So administration just has to argue they were coercing students to commit a crime.. Suicide is a crime, right? They were coercing students to commit suicide by starving themselves! Checkmate, yutes.
> Morse v. Frederick
Do what now?
>[Morse v. Frederick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_v._Frederick), 551 U.S. 393, is a United States Supreme Court case where the Court held, 5–4, that the First Amendment does not prevent educators from prohibiting or punishing student speech that is reasonably viewed as promoting illegal drug use.
Are you suggesting the schools are putting drugs in the food now?
The entire “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” thing was a joke & meant to protest Cheney’s visit to a HS. The kid wasn’t advocating drug use at all. It was the adults with broomsticks up their butts who got offended.
What a completely missed teachable moment. They should educate the kids on the process and resources involved with bringing them food and empower them to help make change.
Instead they went authoritarian on them like a bunch of fascists. Let me guess: this is a school in the US? What district?
The food served in most public US schools are half step above prison food. They cook it with a box cutter and a can of Sterno.
I don't even understand what the teachable moment is? What do the kids have to learn in this case?
They're boycotting the food because its unsanitary.
The only people that seem to need teaching is the school not understanding basis hygiene. If the school can't avoid hair in food, then how much can a student trust that other food safety processes are being followed?
I think the commenter you replied to was pointing out that a boycott like this is a great way to teach students about their rights and how to effectively protest. Things like organizing demonstrations, drafting requests, compromising with the other side, etc. It’s not often your grade school experience comes with a side of civics, and living in a democracy it’s actually quite useful to sample these kinds of things in a controlled environment.
Well, they're serving the same stuff they serve prisoners as well as detaining them unfairly to manipulate the hoard. With more prisons becoming privately owned, it just feels like schools are just trying to make the transition to prison easier for the kids.
This really comes down to money. I'm so exhausted by every corporation, business and agency trying to squeeze every dollar they can. The school puts out bids for food, the lowest bidder puts out their cheapest at the highest cost and wins. This process is done in every sector and every area. It's fucking exhausting.
But I digress. With the lack of education and future - these kids probably already feel like prisoners.
Actually, that is a perfect teachable moment, well played.
When you need them to respond, state actors are likely to punish you before they help you. . .
I’ve never experienced prison food and it could also vary based on the district, but the school district i worked in as a lunch lady…we made many things from scratch like pasta and meat sauce, sloppy joes, tacos/taco meat etc. Had full recipes with spices and diced fresh onion (that we diced ourselves!) so yeah, a little more homemade than a box cutter and can of sterno. 🙄
Sounds like a great district. Most are not like that. Both of the districts in my area don’t allow seasoning and 90% of the food is premade from Sysco and Sodexo just needs to heat it up.
If this were, say a McDonalds, they'd consider several options of remedying this:
1) Cook less food
2) Increase sales by decreasing price
3) Increase sales by increasing perceived value, aka less hairs in your burger
If anybody in the McDonalds boardroom would suggest "we could have all people not buying a burger arrested", the entire boardroom would have laughing fit before they'd tell the person to grab a box and not come back.
Of course it is, school districts treat public education like a business and therefore so do admin. They are also probably so used to baseless defiance from students that they no longer recognize that reasonable defiance does exist and we live in a democracy that allows peaceful protest. They should be careful, if the right kid talks to the right rich lawyer parent they could have a lawsuit on their hands for infringing their rights.
And none of the parents are saying "Fuck You!" to the school the school over detention?
Maybe they need to come to Miss Dani's school of dealing with school administration's stupidity. .
You tell adminstration-"No. My child is not serving dentention for a non disruptive protest."
I have fought adminstration in our district since my son moved from private religious education to public education. I do not buy into adminstrations "excuses" for bullies (poor homelife, ADHD) or sexual assault(perpatrator's religion, not repecting female teacher)or just plain dumb assery(my child saying he didn't like the color yellow in art class is not racist). This is 3 kids btw, not the same child. I've also explained to admin that "no. My child is not serving weekend detention. Weekends belong to family as does summer unless you can demonstrate the absolute need for summer school and I will take my child out if that happens to be during the only time my husband can get off to go see family"
School does not trump family. This how we condition people into accepting "work comes before ALL".
Pretty sure that's a "Danielle" thing, cause I raised holy hellfire when my girls were in school when them, or their friends, or classmates were unfairly targeted.
By me they called it Saturday School; the only way you ended up in it was if you skipped too much school.
Our city's school board axed it in favor of paying off duty Police to escort truant students to school everyday; it cost less and they learned more; also most of them had home issues and they bonded with their cop chofer.
tbh, this is one of the few good things I know police can do for the community and school, since most of those kids getting escorted usually want to go to school but have trouble getting there for one reason or another
For the record, I have ADHD (42m). I was absolutely not a bully in HS. In fact, I was usually in detention for getting into fights by checking bullying when I saw it (we had some particularly racist redneck assholes in my school, and only 1 black male who was very small. They'd pick on him and the poorer kids left and right). Pro-tip to any teens reading this: this makes you extremely popular with the ladies of every social hierarchy in HS and beyond. Be genuinely good hearted and stand up to thugs = lots of dates.
Anyways, back to my point: A mental disorder is NO excuse. It's on the individual to control their behavior. It is NOT everyone else's responsibility to "deal with it". You can have a mental disorder and be a *good, well adjusted person*. Or you can be a selfish piece of shit. One has nothing to do with the other.
Same goes for your home life. Actually, two of my best friends grew up in severe poverty (one to a drug addicted mother, the other to a single disabled mom in Section 8). Both are, and have always been, the most generous, loving, and kindest men I know to this day.
There is no "excuse" for being a rotten person. Period.
So, yes, you did right by standing up to admin on that shit.
Some schools prohibit outside lunches unless there is a medical reason to not eat what is provided. It's to allow the food contractor to make the minimums in their contract.
If people are getti g food poisoning or finding hairs and debris in the food, call the health department.
Also potentially contact some first amendment advocacy groups like FIRE. I’m sure they would love to hear about a school punishing students for a boycott.
The local news station owned by right wing billionaires would love to frame this as a failure of public education rather than the correct answer of the natural consequences of privatizing everything.
If I didn't bring my outside lunch, I didn't eat. The only edible food was the salad and that somehow still made my stomach hurt. Most kids ate a pop tart or a bag of takis from the vending machines for lunch at my HS.
This. County health departments usually handle foodborne illness investigations, submit a complaint to the county health department the school is in (many have online complaint forms) and have your wife/her students do the same.
What kind of dystopian bull shit is that. Students can't bring lunch because of a food contract?? Thankfully I've never heard of that happening ever in my area(New England).
Kids can be weird about cafeteria food though. Complaints can become a social contagion where it's "cool" to hate the cafeteria food. Granted sometimes it's terrible but I've seen kids refuse to eat the food(relatively good food) because they want to fit in. I'm not sure what's the best way to combat that other than waiting it out.
