Being Falsely Accused as a Teacher
Have you ever been in a situation of being accused of a wrong doing by a student? Have you ever worried about repercussions of disciplining a vindictive student? Have you ever been under investigation by Child Protective Services because of something that was reported that occurred in your classroom? Have you ever seen your career and possibly your life flash before your eyes because you know you have been falsely accused of some form of abuse by a student and their family? If you can answer yes to any of the previous questions, you will be empathetic to the teachers and their stories in this video from Video On Demand/ABC News. If you can’t answer yes to any of the previous questions consider yourself lucky and watch in dismay as these teachers endured horrible circumstances because they were accused of something and could do nothing against public scrutiny to prove themselves innocent. It made my skin crawl after watching the video because the statistics show that music teachers are most likely to be involved in an ordeal like this because of the nature of their work. I am a music teacher and can totally relate to that statement.
There are many different ways a teacher can find themselves in ‘hot water’. Students claim sexual abuse, physical abuse and emotional abuse just to name a few. The minute the accusations fly the teacher is automatically presumed guilty. Just like the beginning of the ABC video indicated, there is now a heightened awareness of these offenses and swift action is taken to fix the problem. In the case of Albert Thompson, the substitute from Chicago, he subbed in a classroom for one day. When he woke the next morning he was the headline on the news. Kids reported he fondled them. He hadn’t even been notified by authorities and the school was calling in counselors to help kids that had been traumatized. What happened to innocent until proven guilty? It turns out he was innocent. Thanks to careful police work, it was discovered that a 4th grade student was upset about being disciplined so she bribed her classmates with a dollar if they would make up stories to get the sub in trouble. The charges were dropped in a short time, but how do you recover from that? You never do. Trust me, I know. I was in this very same boat. I went through a CPS investigation. I had no support from administration, and my union rep told me to just apologize to the family and all would go away. Thank goodness for scrupulous investigating by the CPS rep (she was the one I feared the most and she turned out to be my biggest ally). She deemed the accusations to be invalid and all was dismissed. I was lucky, no real lasting implications, except in my own private hell.
If you Google or Dogpile these three words: Falsely Accused Teachers, you will find endless articles of the plight of wrongly accused teachers. It is simply heartbreaking. It is hard enough as it is to be a teacher, let alone have to worry on a daily basis about what a student could go home and make up about you. What ever happened to just being a teacher?

Spanking common in Mississippi schools.
What? Is this really a headline from 2009? Yep, sure is. The article “Spanking common in Mississippi schools” tells how 72% of school districts in Mississippi have discipline policies that include corporal punishment, including spanking. I was just surprised by this article because I hadn’t thought corporal punishment was even around any more. It appears that 22 schools throughout the US deem it legal to use corporal punishment. I had absolutely no idea. I was really taken aback by the statistics of schools in Mississippi that had the highest reported incidents of corporal punishment during the school year of 2008-09. You can find a list of these schools and their numbers at the end of the headline article. Something else I found very disturbing was that students with disabilities are usually more apt to receive corporal punishment or spankings and paddling.
There are multiple reasons given for and against spanking and corporal punishment. After reading so much from each side, I guess I could say that I am definitely against using it in the school setting. Even though there is much argument, I don’t know how much I buy into the adverse effects it has on a kid. Although, I am sure it has some lasting impressions for those that have endured it. An adult who received a paddling when he was a child could not for the life of him remember why he got the paddling, but he just remembered that it taught him to loathe the teacher that inflicted the punishment. Did that accomplish what it set out to do? It has definitely sparked a heated personal conversation between my husband and me as well. My husband can vividly remember getting spankings when he was a kid. It was just the thing to back then. He thinks spanking is an acceptable form of discipline. I can remember teachers I have worked with tell of stories of when they used physical force to discipline an unruly student. One teacher tells of how he grabbed a kid by the shirt collar and lifted him off the ground and held him against a locker and put quite the fear into the student. He claims he never had trouble with that student again. For the most part my husband and I have differing views about this issue. But then again, my husband has never been in the classroom as a teacher. He has never been at the throes of Social Services because a student and family falsely accused him of mistreating their student. I have. It changes you. It has definitely swayed me into opposing any form of physical punishment or contact for that matter. What do you think?

McGyver Tools Getting Scouts of all Ages in Deep Trouble.

