Posted on 11/06/2007 5:04:37 PM PST by Coleus
Two hugs equals two days of detention for 13-year-old Megan Coulter. The eighth-grader was punished for violating a school policy banning public displays of affection when she hugged two friends Friday.
"I feel it is crazy," said Megan, who was to serve her second detention Tuesday after classes at Mascoutah Middle School. "I was just giving them a hug goodbye for the weekend," she said. Megan's mother, Melissa Coulter, said the embraces weren't even real hugs - just an arm around the shoulder and slight squeeze.
"It's hilarious to the point of ridicule," Coulter said. "I'm still dumbfounded that she's having to do this." District Superintendent Sam McGowen said that he thinks the penalty is fair and that administrators in the school east of St. Louis were following policy in the student handbook.
It states: "Displays of affection should not occur on the school campus at any time. It is in poor taste, reflects poor judgment, and brings discredit to the school and to the persons involved." Coulter said she and her husband told their daughter to go ahead and serve her detentions because the only other option was a day of suspension for each skipped detention.
"We don't agree with it, but I certainly don't want her to get in more trouble," Coulter said. The couple plan to attend the next school board meeting to ask board members to consider rewording the policy or be more specific in what is considered a display of affection.
"I'm just hoping the school board will open their eyes and just realize that maybe they shouldn't be punishing us for hugs," Megan said.
Mascoutah Middle School.
mascoutahmiddle@mascoutah19.k12.il.us
Megan Coulter
coulter? a future conservative in the works?
This is PC at its worst. This is the reason why we’re the laughingstock of the world — when it comes to absurdities like this. Guess the ACLU won’t be helping this poor girl, no?
I think it was her last name that did her in, not the hugging.
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No, moron, I'm sure the policy is to stop kids from engaging in sexual type displays of affection.
You going to suspend the football coach after he slaps his star running back on the ass for making the game winning touchdown ?
Meanwhile... under the table in the teachers lounge...
So I guess if my kids went there, I couldn’t hug them goodbye while on campus, or they’d get detention.
I understand no PDAs, but I sort of thought it meant romantic ones. Not little girls hugging each other goodbye.
Kinda short on the forplay cirriculum aren't they?
addition to my last post:...you can’t run, you can’t hug, you can’t sit anywhere but your assigned seat, you can’t bring medicines, you can’t have things like metal rulers that are deemed as “weapons” (your HANDS are weapons for crying out loud)...I am now, after 12 years of it, convinced that public school is an f-in prison.
Homeschool or private school.
But get out.
In the meantime, there are publicly-funded Arabic schools in Ohio & New York — and those students meet and greet each other with some sort of physical affection... I just cannot figure this one out...
Imagine the public school destiny of the poor kid who’s parents name him or her Reagan Coulter Barr?
She shoulda had sex with them, that would have been ok in todays schools
no more tag or dodge ball, teachers in some schools can not correct papers in red ink, you can’t take an aspirin, but you can get an abortion
It took you 12 years ?
"We don't agree with it, but I certainly don't want her to get in more trouble," Coulter said. The couple plan to attend the next school board meeting to ask board members to consider rewording the policy or be more specific in what is considered a display of affection.
"I'm just hoping the school board will open their eyes and just realize that maybe they shouldn't be punishing us for hugs," Megan said.
This is really sad. These parents are so dependent on a sick system. Do they really think that the school board gives a dam??? If they don't agree with it why are they letting this school punish THEIR DAUGHTER for not doing anything wrong??? WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!
Actually, all of the things you mentioned are valid restrictions in school today. Talking in class disrupts instruction; gum sticks to floors and desks, requiring time and money to remove; cell phones and MP3 players provide an avenue for cheating on tests and distract from instruction; hoods, hats and sunglasses all deal with gang attire and paraphanalia.
That being said, I think this rule is way too strict and the school needs to exhibit some common sense. The rule is there to stops the kids from making out in the halls, not to stop friends from hugging each other goodbye.
You can’t say “public school” and “common sense” together.
When I was h.s. the girls and guys hugged and it was no big deal. Their pep rallies must be a blast. Do they still have pep rallies in school now? I never hear it about it. I must be getting old.
I'm so thankful I was in h.s. in the last 80s. None of this Nanny State b.s.
ah yes, I forgot about no dodgeball...my own school system was one of the ones that banned it, all because some kid didn’t like getting hit with a foam ball. But they didn’t ban lacrosse when someone got hit in the eye with a lacrosse ball and was in the hospital with blurred vision for four hours...