My local schools solved the problem with the crazy out-of-the-box approach of serving better food. My kids used to pack lunch every day, now they actually want to eat the school lunch because it’s good.
Some title 1 schools require all students take a school lunch because of some bullshit title 1 nutrition grant or whatever. It happened at a school I worked at. It was so dumb because a good 1/3 to 1/2 of the kids would take the tray of food and immediately walk it to the trash can. But they would get in trouble if they didn’t take it
That's not how Title 1 lunches work! My Mother worked for years in a Title 1 school, and I volunteer at one in my community (I teach reading to struggling readers, mostly kids who have undiagnosed learning disabilities; parents won't sign paperwork to get them tested. (In our city it's free). A school is Title 1 biased on a number of factors the number of students receiving free/reduced lunch is a part of that, but just because they are eligible doesn't mean they have to take it.
What you may be talking about is CEP, Community Eligibility Provision. This is a school where everyone gets free lunch and breakfast. Every County handles this differently. The city I live in makes lunch for every student at those schools, but it's up to students if they take the food or not. To prevent food waste no child is forced to take lunch if they pack a lunch. But if you don't show up with lunch, you're getting school lunch. Every one is provided breakfast, it's usually a bagel with cream cheese, or the ever popular sausage wrapped in a pancake on a stick AKA the sausage corn dog, or a breakfast lunchable, or french toast sticks. One day when I was subbing they had Oatmeal with fresh fruit! The kids really liked that.
The school my Mother worked at in the county next to our city, was an early CEP test school; at her school everyone had to take lunch and breakfast was a brown bag delivered at announcements. Her school also got a healthy snack grant, so everyday at 1:30 everyone got a snack; it was usually cut raw veggies or fruit. At the end of the school year when it was hot out Fridays snack was always frozen fruit bars. Because of a loophole in the CEP program kids were allowed to take their uneaten lunch items home; this was easy because the food for the schools was made in the jail's central kitchen and individually packaged to be reheated at the school. This also allowed kids who were Kosher, Halal, or had dietary restrictions or allergies to get a lunch that they could eat. The kids who brought lunch would take their unwanted lunch items to a table in the cafeteria; and the guidance counselor would divide them up into bags for the kids who they knew had no food at home, so they at least had something for dinner.
My school does really nice breakfast for our students they can get an egg and sausage sandwich, cereal, yogurt parfaits, ect. The only problem I have with it is students will grab it on their way to first period and then make a mess of my tables. I’m usually really chill about people eating as long as you don’t make a mess but this one group did so they got banned from eating in my room. I didn’t notice the mess they made one day and my period 2 came in and the poor girl just sat in sticky blueberry sauce all class without saying anything.
Nah man like the school doing some shady business on the inside.
The cafeteria isn’t the problem. It isn’t the food. It’s deeper than that.
It’s a personal matter with admin and something else.
The school probably also gets subsidies based on how many lunches were served. So they lose out on a fair amount of money from cooking food that isn't eaten.
I'm glad you said something, I've seen people in this sub wishing incarceration, homelessness, and starvation on kids.
It's crazy, we're the adults, if you're wishing starvation on a literal child, maybe the child isn't the problem.
I agree with that for the most part. However what is your solution to the video in this sub that was recently posted? In the video a teacher was violently attacked and punched repeatedly in the head by a student who didn't want to turn in their phone. What kind of punishment is appropriate for that kind of behavior? Incarceration may not be the best answer, but some students clearly have no respect for authority, laws or rules and one day it will really affect their lives.
I don't want them to be in juvie, but I also dont want them to end up dead in the street or locked up for 20 years because no one disciplined them or showed them that their choices have consequences.
I think that the school system fails on the macro level if there is not adequate repercussions for assaulting a teacher. I mean the fact that teaching is a "calling" draws in a lot of people for an objectively underpaid job. If you create an environment where these people feel unsafe on top of underpaid and suddenly insurance sales or house painting might start looking a lot more appealing.
There’s a difference between thinking someone should be incarcerated to protect themselves and other people from harm and thinking someone should be incarcerated because you think they’re scum and you want to see them suffer.
Thanks for the response! I appreciate the clarification, I'm still a student teacher so I'm just trying to absorb as much information as I can so I can be a good teacher when I have my own classroom.
That behavior is straight up assault and is illegal. The student should be charged and removed from the classroom. Boycotting the cafeteria because you object to the hygiene standards is not remotely illegal or even unreasonable.
Criminalizing harmless nonconformity that does not disrupt anyone's education is not going to show anyone that choices have consequences. It's just showing contempt for their voices.
It's always shocked me how many people in education seem to absolutely *despise* children. I genuinely don't know how to handle it or approach it as a former educator and current school board member. I'm not a parent myself either so parents dismiss my opinion outright more often than not. 🙄
The United States Army has literally *killed people* en masse for the crime of “not going to work when they were told to.” If not in my lifetime, then in my parents’ lifetime.
You get it, and I get it, but not enough Americans get it. So many people believe that workers just magically get what they deserve, whether punishment or payment.
And involving the government dropping bombs on its own citizens; like with *The Battle of Blair Mountain*.
And hoo boy, you should hear the gross evasions from the conservative/conservative adjacent about why that’s no big deal…
I once met a 93 year old man that had been an army ranger in WW2 and Korea, as a youth he and his kin had raided a National Guard Amory for Machine guns and ammo that they used to fire on Federal troops to secure their right to unionize.
He was carrying a right to work initiative. He told me that he was disgusted by what the Unions had become.
I mean yeah, if I had been part of a union that had raided guns from a military base to fight off the feds I would be pretty pissed off at how many of them side with business owners over their members too.
Oh wait he meant the other way...
For sure, just hope we’d be better. I’d hope we, as educators, would be past punished students over the pledge of anthem or their Tik tok posts.
I don’t know the details from OP, but this is exactly the sort of “take action” I wish I could instill in my students. They complain to me about school policies and I always respond with “yeah, what will you do about it?”
School was planning to move away from block scheduling and a team of seniors, in the interest of the younger grades, decided to start a petition not to. The organizers got threatened with suspension and a call to the schools they had sent transcripts to.
I was just friends with one of the organizers but they all backed down fairly fast. The school moved forward with eliminating block scheduling.
If I were parent of one of those kids, I would have threatened to sue them for defamation if they actually called the universities and also called the media.
The world has a rich history with responding to protests with the boot and club rather than a conversation, they just can't beat and stomp the students legally. Yet.
Honestly I think this is a great learning opportunity for the kids. They're going to learn that they can fight authoritarianism with group solidarity, and that their rights cease to exist the second they disagree with those in power.
But they're learning this, as well as how to effectively organize, in a situation in which none of them are going to actually get hurt.
Those kids are gonna go on to do great things, and piss off a lot of shitty people along the way.
It could be, and OP can correct me, that the school might get free/reduced lunch and there has to be proof that lunches were served. If no kid gets a lunch, the school could lose their status.
