their hands and the BOS on their back before this review was undertaken. If Yost, Dale, and Grattan had any honor, they'd resign. But I don't expect they will.

Hopefully this is not BS, but someone actually seeing and pushing for real change. The idea that 'a parent should be present when a student is questioned and/or charged with a violation' is even something that needs to addressed tells you how bad the system is. Accusation is all that is needed - then they go about building their case through intimidation, both of students and parents. These people are bullies - we need to stand up to them. Most bullies are just cowards who put on a brave face.

It should not be lost on everyone that to a person, the Hearing Office is all female, and I'm betting that 80% of the cases they see are against male students. I've seen in FCPS that the standard for conduct is the quiet, studious female student. If you are unfortunate enough to be born with a Y chromosome, you will get in trouble in FCPS.

I think the lack of diversity amongst the hearing officers should be examined closely - maybe having someone engaged in the process that grew up male, or minority, or whatever would allow for a little more compassion and little less cruelty.

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: FFX Momuv3 ()
Date: February 23, 2011 11:23AM

I am new to the county but I can say that there are all sorts of things that I see wrong with the school board and their "policies". To start, the fact that they really do not prepare these children to be held accountable for their actions until they expect them to do it "cold turkey" when they reach High School.

We coddle these kids so much in the early stages that when they get into high school and are supposed to behave like young RESPONSIBLE adults, the methods are totally foreign to them. As a parent, if my husband and I did not enforce our "old school" household rules, our kids would run amuck at school like many of the other kids.

Secondly, I agree with previous statements that we are being run by an office that would rather be lazy and apply blanket punishments as opposed to looking into each and every individual case and apply punishments accordingly.

I am not blaming the loss of these kids on the school board and their process, or the parents. I am saying that there are some definite changes that need to happen on ALL fronts.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Jackie Sara ()
Date: February 23, 2011 11:44AM

Family of Fairfax teen suicide victim wants changes in school disciplinary policies

Woodson Highschool, Fairfax, Virginia

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/21/AR2011022104302.html

Read the article in the washington post, very sad.

Jackie

Options: ReplyQuote
Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Mary ()
Date: February 23, 2011 11:51AM


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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Martha ()
Date: February 23, 2011 12:53PM

Good lord, people. How many times do you have to repost the article link? do you think people come here and only read one message?

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Elizabeth ()
Date: February 23, 2011 11:53PM

This is a little off topic. FCPS appeals process is really screwed up. I worked several years at Belle Willard Special Education Department. School system always says get the parents involved. Belle Willard was the place where the hearings were held for special education students. Let me tell you parents don't stand a chance in hell. I would go into the ladies room and the school hearing people would be talking all sorts of nasty stuff about the parents. I remember them saying so and so's mother showed up in a Mercedes who does she think she is. They would talk about oh no here this one comes again. I knew one mother who was a special ed teacher at a catholic school in the area who did not like what they were doing with her son. Walked into the bathroom and boy were they badmouthing her. I knew this woman and I thought her complaints were justified. Like I said you don't stand a fighting chance with these people. I just wonder how they would react if some of this stuff was happening to their own children.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: true ()
Date: February 24, 2011 07:15AM

Yes, I was actually told not to show up at a local screening for my son. It was my first experience with this whole system. I had no idea that I was supposed to be there. They told me that it was not necessary for me to be there. !! I believed them. I"m sure they all talked about how they couldn't believe how a parent would not show up.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: lies ()
Date: February 24, 2011 08:53AM

Not surprised that administrators in FCPS lie to parents. It's like they have to deal with enough difficult parents (either wealthy/bullying types, or the opposite), so they lie to everyone to keep it simpler for themselves.