Also the PE department wussed out and switched to nerf basketball for awhile over the fear that some ditz might sue if she broke a nail. People are so damn touchy these days.
Well no, it started occurring to me in 7th grade (before that I was too young to notice/care), but it would sound weird if I said “after seven years of it”...makes it sound like I dropped out.
Kinda short on the forplay cirriculum aren't they?
Reply of the... Well, it's the best I've read since joining back in the last century. Way to go!
The inmates are running the insane asylum.
Public schools are no longer educational institutions. They’re prisons for kids.
It’s sad isn’t it? I used to hug everyone in school. In eighth grade I used to hug my choir teacher. You know what would happen with that now.
LOL..
Damn, you’re slow. I’d had it by the second month of 1st grade.
I already knew how to read long before I hit school, so I was incredibly bored by most of the classwork, and finished long before most of the others (speed was a specialty of mine). My mom sent me to school with a book to read while I was waiting for the rest of the class to finish, so I wouldn’t get in trouble, and dang, don’t you know I got in trouble for ... reading !!
I hated school after that.
Public schools were never about academics from their inception - they were always primarily about proper “socialization”.
When I was in grade 1, during the class Christmas party our teacher thanked each of us for our gifts with a kiss. If she tried that today I don’t know what would land her in more trouble, the kisses or celebrating Christmas.
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Well, yes: Free birth control, same-sex indoctrination, and global warming brainwashing. Just to name a few. |
Not surprising. In grade six I got in trouble in geometry class for getting the right answer; using trigonometry was verboten.
Well, they let the kids have sex but there’s hell to pay if they have a cigarette afterwards.
Well I never got in trouble for reading or anything ridiculous like that, but I never liked school at any point during my public school days. But the PCness never hit me until I was 12 or 13, because I didn’t know what it was before then.
Not prisons, but re-education camps. By limiting even rudimentary displays of affection, they are ensuring an emotionally void atmosphere, which they then fill with their “caring” lefthinking.
Brainwashing 101, people. Hitler youth did it, cults do it, because it works. And no, I’m not kidding. Not one bit.
In Typing class in high school I couldn’t get the ASDF thing down. So I started doing my own thing - my speed increased, my accuracy increased... my grades increased. And the teacher scolded me for that.
"God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board."
I suspect if she claimed to be a lesbian the school would be singing an altogether different tune. ...and there’d be no detention/suspension.
Come to think of it, maybe I won't.
The rule was surely created to prevent amorous couples from rounding the bases on school property, but the brain-dead zero-tolerance crowd has to interpret it in ways that were never intended so they can have equal outcomes.
You will hope in vain, kid.
Well, at least this is getting some embarassing publicity for your lame-brain school district and its even lamer administrators.
On the bright side, a whole generation of kids who have grown up in an unfair, zero tolerant environment know it for the fascist system that it is and are by no means liberal but even more free-thinking than we were at that age. I've had more than one young adult tell me they planned to homeschool when they had families.
Yep, this is the real fruit of "tune in, turn off and drop out!"
“When I was h.s. the girls and guys hugged and it was no big deal. Their pep rallies must be a blast. Do they still have pep rallies in school now?”
Guys and girls still hug and yes they have pep rallies, at least around here. And they’re able to make the distinction between PDA and a hug.
Amen!
This morning the CC Times featured a photo of the cover of "The Giver" by Lois Lowry, accompanied by an article about two parents protesting the Mount Diablo School District allowing the book in a sixth grade classroom. This is beyond outrage, and why a single student was allowed to go to school today is beyond me.
One of the best sub rosa arguments against socialism that I have ever read.
Probably not appropriate for elementary (mostly because of a fairly graphic depiction of infanticide), but I could see 6th graders reading it. I think that's about the time my oldest read it.
Why were the parents complaining? I don't see that one as "beyond outrage". Now, if they were complaining about "Heather Has Two Mommies" or "King and King" . . .
It would be great for HS seniors, but not for 11-12 year old kids.
I’ve heard of teachers going on strike. Why not parents and students getting with the teachers and also strike? One would be in protest over wages; the other to get rid of incompetent administrators and their lame-brain decisions. Get rid of a few of those at the top and the District will be able to afford to pay the teachers more.
Remember if you need a hug, find a tree.
What happened to all those aging old hippies on their way to the retirement the communes?
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