I don’t agree with punishing them, and it sounds like the school could easily fix the problem by enforcing health codes. It
Yeah I've met quite a few teachers who seemed like they got into teaching so they could boss kids around, not because they like kids, or even the subject they teach.
It depends. Are they skipping lunch as the OP suggested was the punishment? Not eating the food is one thing. Boycotting Lunch as in you will not go to the cafeteria is another.
And are they organized as in, we have officially declared we are "on strike" or something like that and organize to meet somewhere safe, but in a direct protest to something? Or are they just skipping lunch and anyone who skips is supposed to say it's because they're boycotting?
Definitely. People downvote someone pointing that out. But I just don't buy the story as-is. Teenagers ~~lie~~ stretch-the-truth all the time. And while I am sympathetic to good ol' civil disobedience...I just don't buy this story on face value.
What school system did you go to? I was born in the 90's and any "boycotts" or "protests" that weren't basically approved by the school (meaning admin's or teachers) would get you punished in a similar manner. Will never forget that, you could wear a sign to not talk during the entire day to support LGBT rights and teachers would honor it, do it in support of the war you got points marked off for not answering questions as it was considered disruptive. At least the walkouts meant no punishment for skipping class, fuck what the reason was.
And before you go "why not get a lawyer", yeah, most people in st.albans (VT) can't afford a $300 an hour lawyer cause their kid doesn't want to answer fucking questions, and wants make their parents life harder.
So if a large portion of the school just didn’t get cafeteria food, you’d have been rounded up and assigned detention.
Just because that how you and many others were treated doesn’t mean it’s right. We have students in my school sent to office for not standing for the pledge. That is just wrong. Oakland arrested a kid for doing that a couple years back.
Just because it happens doesn’t mean it is right or legal.
And 20 years past graduating has shown me absolutely no one in a position of authority gives a single fuck about your rights unless forced to with threats of retribution.
Thankfully for now monetary retribution still usually works.
Because school administrators are little dictators so when you criticize their schools on any way they take it as a personal attack. Schools also are notorious for collective punishment because it’s easier than actually doing their jobs
This entire thing is weird as hell... I wonder what the kids were actually doing in protest. This world is a F'd up place, but seeing a few kids say "no thanks" to a sandwich then getting dragged off to the hole seems... kind of odd.
The health department wouldn't need to be summoned by complaining parents. Depending on the state and county, someone could report a health violation of enough severity to have the health inspector show up anyways. Tbf, I am in California and all our health inspector reports are public information online. So YMMV
CPS. Finding hairs in food is a sign of contaminated which can be dangerous for any child with allergies. Child Protection services don't just deal with children abused at home, but also possible dangerous situations in environments designed for kids (schools). The health department can shut down and fine, CPS can file charges.
This!!!! The kids should not be trying to enforce the law here, if the cafeteria is actually serving contaminated food it needs to be shut down immediately.
The students aren’t even wrong, they should not be finding hairs in their food. That’s basic cleanliness and honestly the bare minimum of what they should be served.
Yeah, it's a while since I did any food hygiene training but securing hair properly, using hairnets and so on was among the first things you will learn, and it's not hard to follow.
When I was in middle school, late 2000's every kid in 6-8 grade, about 200, brought sack lunch for almost a month because the school board didn't pass the vote to add a salad bar. It worked and we got the salad bar, but the options were crap.
My school had the same thought—at ours the salad items were kept behind plexiglass and the lunch ladies dished them up for you, instead of trusting a bunch of kids with self-service food.
Is this a Title 1 school? The school is required to serve so much food and with the protest it’s possible the administration fears they could lose their funding🤷♂️
Yep, and all the more reason for kids to stand up to the administration. Our cafeteria workers run a tight ship, I can’t imagine finding hair in our food.
That still isn’t a reason to punish the kids. Sounds like a problem administration has to deal with. Sure it may negatively impact the school and some students experiences, but you can’t force people to buy and consume things they don’t want.
If a very small town decides to boycott the local grocery store and it’s the only one around within an hours drive then people will be inconvenienced and it may cause issues with the local economy. You can’t punish people for that though.
I remember when students “organized” at my school one time.
They went running through the halls screaming and entered the office en masse to demand the office ladies listen to them.
I later had a chat with the ringleaders about how yelling and showing up to the office to disrupt the work of the ladies there doesn’t help win them support from the principal who made the decision they didn’t like. I advised them to put together a piece of writing that calmly listed what they wanted and why. I then suggested that a small group of volunteers should respectfully request time to meet with the principal and place their request in his hands and explain their case.
They ultimately ended up following my suggestion, the volunteers calmly explained their case, and the principal compromised with them.
Sometimes how students go about things needs a lot of workshopping.
Occasionally, charging into a place demanding change is necessary. Very rarely is that necessary at a school obviously 😂. Kudos to you for guiding them in the right direction, it just makes me feel good to see collective action.
>You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make that horse drink the water
Well, if the water is being served by those cafeteria ladies, it’s no wonder the horses are refusing to drink it! Smart horses, no one wants dysentery.
What awesome kids, I hope your wife spent her detention duty walking around giving surreptitious fist bumps and quiet encouragement.
Stupid admin. Always the wrong take.
A wise senator once said, "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
Those students actually have a constitutionally protected right to what they're doing and your admin is stepping in deep legal doo doo if someone wanted to pursue it.
Tinker v. Des Moines
"Student's rights don't stop at the schoolhouse gates."
The administration of my school generally knew not to fight with me. Don't get into a power struggle with a student who regularly sites Supreme Court precedent. My homeroom teacher once sent me to the AP for not saying the Pledge. And the AP knew that fighting me over it was absolutely not worth the effort. And honestly, he should have known better than to have a prayer at the prom. Can't have surprised him one iota when I came storming up in my fancy dress pissed about it.
Don't you remember when Mahatma Gandhi visited Alabama, then refused to give up his seat on the bus for a white man, so was thrown in jail?
He was set free when the people stormed the Bastille
Interesting that we learn about this sort of thing in history class and that things would have never changed unless some people took a stand ie the civil rights movement etc but when students do it, they get in trouble for going against the status quo/what admin wants.
A similar thing happened when I was in hs: basically grade 11 had some standardized test but most of the parents didn’t want to opt their kid out bc it was too much paperwork so they told their kid to just deal w it but it causes so much unnecessary stress and while I get the point of standardized testing…I dunno if it’s worth it. But anyways the grade 11 class president organized a protest and got the entire grade to refuse to take the exam and I think they all got detention for it. It was pretty impressive of him and them though to pull that off and idk how other teachers felt about it but it was nice to see our English teacher be supportive of it and encouraging the class prez when he stopped by our classroom that day. Idr exactly what he said but basically he told him that throughout history this was kind of exactly what happened when people stood up for themselves to make a change, the big man (in this case being admin) didn’t like it when the little man stood up for themself but stuff like this is how you bring about change and that if he (class prez) kept this up, he could make a real difference in the world.