Why don't they fire some of these administrators who continue to do a HORRIBLE job of helping students? If these people don't even want to help kids, they need to go. It's a waste of people's money to be paying them salaries when they don't accomplish anything useful.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Moving to Maryland ()
Date: February 24, 2011 11:53AM

Va. teen's suicide prompts Md. review of disciplinary policies


By Donna St. George
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 23, 2011; 11:05 PM

Maryland officials will ask school systems across the state to examine their disciplinary policies in the aftermath of the suicide of a Northern Virginia football player who took his life as he grappled with the fallout of being suspended from his high school.

"I want to get some assurance that this never happens in our districts," said Kate Walsh, a member of Maryland's State Board of Education who became concerned about the issue after reading an article in Sunday's Washington Post about Nick Stuban, 15, of Fairfax County. "Every aspect of what happened to that boy in Fairfax County is an abuse of school authority."

Stuban was out of school for two months - then transferred away from his friends, team and teachers at W.T. Woodson High School - after admitting that he bought one capsule of JWH-018, a synthetic compound with marijuana-like effects. The substance was legal at the time but not allowed at school.

The teen later described his actions as a "really stupid decision." His parents said that his disciplinary hearing was confrontational and devastating to him and that it lacked due-process protections. As the Stubans have grieved, they have called for policy reforms.

In Virginia, state Sen. J. Chapman "Chap" Petersen (D-Fairfax), brought the issue to the floor of the Senate in a speech Tuesday. In a later interview, he said the Fairfax system needs more transparency and parental involvement as well as a greater emphasis on "the best interests of the child."

Fairfax officials have said on several occasions that the system does not use a "zero-tolerance" approach to discipline and considers each case individually.

Said Petersen: "I respectfully disagree. I think there tends to be a zero-tolerance mentality that threatens the reputation of the school system."

Petersen, a lawyer, said he has been to several school disciplinary hearings in recent years.

The process, he said, is "a kind of prosecutorial system without any of the safeguards you would expect from that kind of system."

Some Fairfax parents and activists said they planned to bring their concerns to a School Board forum that will consider discipline policies and other issues. It is set for 5:30 p.m. Thursday at Luther Jackson Middle School in Falls Church.


In Maryland, the board asked State Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick at a meeting Tuesday to discuss the case with local superintendents at their next monthly meeting to ensure that "they all do soul-searching on this front to make sure this couldn't be repeated," as Walsh put it.

Of concern, she said, was Stuban's transfer to another high school and what she called an "overreaction . . .. a lack of common sense." She took issue with lengthy periods out of school. "The time out of school only aggravates the situation, and in the case of this boy, it created a whole new range of problems," she said.

Barbara M. Hunter, assistant superintendent for communications and community outreach in Fairfax, said the district was not aware of Maryland's action and could not comment.

The Virginia Board of Education has not discussed the matter and generally leaves the implementation of disciplinary policies up to local school districts, board Vice President David M. Foster said.

Foster said state law requires zero tolerance for having such items as firearms and controlled and imitation controlled substances on school grounds, but he said that "precise disciplinary action taken is left largely to the local boards," as are the procedures used by any district.




I want these MD people working in Fairfax County.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Dane Bramage ()
Date: February 24, 2011 01:47PM

Moving to Maryland Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "I want to get some assurance that this never
> happens in our districts," said Kate Walsh, a
> member of Maryland's State Board of Education who
> became concerned about the issue after reading an
> article in Sunday's Washington Post about Nick
> Stuban, 15, of Fairfax County. "Every aspect of
> what happened to that boy in Fairfax County is an
> abuse of school authority."



Loved that quote.

-------------------------------------------------
“We don’t have any rude, unpleasant people here. We’re different!”

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: cat has her tongue ()
Date: February 24, 2011 02:04PM

Barbara M. Hunter, assistant superintendent for communications and community outreach in Fairfax, said the district was not aware of Maryland's action and could not comment.


Since when does Ms OVER PAID BLABBERMOUTH have no comment?

