School Vouchers, please. Now. Thank you.
This sort of nonsense makes you sputter:
An athletic and academic standout in Lee County said a lunchbox mix-up has cut short her senior year of high school and might hurt her college opportunities.
Ashley Smithwick, 17, of Sanford, was suspended from Southern Lee High School in October after school personnel found a small paring knife in her lunchbox .
Smithwick said personnel found the knife while searching the belongings of several students, possibly looking for drugs.
The lunchbox really belonged to Joe Smithwick, who packs a paring knife to slice his apple. He and his daughter have matching lunchboxes.
The “chief school resource officer” for the school says she “couldn’t comment on the case,” adding “shut up and raise my pay.” Okay, I added that last part. At first the school suspended her for ten days, then thought long and deep on the matter and banned her for the rest of the school year. This month she was charged with weapons possession. Excellent work, folks. You avoided a Columbine-style mass-paring with your quick thinking, and a grateful city is forever in your debt. Mostly because of your pension obligations, but for this, too.
Related: You may have heard of the kids in Virginia who were punished for handing out candy canes. One was allegedly told by an administrator that “candy canes are weapons because you can sharpen them with your mouth and stab people with them." But here's the best quote of all from a pinch-faced ubergrinch in the head office:
Mother Kathleen Flannery said an administrator called her and explained "not everyone wants Christmas cheer. That suicide rates are up over Christmas, and that they should keep their cheer to themselves, perhaps."
I’m surprised the administrator didn’t praise the upticks in suicide, since it would decrease the surplus population. (Pre-conversion Scrooge, with his stingy use of coal and concerns over population, really was something of a proto-Green.)
Administrators: the sand in the gears of the educational system, and just as numberless. In my high school we had a principal, a vice-principal, a “counselor” for each grade, and two nice office ladies. Now we have a “chief school resource officer,” which implies the existence of lesser school resource officers. You could eliminate 90% of the administrators, leave the office ladies alone, and no one would notice anything had changed. Except for the number of Starbucks employees who insisted on being called "chief bean pulverization officer."
- Comment (42)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (1)
Comments:
Aug '10
Re: School Vouchers, please. Now. Thank you.
These administrators are watching too many prison drama shows. Candy canes as a shank? Have these people done time at the regional supermax prison? Common sense is lacking in some of these school officials. If I ever have the fortunate chance to have kids I'll be trying to get them into private schools.
Dec '10
Re: School Vouchers, please. Now. Thank you.
Lady Kurobara
Thank you, flownover. The NEA is definitely a racket, so it has more in common with the Mafia, I believe. In fact, since the NEA is the largest labor union in the United States, it may actually eclipse the Mafia in its ability to extort funds from the public treasury. Your typical school administrator is a grasping, degenerate thug with a depraved socialist philosophy.
Tell me again why we entrust these people with our children's welfare and education? · Dec 29 at 6:39pm
This is exactly the reason that no child of mine will ever enter a public school, come hell or high water.
Happily, I don't have kids yet, so there's still time to fix things before it becomes an issue for me.
That said, I'm still saving books that would be good to teach from for home schooling, just in case.
Jul '10
Re: School Vouchers, please. Now. Thank you.
Every mirror and unreinforced window in the school is ten times as dangerous. Of course, for total security I find the local courthouse are the folks that know what they are doing. I shared that with a friend doing Pentagon security, and he pointed out that they were dealing with the real hard core. Of course, match the right profile at the Pentagon and things get real interesting real fast too.
I have encountered some of the best and some of the worst administrators conceivable, sometimes in the same school. My favorite is the anti-semitic jihadi guidance counsellor. There was something going all the time with that guy.
May '10
Re: School Vouchers, please. Now. Thank you.
"Zero tolerance" translated into English is "Zero thinking."
This administrator has probably ruined this girls chances as to get into the college of her choice. If I were her father I'd sue him, the school board, and the superintendent. And I would keep harassing them until they had at least handed over all of their assets to their defense lawyers.
Jul '10
Re: School Vouchers, please. Now. Thank you.
James Lileks: This sort of nonsense makes you sputter:
It is said that the Grinch's heart grew three sizes that day. You know, from all the associated misery and mayhem.