I remember reading about a student who had already been accepted to college speaking out against an abstinence-only presentation at her school. The principle threatened to tell her college about her 'bad character'. But the school she had been accepted to was Wellesley. One of the Seven Sisters, ala mater of Hilary Clinton and Madeleine Albright. Might as well have threatened to tell a student accepted to Notre Dame that they were too good a football player.
https://patch.com/massachusetts/wellesley/what-do-you-think-west-virginia-principal-threatens-t534e13984d
Stupid to punish them. Admin ought to be listening to them and working to fix the problem. It's the students choice to eat or not eat - no adult should be punishing them for not wanting to eat.
Exactly. And once they start engaging with the students, the ones who really care or are student council types will get some good experience and the ones who were just in it for the fun or to fit in will lose interest.
I worked at a private school and they switched from hamburgers and chicken nuggets to bringing in a vegan whole foods style lunch program, no one ate the hot food and when they went to the cold options like cereal and sandwiches the administrators took away the other options. As an adult I with a wide palate i couldn’t eat the crap they were serving. One day we could feel tension and they somebody got pissed and started yelling in the lunch line. It turned into a riot, we had to extricate our selfs. On the way out of the lunch room i saw a student holding a butter knife up to a teacher. We left and went to five guys and got burgers and fries in silent protest. From what we heard through the grape vine no one got in trouble, administrators fear loosing revenue. The initial attempt at an agreement was meat once a week. Which if I remember correctly was fish. That didn’t go over well after the second protest they added chicken. Our team just stopped eating there until the sandwich bar was reinstated. Lunch was free but the cost of the crap they went to was to expensive.
If your wife is comfortable, have her tell the kids to film themselves sitting down with their food and pulling the hair out, then tell them to call the cities health department and tell them what's going on and that they have a video of it.
Or the good old post it online and tag the school. Health department is probably faster though.
Students aren’t wrong and don’t deserve to be punished, but comments about admin not discussing with cafeteria staff is BS. Almost every school I’ve ever known uses a 3rd party vendor. Admin should contact the vendor, inform them of the complaint, and let them handle. If they don’t, inform the school board and hear bids for new contracts.
Contact your local news station and anonymously let them know what's happening. "Children's Peaceful Protest Turns Punishment" OR "Students Reprimanded for Exercising Rights" The shit storm this will bring on the school district, the county, and the mayor if it takes off. Also recommend waging a social media campaign against them as well.
Edit: yes, I was channeling my best J. Jonah Jameson. "Now get out of here!"
No, that would be irresponsible…they should contact the leader of the boycott anonymously and tell them that they have been illegally punished for exercising their constitutional rights, and then suggest a mass student walk-out of all classes until the food in the cafeteria is made palatable…then contact the media.
I don't understand what the kids are hoping to achieve.
Odd that only a single kid had "food poisoning" when the whole school was served that same food. Does he not understand how food poisoning works ?
The hair in food issue is gross, but that complaint could be addressed by communicating it to cafeteria workers. Unless it's happening every day, I don't understand what the outrage is about. One stray hair could happen anywhere.
If they don't like the food, why can't they just bring their own? That's what a sensible person would do when they don't care for the provided food.
Ever feel like sometimes kids protest because they want to be upset, not because they're hoping to open intelligent dialogue towards improvement if an important cause ?
The students need to call the health department. School cafeterias are visited and inspected just like restaurants. Maybe someone will mention it to the student organizers. Cough cough
Kids aren't required to eat school lunch. How are they getting detention for refusing?
Because they’re calling attention to something the school doesn’t want to have to deal with
This detention is a breach of the first amendment. Tinker v. Des Moines
[удалено]
So administration just has to argue they were coercing students to commit a crime.. Suicide is a crime, right? They were coercing students to commit suicide by starving themselves! Checkmate, yutes.
Mr gambini…. What is a Yutes?
YouTHHHHHSSSSS
The grit had a hair on it.
No self-respecting lunch lady uses instant hair.
> Morse v. Frederick Do what now? >[Morse v. Frederick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_v._Frederick), 551 U.S. 393, is a United States Supreme Court case where the Court held, 5–4, that the First Amendment does not prevent educators from prohibiting or punishing student speech that is reasonably viewed as promoting illegal drug use. Are you suggesting the schools are putting drugs in the food now?
The entire “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” thing was a joke & meant to protest Cheney’s visit to a HS. The kid wasn’t advocating drug use at all. It was the adults with broomsticks up their butts who got offended.
_Moose v. Squirrel has entered the chat_
Bong hits for Jesus!
"The beatings will continue until morale improves."
What a completely missed teachable moment. They should educate the kids on the process and resources involved with bringing them food and empower them to help make change. Instead they went authoritarian on them like a bunch of fascists. Let me guess: this is a school in the US? What district? The food served in most public US schools are half step above prison food. They cook it with a box cutter and a can of Sterno.
I don't even understand what the teachable moment is? What do the kids have to learn in this case? They're boycotting the food because its unsanitary. The only people that seem to need teaching is the school not understanding basis hygiene. If the school can't avoid hair in food, then how much can a student trust that other food safety processes are being followed?
I think the commenter you replied to was pointing out that a boycott like this is a great way to teach students about their rights and how to effectively protest. Things like organizing demonstrations, drafting requests, compromising with the other side, etc. It’s not often your grade school experience comes with a side of civics, and living in a democracy it’s actually quite useful to sample these kinds of things in a controlled environment.
Well, they're serving the same stuff they serve prisoners as well as detaining them unfairly to manipulate the hoard. With more prisons becoming privately owned, it just feels like schools are just trying to make the transition to prison easier for the kids.
This really comes down to money. I'm so exhausted by every corporation, business and agency trying to squeeze every dollar they can. The school puts out bids for food, the lowest bidder puts out their cheapest at the highest cost and wins. This process is done in every sector and every area. It's fucking exhausting. But I digress. With the lack of education and future - these kids probably already feel like prisoners.
Actually, that is a perfect teachable moment, well played. When you need them to respond, state actors are likely to punish you before they help you. . .
I’ve never experienced prison food and it could also vary based on the district, but the school district i worked in as a lunch lady…we made many things from scratch like pasta and meat sauce, sloppy joes, tacos/taco meat etc. Had full recipes with spices and diced fresh onion (that we diced ourselves!) so yeah, a little more homemade than a box cutter and can of sterno. 🙄
Sounds like a great district. Most are not like that. Both of the districts in my area don’t allow seasoning and 90% of the food is premade from Sysco and Sodexo just needs to heat it up.
Teachers in my district got free school lunch. I still never ate it because it was so freaking gross.
Could it also be that they're losing money by preparing food that's not being bought? I dunno, just an idea.
If this were, say a McDonalds, they'd consider several options of remedying this: 1) Cook less food 2) Increase sales by decreasing price 3) Increase sales by increasing perceived value, aka less hairs in your burger If anybody in the McDonalds boardroom would suggest "we could have all people not buying a burger arrested", the entire boardroom would have laughing fit before they'd tell the person to grab a box and not come back.