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: MP ()
Date: February 24, 2011 08:53PM


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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Gone by June ()
Date: February 24, 2011 09:30PM

With all the attention this is getting, Jack Dale and Eileen Grattan will be gone by the end of the school year. Tisdat won't be far behind. Then maybe we can reclaim our school system in the fall with a new SB.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Shadow ()
Date: February 24, 2011 10:04PM

This story is now on Channel 5 Fox news.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: more ()
Date: February 24, 2011 10:20PM

Gone by June Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> With all the attention this is getting, Jack Dale
> and Eileen Grattan will be gone by the end of the
> school year. Tisdat won't be far behind. Then
> maybe we can reclaim our school system in the fall
> with a new SB.


Add Yost to that list.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: hopeandchange ()
Date: February 24, 2011 10:22PM

Dana Scanlan too

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: Latent ()
Date: February 24, 2011 11:33PM

I watched the Fox 5 story about earlier, and Dale seems like he might be a repressed homosexual. Something about his gestures and mannerisms, and the way he bobs his head around when he speaks. And what sane man says something like, "Oh heavens, no!" I am on to him.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: 620 ()
Date: February 25, 2011 07:56AM


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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: a question ()
Date: February 25, 2011 08:37AM

After watching the SB process last night, I am beginning to wonder. Is it the ZT policy itself or the way they apply the policy that is so messed up? From what I read the policy has room for exceptions--except that the SB never makes any exceptions. I do think there are times that expulsion is appropriate (I know of one case where it was). Certainly, if they could not make an exception for the Stuban boy, they weren't going to make an exception of anyone.

I find it very interesting that Jack Dale was arrogant and agressive in his reply to the Board of Supervisors last week, but that he is now open and flexible since the WAPO article..

Does this mean that he cares more what the rest of the world thinks than the citizens of Fairfax County and Supervisors (who give hime money)? Nothin has changed from a week ago except for the publicity in the WAPO.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: what are you doing dave? ()
Date: February 25, 2011 09:50AM

620 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A Centreville HS teacher supports zero tolerance
>
>
> http://voices.washingtonpost.com/local-opinions/20
> 11/02/the_rationale_for_strict_high.html
>
> David.C.Campbell@fcps.edu


Then FCPS should replace the teacher disciplinary system with an exact copy of the student disciplinary system. I'm sure that would be just fine with Dr. Campbell, since he thinks the hearing office system is so great.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: to HAL 9000 ()
Date: February 25, 2011 10:42AM

what are you doing dave? Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 620 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > A Centreville HS teacher supports zero
> tolerance
> >
> >
> >
> http://voices.washingtonpost.com/local-opinions/20
>
> > 11/02/the_rationale_for_strict_high.html
> >
> > David.C.Campbell@fcps.edu
>
>
> Then FCPS should replace the teacher disciplinary
> system with an exact copy of the student
> disciplinary system. I'm sure that would be just
> fine with Dr. Campbell, since he thinks the
> hearing office system is so great.


It looks like you primary logic functions aren't operating, HAL.

They fire teachers for the sort of stuff in the SR&R and turn 'em over to the cops.

I mean if a teacher was caught at school with drugs they'd go to the slammer fo sho

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: ex-teacher ()
Date: February 25, 2011 10:44AM

I don't know anything about this kid or the schools, principals, or admin involved.

But, based on my exepreince in FCPS, it is extremely rare that an expulsion is based on an isolated event. Many teachers felt that the schools and central admin went too far to attempt to provide opportunities for kids to rectify their miscreant ways.

Please remember that he was transferred to another school.

As tragic as his suicide is, and as a parent I simply cannot imagine the horrible grief his parents must be experiencing, I doubt that this one event was the sole cause of the suicide.

