Maine school punishes students for MySpace pics
Students punished after online photos showed them drinking:
LINCOLN, Maine –Online photos of students drinking beer led to punishments at Mattanawcook Academy, officials said.
Ten students were suspended from extra curricular activities after school officials saw photos of the teens with beer, said Michael F. Marcinkus, superintendent of School Administrative District 67.
The photos, posted on the Web site, MySpace.com, showed students at an indoor party on or about St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, officials said.
The suspensions forced a senior school play’s cancellation and hobbled some extracurricular clubs and varsity sports teams.
School officials took action partly to enforce school policies, but mainly to protect the students, Marcinkus said. “We don’t want kids exposing themselves to sexual predators. That’s our main concern,” Marcinkus said.
More kids that would rather be cool than smart.
3 opinions for Maine school punishes students for MySpace pics
Jeff
Apr 21, 2006 at 12:15 am
I’m not defending the kids’ rights to act like imbeciles. But one does have to ask of the school what their boundaries are.
How does one’s behaviour on one’s own time determine that they should be punished by being temporarily removed from the public institution they were attending?
These students should bring a lawsuit against the school to define said boundaries to school officials, and remove the people responsible for this decision. If this is reguarded as “fine,” then any “school official” also has right to follow students into any public area and maintain surveilance and punish them for any “wrongdoings” (as they so deem them) they find.
For this example, we’ll say a couple of students go to a pool hall that allows minors. This “offical” that follows them is offended that they would want to go to a dark and smokey place that serves beer, and believe that children should be nowhere near this place, even though the law allows this.
The next day, the students are greeted with suspensions, wihout any possibility to represent their argument or any other capacity to defend themselves, under the guise that the school “wants to protect them from drunks, and keep them away from smokers.”
If the precedent is not defined soon, our children will be facing this situation more often, because children still haven’t any possibility to represent their argument or any other capacity to defend themselves.
“More kids that would rather be cool than smart.”
I’ll give you that, but I’d also suggest this is further evidence that schools do NOT act as institutions of learning, but instead behave as an organized body of babysitters.
I will further argue that this is a perfect example as to why our children are being dumbed down by our school system, because no institution that was appropriately devoted to the process of learning would EVER punish students for events that couldn’t even be punishable by law. (A website is definately NOT sufficient evidence.)
mike cook
May 6, 2006 at 7:23 pm
yea im in 8th grade and i have a myspace ur so right about this schools have to step off, our time is our time, the cops can catch cause they can likewise the school can punish us but a cop cant come to school and punish us for sumtin we did theyre unless its a drug bust, the school cant come to the streets and do this
mike cook
May 6, 2006 at 7:23 pm
yea im in 8th grade and i have a myspace ur so right about this schools have to step off, our time is our time, the cops can catch cause they can likewise the school can punish us but a cop cant come to school and punish us for sumtin we did theyre unless its a drug bust, the school cant come to the streets and do this
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