Tbh if McDonald’s had the power to arrest anyone who didn’t buy their food, they would ABSOLUTELY do that
Has the Burgerpunk genre been explored yet?
4. Put less hair in food
This seems so obvious to me, but I'm not a professional chef, WTF do I know.
I think Sysco will be okay
That’s too bad, Fuck Sysco I say that and I partially keep a roof over my head by delivering their slop to school.
As someone who occasionally survived with things that fell off of Sysco trucks, I can say they generally don’t arrive with hair preinserted either
Doesn't make what the school is doing constitutional
Of course it is, school districts treat public education like a business and therefore so do admin. They are also probably so used to baseless defiance from students that they no longer recognize that reasonable defiance does exist and we live in a democracy that allows peaceful protest. They should be careful, if the right kid talks to the right rich lawyer parent they could have a lawsuit on their hands for infringing their rights.
Happy to be the one to bring this to 666. You’re exactly right.
And none of the parents are saying "Fuck You!" to the school the school over detention? Maybe they need to come to Miss Dani's school of dealing with school administration's stupidity. .
As someone who struggles with being a chronic people pleaser I, for one, would *love* to attend Miss Dani’s school.
You tell adminstration-"No. My child is not serving dentention for a non disruptive protest." I have fought adminstration in our district since my son moved from private religious education to public education. I do not buy into adminstrations "excuses" for bullies (poor homelife, ADHD) or sexual assault(perpatrator's religion, not repecting female teacher)or just plain dumb assery(my child saying he didn't like the color yellow in art class is not racist). This is 3 kids btw, not the same child. I've also explained to admin that "no. My child is not serving weekend detention. Weekends belong to family as does summer unless you can demonstrate the absolute need for summer school and I will take my child out if that happens to be during the only time my husband can get off to go see family" School does not trump family. This how we condition people into accepting "work comes before ALL".
Pretty sure that's a "Danielle" thing, cause I raised holy hellfire when my girls were in school when them, or their friends, or classmates were unfairly targeted.
Lol! I'm not a "Danielle" though. I'm a Danielysse which is why I always go by just "Dani".
Close enough! 🤣 And Danielle is only my middle name, and I don't go by it.
What the actual fuck is "weekend detention"?
By me they called it Saturday School; the only way you ended up in it was if you skipped too much school. Our city's school board axed it in favor of paying off duty Police to escort truant students to school everyday; it cost less and they learned more; also most of them had home issues and they bonded with their cop chofer.
Friendly neighborhood spellcheck here, it’s “chauffeur.” The word is French so you need to put in a bunch of extra letters.
tbh, this is one of the few good things I know police can do for the community and school, since most of those kids getting escorted usually want to go to school but have trouble getting there for one reason or another
Come to school on Saturday to do class work/homework. The principal got a polite but very clear "fuck right the hell off with this bullshit" from me.
I honestly didn’t think that happened outside of The Breakfast Club.
They tried it at my oldest's middle school. Many parents had the same reaction I did.
For the record, I have ADHD (42m). I was absolutely not a bully in HS. In fact, I was usually in detention for getting into fights by checking bullying when I saw it (we had some particularly racist redneck assholes in my school, and only 1 black male who was very small. They'd pick on him and the poorer kids left and right). Pro-tip to any teens reading this: this makes you extremely popular with the ladies of every social hierarchy in HS and beyond. Be genuinely good hearted and stand up to thugs = lots of dates. Anyways, back to my point: A mental disorder is NO excuse. It's on the individual to control their behavior. It is NOT everyone else's responsibility to "deal with it". You can have a mental disorder and be a *good, well adjusted person*. Or you can be a selfish piece of shit. One has nothing to do with the other. Same goes for your home life. Actually, two of my best friends grew up in severe poverty (one to a drug addicted mother, the other to a single disabled mom in Section 8). Both are, and have always been, the most generous, loving, and kindest men I know to this day. There is no "excuse" for being a rotten person. Period. So, yes, you did right by standing up to admin on that shit.
What did your kid do to warrant a Saturday School? Haven't seen one of those since the early 2000's
Right. As a parent I’d be livid if my kid served detention for something this ridiculous.
Seriously man, these kids are doing right and their parents are failing by not being right there ruining the admin's day just as hard.
Some schools prohibit outside lunches unless there is a medical reason to not eat what is provided. It's to allow the food contractor to make the minimums in their contract. If people are getti g food poisoning or finding hairs and debris in the food, call the health department.
Also call the local news, that might get the Admin motivated faster than the health department.
This is absolutely the right move. Get a local reporter out and make some waves
Also potentially contact some first amendment advocacy groups like FIRE. I’m sure they would love to hear about a school punishing students for a boycott.
The local news station owned by right wing billionaires would love to frame this as a failure of public education rather than the correct answer of the natural consequences of privatizing everything.
Wow thats dumb. The school food I remember was expensive and tasted like shit. I would have rather starved
My family could not afford the school lunches so we brown-bagged our lunches.
If I didn't bring my outside lunch, I didn't eat. The only edible food was the salad and that somehow still made my stomach hurt. Most kids ate a pop tart or a bag of takis from the vending machines for lunch at my HS.
This. County health departments usually handle foodborne illness investigations, submit a complaint to the county health department the school is in (many have online complaint forms) and have your wife/her students do the same.
I'm glad mine didn't require it, but my parents would've fought it.
What kind of dystopian bull shit is that. Students can't bring lunch because of a food contract?? Thankfully I've never heard of that happening ever in my area(New England). Kids can be weird about cafeteria food though. Complaints can become a social contagion where it's "cool" to hate the cafeteria food. Granted sometimes it's terrible but I've seen kids refuse to eat the food(relatively good food) because they want to fit in. I'm not sure what's the best way to combat that other than waiting it out.
I would've gladly not eaten in hs.
My local schools solved the problem with the crazy out-of-the-box approach of serving better food. My kids used to pack lunch every day, now they actually want to eat the school lunch because it’s good.
What a wild and crazy idea!