Maybe the school system has changed dramatically since I retired but I doubt it.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: 2866 ()
Date: February 25, 2011 10:49AM

The rationale for strict high school discipline
By David Campbell, Springfield
Have the authors of the Feb. 20 front-page article on Fairfax's zero-tolerance discipline policy ever been in a class with students who bring drugs or weapons to school, who buy drugs at school or are chronically disruptive? Such students can create a bitter and fearful environment for students interested in learning, and students who care are grateful when the frequent fliers in the disciplinary system are removed from their classes.
In a Jan. 23 Metro story about Nick Stuban's suicide, a student who transferred to W.T. Woodson High School after having committed vandalism at another school complained that his disciplinary hearing was "degrading," and that he was "treat[ed] like a criminal," as if somehow vandalism were not a crime and disciplinary hearings were supposed to boost his self-esteem. If students are so concerned about "degrading" encounters, they might consider how degrading it is to students whose property is vandalized, or to the maintenance staffs who must clean up vandals' messes. They might consider as well how grossly unfair it is that their disruptions make learning harder for other students.
I don't doubt that Nick Stuban was a good kid who made a dumb mistake. But he did buy a marijuana-mimicking substance at school. Woodson officials had to treat what seriously, and they did.
The writer is a teacher at Centreville High School

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: TheProfessor ()
Date: February 25, 2011 10:53AM

620,

Mr. Campbell is entitled to his opinion and his privacy. His opinion, though fallacious, is certainly informed, as he lives the reality of the "blackboard jungle" every working day. Like so many here, however, he commits the straw man fallacy. His statements about disruptive students and "good" students being denied their opportunity to learn are overblown renditions of what he perceives the "opposition" believes.

Trolls aside, no sensible person would disagree that there are students whose chronically bad behavior warrants removal from a mainstream classroom. Beyond this, things get dicey. Some people apparently feel that misbehaving students should be suspended or banished to another school (a "fresh start"?, how naive!) or expelled. That "will teach 'em a lesson". If so, it must be a very difficult lesson to learn, otherwise the recidivism rate for violators of all ages would be zero. That's obviously not the case. The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world -- at least among nations that honestly report such statistics. And the recidivism rate for non-sex related crimes can range as high as 80% (interestingly enough,the highest rates are for the old traditional ones, armed robbery, car theft, etc., proving, it would seem, that prison doesn't even produce smarter criminals).

But we're not discussing the U.S. criminal justice system here. Not directly, anyway, but what is going to become of kids who don't learn their "lesson" and have no education? The earlier Poster who was concerned about his 10th grade daughter's safety in class needs to fast forward and think about his/her 26 year old daughter out on the jogging path, with no school officials to protect her.

Suspensions and expulsions, modified or otherwise, should be stopped immediately. They have no instructional purpose, other than punishment, and I refer the reader to the comments above concerning the efficacy of punishment as teaching. There are students whose behavior is sufficiently disruptive that they need to be removed from the classroom for a time -- though my personal research into this area indicates that teachers with poor classroom management skills are the ones who most often lose control and subsequently escalate the situation. But there is no reason why the classroom cannot be streamed back to a cubicle for the little "miscreant" to watch and participate. This is, after all, the 21st century.

Students whose inability to follow school procedures is chronic should incur a series of interventions designed to help them learn socially acceptable standards of behavior. Parents should be in the lead on this, assisted by appropriate school personnel, and not the other way around. Parents who show no interest in working with their kid clearly could not object to the school then proceeding without them. If you think this would be expensive, consider the costs, actual and social, of our incarceration rates.

Sentiment aside, the old African proverb is right, it does "take a whole village to raise a child". Parents, teachers, neighbors, coaches, friends, clergy, local businesses, all impact a kid's world, and each plays a role in seeing that kid grow and become a productive member of the community. That structure is gone if kids are sent into the solitary confinement of suspension and expulsion. Nothing but tragedy lies there.

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Re: Fairfax High School student | Nick Stuban
Posted by: may2010 ()
Date: February 25, 2011 10:54AM

Thanks "ex-teacher", good point, I don't have time to read all of these posts, but has anyone thought of the possibility that this is not a "school" issue but something deeper, maybe medical, maybe personal, MAYBE FAMILY, and this incident just pushed him over?
How is the school to know that and/or be held responsible?

Another example of a permanent solution to a temporary problem

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