Jul '10
Re: School Vouchers, please. Now. Thank you.
First they came for the paring knives, and I was silent, because I brought a PBJ.
Then they came for the sporks, so no soup, or the college of your choice, for you.
May '10
Re: School Vouchers, please. Now. Thank you.
But you can't bring a PBJ to school because the P stands for peanut and the school administrators have ruled that to be weapon, too. See, in our hyper-sensitive world those with nut allergies demand that anything with a peanut in it be banned.
Jul '10
Re: School Vouchers, please. Now. Thank you.
EJHill
But you can't bring a PBJ to school because the P stands for peanut and the school administrators have ruled that to be weapon, too. See, in our hyper-sensitive world those with nut allergies demand that anything with a peanut in it be banned. · Dec 29 at 9:57pm
No one is SAFE!
Jiff has become a looming threat.
May '10
Re: School Vouchers, please. Now. Thank you.
But, did you sit at the peanut-free table? Aha!! Weapon!
May '10
Re: School Vouchers, please. Now. Thank you.
WMD - Walnuts of Mass Destruction. We're more worried about illusions of domestic threats than the realty of the ones we know wish us harm.
May '10
Re: School Vouchers, please. Now. Thank you.
EJHill
But you can't bring a PBJ to school because the P stands for peanut and the school administrators have ruled that to be weapon, too. See, in our hyper-sensitive world those with nut allergies demand that anything with a peanut in it be banned. · Dec 29 at 9:57pm
And here I thought I was being original. :-)
May '10
Re: School Vouchers, please. Now. Thank you.
I wish you were. But my children's school system has a ban on peanut butter from K through 12.
May '10
Re: School Vouchers, please. Now. Thank you.
When I was in high school there was an incident at another school where a student stabbed another student in the cheek with a fork. I never heard that they boycotted forks after that.
May '10
Re: School Vouchers, please. Now. Thank you.
Lady Kurobara
The relentless campaign to eradicate Christianity from America continues apace.
In other posts, I have noted that politics tends to attract the worst kinds of human beings. And rent-seeking teachers and administrators are nothing if not political animals. It is no exaggeration to say that the public school system is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party. So it is no surprise that our children wind up being tormented and tyrannized by such wretched pieces of humanity — stupid and ignorant, with an almost sub-human lack of judgement, decency and common sense. · Dec 29 at 3:41pm
Edited on Dec 29 at 04:27 pm
And they lose outstanding teachers, like ~Paules, because of that environment, too.
Jul '10
Re: School Vouchers, please. Now. Thank you.
EJHill
I wish you were. But my children's school system has a ban on peanut butter from K through 12. · Dec 29 at 10:11pm
Our kids' school lets parents know if there are any peanut allergies in each classroom, mostly for class parties. We are allowed to send PBJs for lunch. For now. But don't think yer gettin' away with anything....
Jul '10
Re: School Vouchers, please. Now. Thank you.
When I was in high school a buddy attempted to jump a school amphitheater with his father's new Chevy Suburban. We were still allowed to drive to school.
Our garage band played way, way too loud (partial hearing loss) on the quad at lunch. We were asked to cut down on the feedback, but were allowed to continue torturing Les Pauls and each others' hearing.
May '10
Re: School Vouchers, please. Now. Thank you.
Do you realize that this government's idea of a terrorist is Mr. Peanut accidently showing up at a TSA screening facility wearing an American flag t-shirt with a paring knife in his lunch box?
Jul '10
Re: School Vouchers, please. Now. Thank you.
Saying the Pledge Of Allegiance.
May '10
Re: School Vouchers, please. Now. Thank you.
And wearing a cross.
Jul '10
Re: School Vouchers, please. Now. Thank you.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,"
Okay, what am I missing here?
Random SEARCHES of Persons and Effects for Drugs. And this doesn't violate the above how?
And these random searches are shown to be effective in their purpose, or keep on being ridiculed because they keep trapping the innocent with some technical violation of a zero tolerance policy, but the real rif raff continue unabated.
I'm sure this is some real good training for people to become subjects and not citizens, but really, of what value will the constitution be when we find that the real meanings have been cosigned;
No animal shall sleep in a bed (with sheets)
Edited on December 30, 2010 at 11:05am