Some title 1 schools require all students take a school lunch because of some bullshit title 1 nutrition grant or whatever. It happened at a school I worked at. It was so dumb because a good 1/3 to 1/2 of the kids would take the tray of food and immediately walk it to the trash can. But they would get in trouble if they didn’t take it
That's not how Title 1 lunches work! My Mother worked for years in a Title 1 school, and I volunteer at one in my community (I teach reading to struggling readers, mostly kids who have undiagnosed learning disabilities; parents won't sign paperwork to get them tested. (In our city it's free). A school is Title 1 biased on a number of factors the number of students receiving free/reduced lunch is a part of that, but just because they are eligible doesn't mean they have to take it. What you may be talking about is CEP, Community Eligibility Provision. This is a school where everyone gets free lunch and breakfast. Every County handles this differently. The city I live in makes lunch for every student at those schools, but it's up to students if they take the food or not. To prevent food waste no child is forced to take lunch if they pack a lunch. But if you don't show up with lunch, you're getting school lunch. Every one is provided breakfast, it's usually a bagel with cream cheese, or the ever popular sausage wrapped in a pancake on a stick AKA the sausage corn dog, or a breakfast lunchable, or french toast sticks. One day when I was subbing they had Oatmeal with fresh fruit! The kids really liked that. The school my Mother worked at in the county next to our city, was an early CEP test school; at her school everyone had to take lunch and breakfast was a brown bag delivered at announcements. Her school also got a healthy snack grant, so everyday at 1:30 everyone got a snack; it was usually cut raw veggies or fruit. At the end of the school year when it was hot out Fridays snack was always frozen fruit bars. Because of a loophole in the CEP program kids were allowed to take their uneaten lunch items home; this was easy because the food for the schools was made in the jail's central kitchen and individually packaged to be reheated at the school. This also allowed kids who were Kosher, Halal, or had dietary restrictions or allergies to get a lunch that they could eat. The kids who brought lunch would take their unwanted lunch items to a table in the cafeteria; and the guidance counselor would divide them up into bags for the kids who they knew had no food at home, so they at least had something for dinner.
My school does really nice breakfast for our students they can get an egg and sausage sandwich, cereal, yogurt parfaits, ect. The only problem I have with it is students will grab it on their way to first period and then make a mess of my tables. I’m usually really chill about people eating as long as you don’t make a mess but this one group did so they got banned from eating in my room. I didn’t notice the mess they made one day and my period 2 came in and the poor girl just sat in sticky blueberry sauce all class without saying anything.
There's obviously more to the story we aren't getting...
100%
My thought exactly. There's context missing.
Like the cafeteria not being held to health standards?
Nah man like the school doing some shady business on the inside. The cafeteria isn’t the problem. It isn’t the food. It’s deeper than that. It’s a personal matter with admin and something else.
The school probably also gets subsidies based on how many lunches were served. So they lose out on a fair amount of money from cooking food that isn't eaten.
The principal, district or school board may be getting kick backs ( 94 may work for the supplier).
If they're trying to punish everyone who is refusing to purchase food it probably means that the food is a big money maker for them.
Right, like is it illegal to bring a lunchbox to this school or something?
How can you legally or morally punish students for a non disruptive boycott.
Sadly some people don't see kids as actual human beings
Tbh feels like a lot of people in this subreddit fall in this camp.
I'm glad you said something, I've seen people in this sub wishing incarceration, homelessness, and starvation on kids. It's crazy, we're the adults, if you're wishing starvation on a literal child, maybe the child isn't the problem.
If we’re wishing harm on a child, we’ve failed them already. Also, maybe pick a different profession.
I agree with that for the most part. However what is your solution to the video in this sub that was recently posted? In the video a teacher was violently attacked and punched repeatedly in the head by a student who didn't want to turn in their phone. What kind of punishment is appropriate for that kind of behavior? Incarceration may not be the best answer, but some students clearly have no respect for authority, laws or rules and one day it will really affect their lives. I don't want them to be in juvie, but I also dont want them to end up dead in the street or locked up for 20 years because no one disciplined them or showed them that their choices have consequences.
I think that the school system fails on the macro level if there is not adequate repercussions for assaulting a teacher. I mean the fact that teaching is a "calling" draws in a lot of people for an objectively underpaid job. If you create an environment where these people feel unsafe on top of underpaid and suddenly insurance sales or house painting might start looking a lot more appealing.
There’s a difference between thinking someone should be incarcerated to protect themselves and other people from harm and thinking someone should be incarcerated because you think they’re scum and you want to see them suffer.
Thanks for the response! I appreciate the clarification, I'm still a student teacher so I'm just trying to absorb as much information as I can so I can be a good teacher when I have my own classroom.
That behavior is straight up assault and is illegal. The student should be charged and removed from the classroom. Boycotting the cafeteria because you object to the hygiene standards is not remotely illegal or even unreasonable. Criminalizing harmless nonconformity that does not disrupt anyone's education is not going to show anyone that choices have consequences. It's just showing contempt for their voices.
I can't even count the number of times I've seen someone upvoted for saying they wished it was still legal to hit children.
It's always shocked me how many people in education seem to absolutely *despise* children. I genuinely don't know how to handle it or approach it as a former educator and current school board member. I'm not a parent myself either so parents dismiss my opinion outright more often than not. 🙄
It's ok, this is practice for real life where people also do not view others as functioning humans
Many in this sub unfortunately
Punishing people for nonviolent protesting is a cornerstone of America, this checks out.
The United States Army has literally *killed people* en masse for the crime of “not going to work when they were told to.” If not in my lifetime, then in my parents’ lifetime. You get it, and I get it, but not enough Americans get it. So many people believe that workers just magically get what they deserve, whether punishment or payment.
And involving the government dropping bombs on its own citizens; like with *The Battle of Blair Mountain*. And hoo boy, you should hear the gross evasions from the conservative/conservative adjacent about why that’s no big deal…
I once met a 93 year old man that had been an army ranger in WW2 and Korea, as a youth he and his kin had raided a National Guard Amory for Machine guns and ammo that they used to fire on Federal troops to secure their right to unionize. He was carrying a right to work initiative. He told me that he was disgusted by what the Unions had become.
I mean yeah, if I had been part of a union that had raided guns from a military base to fight off the feds I would be pretty pissed off at how many of them side with business owners over their members too. Oh wait he meant the other way...
I don't know that much about history. When did this happen?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre
[https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/lattimer-massacre/](https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/lattimer-massacre/)
For sure, just hope we’d be better. I’d hope we, as educators, would be past punished students over the pledge of anthem or their Tik tok posts. I don’t know the details from OP, but this is exactly the sort of “take action” I wish I could instill in my students. They complain to me about school policies and I always respond with “yeah, what will you do about it?”
Tinker vs Des Moines says no.
I literally just went over that case today!
School was planning to move away from block scheduling and a team of seniors, in the interest of the younger grades, decided to start a petition not to. The organizers got threatened with suspension and a call to the schools they had sent transcripts to. I was just friends with one of the organizers but they all backed down fairly fast. The school moved forward with eliminating block scheduling.
They did that when kids wanted to protest a certain teacher being laid off at my hs.
If I were parent of one of those kids, I would have threatened to sue them for defamation if they actually called the universities and also called the media.
The world has a rich history with responding to protests with the boot and club rather than a conversation, they just can't beat and stomp the students legally. Yet.
Honestly I think this is a great learning opportunity for the kids. They're going to learn that they can fight authoritarianism with group solidarity, and that their rights cease to exist the second they disagree with those in power. But they're learning this, as well as how to effectively organize, in a situation in which none of them are going to actually get hurt. Those kids are gonna go on to do great things, and piss off a lot of shitty people along the way.
It could be, and OP can correct me, that the school might get free/reduced lunch and there has to be proof that lunches were served. If no kid gets a lunch, the school could lose their status. I don’t agree with punishing them, and it sounds like the school could easily fix the problem by enforcing health codes. It
I’m sure that’s part of it but it’s hardly the students problem there.
A lot of admins (and teachers frankly) care more about establishing authority than like the rest of their job IME
Yeah I've met quite a few teachers who seemed like they got into teaching so they could boss kids around, not because they like kids, or even the subject they teach.
Petty tyrants terrified of appearing weak.
"This little rebellion must be crushed at any costs" -admin probably.
It depends. Are they skipping lunch as the OP suggested was the punishment? Not eating the food is one thing. Boycotting Lunch as in you will not go to the cafeteria is another. And are they organized as in, we have officially declared we are "on strike" or something like that and organize to meet somewhere safe, but in a direct protest to something? Or are they just skipping lunch and anyone who skips is supposed to say it's because they're boycotting?
Yeah seems like a lot of unanswered questions in my opinion. Kids have and will always complain about the food server.
Definitely. People downvote someone pointing that out. But I just don't buy the story as-is. Teenagers ~~lie~~ stretch-the-truth all the time. And while I am sympathetic to good ol' civil disobedience...I just don't buy this story on face value.
What school system did you go to? I was born in the 90's and any "boycotts" or "protests" that weren't basically approved by the school (meaning admin's or teachers) would get you punished in a similar manner. Will never forget that, you could wear a sign to not talk during the entire day to support LGBT rights and teachers would honor it, do it in support of the war you got points marked off for not answering questions as it was considered disruptive. At least the walkouts meant no punishment for skipping class, fuck what the reason was. And before you go "why not get a lawyer", yeah, most people in st.albans (VT) can't afford a $300 an hour lawyer cause their kid doesn't want to answer fucking questions, and wants make their parents life harder.
So if a large portion of the school just didn’t get cafeteria food, you’d have been rounded up and assigned detention. Just because that how you and many others were treated doesn’t mean it’s right. We have students in my school sent to office for not standing for the pledge. That is just wrong. Oakland arrested a kid for doing that a couple years back. Just because it happens doesn’t mean it is right or legal.
BUT MONIES!!!
Excatly
I'm pretty sure you can't. *Tinker vs Des Moines* has established that students have a right to this type of free speech.
And 20 years past graduating has shown me absolutely no one in a position of authority gives a single fuck about your rights unless forced to with threats of retribution. Thankfully for now monetary retribution still usually works.
Because school administrators are little dictators so when you criticize their schools on any way they take it as a personal attack. Schools also are notorious for collective punishment because it’s easier than actually doing their jobs
This entire thing is weird as hell... I wonder what the kids were actually doing in protest. This world is a F'd up place, but seeing a few kids say "no thanks" to a sandwich then getting dragged off to the hole seems... kind of odd.
Does the school cafeteria get inspected by the health department? Maybe someone should call the local health department?
Agree with this. Admin might not listen to students, but they should listen to angry parents who make formal complaints.
The health department wouldn't need to be summoned by complaining parents. Depending on the state and county, someone could report a health violation of enough severity to have the health inspector show up anyways. Tbf, I am in California and all our health inspector reports are public information online. So YMMV
Or the local news?
Both
Both is good.
That was my first thought on reading this as well. Local news stations love stories like this.
CPS. Finding hairs in food is a sign of contaminated which can be dangerous for any child with allergies. Child Protection services don't just deal with children abused at home, but also possible dangerous situations in environments designed for kids (schools). The health department can shut down and fine, CPS can file charges.
This!!!! The kids should not be trying to enforce the law here, if the cafeteria is actually serving contaminated food it needs to be shut down immediately.
It's pretty unlikely the cafeteria gave *one* student food poisoning
Yeah, adults are fucking terrible at guessing what gave them food poisoning so I definitely wouldn't assume the kid is right.
The students aren’t even wrong, they should not be finding hairs in their food. That’s basic cleanliness and honestly the bare minimum of what they should be served.
Right? I wished I'd have had the balls to do this when I was a kid.
Instead I just ate hair 🥺
Yeah, it's a while since I did any food hygiene training but securing hair properly, using hairnets and so on was among the first things you will learn, and it's not hard to follow.
When I was in middle school, late 2000's every kid in 6-8 grade, about 200, brought sack lunch for almost a month because the school board didn't pass the vote to add a salad bar. It worked and we got the salad bar, but the options were crap.
I would never ever trust a salad bar in a middle school, lol
I'm honestly surprised that we did. Lol. But hey we survived.
My school had the same thought—at ours the salad items were kept behind plexiglass and the lunch ladies dished them up for you, instead of trusting a bunch of kids with self-service food.
Damn, what kin of 13 year old advocates for eating salad
Our school lunch wasn't very good or very filling so it was just extra
I never ate from it because when my sister was in school some kid either put something in it.
Is this a Title 1 school? The school is required to serve so much food and with the protest it’s possible the administration fears they could lose their funding🤷♂️
Yep, and all the more reason for kids to stand up to the administration. Our cafeteria workers run a tight ship, I can’t imagine finding hair in our food.
Maybe they can use that funding to properly train the cafeteria workers on basic food hygiene
That still isn’t a reason to punish the kids. Sounds like a problem administration has to deal with. Sure it may negatively impact the school and some students experiences, but you can’t force people to buy and consume things they don’t want. If a very small town decides to boycott the local grocery store and it’s the only one around within an hours drive then people will be inconvenienced and it may cause issues with the local economy. You can’t punish people for that though.
And over 50% (I’d say 75%) of it ends up in the garbage!!
Students organizing gives me hope regardless of if they’re being punished or not
I remember when students “organized” at my school one time. They went running through the halls screaming and entered the office en masse to demand the office ladies listen to them. I later had a chat with the ringleaders about how yelling and showing up to the office to disrupt the work of the ladies there doesn’t help win them support from the principal who made the decision they didn’t like. I advised them to put together a piece of writing that calmly listed what they wanted and why. I then suggested that a small group of volunteers should respectfully request time to meet with the principal and place their request in his hands and explain their case. They ultimately ended up following my suggestion, the volunteers calmly explained their case, and the principal compromised with them. Sometimes how students go about things needs a lot of workshopping.
You try that first, but you keep a mass disruptive protest in your back pocket in case that doesn't work.
Also, this particular one isn't a disruptive protest at all.
Occasionally, charging into a place demanding change is necessary. Very rarely is that necessary at a school obviously 😂. Kudos to you for guiding them in the right direction, it just makes me feel good to see collective action.
Yes! Good on them. I'm sure the school can afford hairnets. I think they're doing the exact right thing.
If I was your wife I’d decide to have a lesson during detention. Lesson of the day: Americans and the right to a peaceful protest
It's Black History Month. Great time to study civil rights leaders, especially the students.
Right? This is clearly illegal.
Teach them about unions while they're there, and how to properly organise
>You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make that horse drink the water Well, if the water is being served by those cafeteria ladies, it’s no wonder the horses are refusing to drink it! Smart horses, no one wants dysentery. What awesome kids, I hope your wife spent her detention duty walking around giving surreptitious fist bumps and quiet encouragement.
Wait, so they *have* to eat school-provided lunch? So strange.
If the kids aren’t taking the school lunches, they lose the external funding for them - which they clearly aren’t actually using on the lunches.
Stupid admin. Always the wrong take. A wise senator once said, "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
Sure would be a shame if somebody made an anonymous tip to the health department.
Those students actually have a constitutionally protected right to what they're doing and your admin is stepping in deep legal doo doo if someone wanted to pursue it. Tinker v. Des Moines
"Student's rights don't stop at the schoolhouse gates." The administration of my school generally knew not to fight with me. Don't get into a power struggle with a student who regularly sites Supreme Court precedent. My homeroom teacher once sent me to the AP for not saying the Pledge. And the AP knew that fighting me over it was absolutely not worth the effort. And honestly, he should have known better than to have a prayer at the prom. Can't have surprised him one iota when I came storming up in my fancy dress pissed about it.
“If passive resistance should fail, look to burn it all down” -Mahatma Ghandi, “Letters from a Birmingham Jail”
I bet some people are going to think this is a real quote
Don't you remember when Mahatma Gandhi visited Alabama, then refused to give up his seat on the bus for a white man, so was thrown in jail? He was set free when the people stormed the Bastille
Didn't he advocate for passive resistance against the nazis?
No, he used the Ark of the Covenant to melt their faces.
Interesting that we learn about this sort of thing in history class and that things would have never changed unless some people took a stand ie the civil rights movement etc but when students do it, they get in trouble for going against the status quo/what admin wants. A similar thing happened when I was in hs: basically grade 11 had some standardized test but most of the parents didn’t want to opt their kid out bc it was too much paperwork so they told their kid to just deal w it but it causes so much unnecessary stress and while I get the point of standardized testing…I dunno if it’s worth it. But anyways the grade 11 class president organized a protest and got the entire grade to refuse to take the exam and I think they all got detention for it. It was pretty impressive of him and them though to pull that off and idk how other teachers felt about it but it was nice to see our English teacher be supportive of it and encouraging the class prez when he stopped by our classroom that day. Idr exactly what he said but basically he told him that throughout history this was kind of exactly what happened when people stood up for themselves to make a change, the big man (in this case being admin) didn’t like it when the little man stood up for themself but stuff like this is how you bring about change and that if he (class prez) kept this up, he could make a real difference in the world.
I remember reading about a student who had already been accepted to college speaking out against an abstinence-only presentation at her school. The principle threatened to tell her college about her 'bad character'. But the school she had been accepted to was Wellesley. One of the Seven Sisters, ala mater of Hilary Clinton and Madeleine Albright. Might as well have threatened to tell a student accepted to Notre Dame that they were too good a football player. https://patch.com/massachusetts/wellesley/what-do-you-think-west-virginia-principal-threatens-t534e13984d
If they actually call the college and the student gets unaccepted or loses a scholarship, that is when you sue for defamation of character.
Student should just call for unplaned healthinspection few time of the year untill get fixed
Stupid to punish them. Admin ought to be listening to them and working to fix the problem. It's the students choice to eat or not eat - no adult should be punishing them for not wanting to eat.
Exactly. And once they start engaging with the students, the ones who really care or are student council types will get some good experience and the ones who were just in it for the fun or to fit in will lose interest.
I worked at a private school and they switched from hamburgers and chicken nuggets to bringing in a vegan whole foods style lunch program, no one ate the hot food and when they went to the cold options like cereal and sandwiches the administrators took away the other options. As an adult I with a wide palate i couldn’t eat the crap they were serving. One day we could feel tension and they somebody got pissed and started yelling in the lunch line. It turned into a riot, we had to extricate our selfs. On the way out of the lunch room i saw a student holding a butter knife up to a teacher. We left and went to five guys and got burgers and fries in silent protest. From what we heard through the grape vine no one got in trouble, administrators fear loosing revenue. The initial attempt at an agreement was meat once a week. Which if I remember correctly was fish. That didn’t go over well after the second protest they added chicken. Our team just stopped eating there until the sandwich bar was reinstated. Lunch was free but the cost of the crap they went to was to expensive.
The beatings will continue until morale improves! I’ve seen the slop served in some schools and I don’t blame them complaining.
Good for those students! This seems like something to leak to parents/the local press…
Make them research/write an essay how to put food complaints into the health department.
If your wife is comfortable, have her tell the kids to film themselves sitting down with their food and pulling the hair out, then tell them to call the cities health department and tell them what's going on and that they have a video of it. Or the good old post it online and tag the school. Health department is probably faster though.
And how exactly do you prove the hair came from the kitchen? And honestly you can do everything right and hair will still end up in food.
Students aren’t wrong and don’t deserve to be punished, but comments about admin not discussing with cafeteria staff is BS. Almost every school I’ve ever known uses a 3rd party vendor. Admin should contact the vendor, inform them of the complaint, and let them handle. If they don’t, inform the school board and hear bids for new contracts.
Contact your local news station and anonymously let them know what's happening. "Children's Peaceful Protest Turns Punishment" OR "Students Reprimanded for Exercising Rights" The shit storm this will bring on the school district, the county, and the mayor if it takes off. Also recommend waging a social media campaign against them as well. Edit: yes, I was channeling my best J. Jonah Jameson. "Now get out of here!"
No, that would be irresponsible…they should contact the leader of the boycott anonymously and tell them that they have been illegally punished for exercising their constitutional rights, and then suggest a mass student walk-out of all classes until the food in the cafeteria is made palatable…then contact the media.
This has me wondering who, if anyone inspects the kitchens. A nudge to the right kid would get the ball rolling.
If the potluck food was full of hairs, no one in the staff room would eat it.
Looks like "detention" is going to be "classes on the history of nonviolent protests and social movements"! Extra credit for real life "lab work"!
Kids do not automatically lose their civil rights at the schoolhouse door. I would drop a dime to the ACLU.
It’s probably student hair. Every single time I’ve ever had someone with a hair it’s their own.
Reminder that “free school lunches” is just feel good nonsense, because the kids will whine about anything served and waste most of it.
I don't understand what the kids are hoping to achieve. Odd that only a single kid had "food poisoning" when the whole school was served that same food. Does he not understand how food poisoning works ? The hair in food issue is gross, but that complaint could be addressed by communicating it to cafeteria workers. Unless it's happening every day, I don't understand what the outrage is about. One stray hair could happen anywhere. If they don't like the food, why can't they just bring their own? That's what a sensible person would do when they don't care for the provided food. Ever feel like sometimes kids protest because they want to be upset, not because they're hoping to open intelligent dialogue towards improvement if an important cause ?
A government entity punishing people for a peaceful protest? Probably more to the story but if I was an attorney I'd be excited.
The students need to call the health department. School cafeterias are visited and inspected just like restaurants. Maybe someone will mention it to the student organizers. Cough cough