I hope you have all heard of McGyver. I was in love with this TV show back in the 1980’s and dare I say in love with McGyver himself! Who doesn’t joke about fixing anything broken with a gum wrapper, a paper clip, a blade of grass and a drop of cooking oil? Ahhhhh…. Enough reminiscing.
I was just appalled after reading the dramatic story of the violent student who brought a lethal weapon to school. That violent student was Zachary Christie and he is a 6 year old first grader. He is now facing a sentence of 45 days in the schools reform school because of his violation of the school’s zero tolerance weapons policy. His story and his fate have me wondering what was really meant by zero tolerance and has its use gone too far? This poor hapless first grader just wanted to show off his new Swiss army type camping tool. He is six. No prior history of misbehaving. He even wears a suit and tie to school because he loves being in school so much. How can such a harsh punishment fit this situation? I am curious. How big is the class of 1st graders in this districts reform school? The mother is home schooling Zachary until the matter gets cleared up. As a public school teacher, I am not and will never be a proponent of home schooling, except in a case like this. Can you imagine the long lasting implications this little boy would experience if he had to comply with this punishment? His first day in class might include a conversation like this: Hi, what did you do to land in here? Oh, you stabbed someone in a gang fight? Yeah me? I brought my cub scout silverware tool to school to show my friends. Wanna play?
Since I found this article and decided to blog about it, much of this story has unfolded. On Tuesday night, the day after the story broke the school board of the Christina school district in Delaware reversed their decision and allowed Zachary to return to school. They also decided to revise the zero tolerance policy.
This is not the only time a zero tolerance policy has affected the plight of unsuspecting students. Matthew Whalen was suspended for having a pocket knife locked away in his car in the school parking lot. His punishment has many more implications affecting his future than little Zachary’s did. He has high post-secondary education expectations that could crumble because of his punishment. The list of these instances goes on and on. It is not a new issue. I know in this day and age, safety has to be at the forefront of our schools intentions. But like anything else ever imaginable, one size does not fit all. A blanket tolerance policy can’t possibly be the answer. The repercussions these students face because of their unintentional actions due to a highly flawed zero tolerance policy is unfathomable. It is simply unjust. What is the answer? I don’t know. Any ideas?

A Crackdown on Bake Sales in City Schools
How can you not be interested in a headline like this! My first reaction was, of all the things there are to worry about they are cracking down on bake sales? Who hasn’t been part of a bake sale fund-raiser? They bring in a lot of money, at least in our school. The Dollars for Scholars organization at our school has cake walks at almost every basketball game to raise money. After every spring concert there is a bake sale and that too brings in a pile of money. So I just couldn’t imagine what the hub-bub was all about with this headline. Of course, it is about wellness policies.
Does your school have a wellness policy? I am not presently at a school, but the school I had been with developed one over the past few years. It was aimed at teaching students better nutrition habits and physical activities that promote a healthier life style. Now, I am sure you are saying this is not a very exciting, controversial topic, but I am getting to that. This got me thinking along the lines of what I spoke about last week with teacher dress codes. After reading a lot of student dress code issues, I thought it would be interesting to see if teachers are held to the same dress code ethics as students are. In the same respect, if a school has a health and wellness policy, should the teachers be expected to adhere to the same strict guide lines? When my school converted to the healthy lifestyle changes, among many other things, it meant no more soda/pop in the vending machines, only juices. This had a major impact on me personally. I am not a coffee drinker at school, but instead, my mojo is Diet Mountain Dew. I consider it the breakfast of champions. I was not able to get my ‘fix’ at the school pop machine any more. So, I brought my own. Contraban! Since the induction of the wellness policy our school underwent 2 different administrators. They both took a different stance about the participation teachers should have in the implementation of the policy. One took the stance that we as teachers should just be discrete about what we consume. The other said there had to be complete compliance towards the policy. We were told we could not have pop, candy, sweets and the like just like the kids. Coffee was still allowed though, no questions asked. So guess what I did. I acted like I was now a coffee drinker and put my Diet Dew in a covered coffee mug. What do you think? Was I insubordinate with ‘sneaking’ my pop? Should teachers be required to follow the same healthy guidelines that we require of our students through a wellness policy? And most importantly why is coffee okay, but not diet pop?

To wear or Not to wear.....

After reading 2 blogs last week about student dress code, I got to thinking about teacher dress and how it has changed, and I don't think for the better.
I have been teaching in a public school for 17 years. All of those years have been in the same school. I have seen many changes take place over the years. When I began teaching my first year, I was still in college mode. I was still on the budget of a college graduate. I don’t recall putting a lot of thought into my clothing during that first year. It must have been obvious because I was taken into the principal’s office and told what not to wear. Now, don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t wearing anything risqué or vulgar. I was told that I wore too many sweatshirts and that I needed to wear more dresses and dress clothes. At first I was seriously offended. I didn’t think anything was wrong with what I was wearing. But, I followed orders. I spent the summer updating my wardrobe. The next school year, as I wore my new professional wardrobe, I felt different. I realized I matched the rest of the faculty. It wasn’t like the game where you pick out the one picture that doesn’t match anymore. I am here to attest that I began to be treated differently, by young and old alike. Although I protested at first, I became a fan of professional dress for teachers.
That was over a decade ago. Almost 2 decades, but I don’t want to make myself sound too old! We had a large group of teachers retire all in one year. So to replace them, a bunch of ‘newbie’s’ were hired. All of which had the same way of thinking I did when I started teaching. One of the problems about this is the principal, who is suppose to enforce professional dress, is a ‘newbie’ too. Our dress code has slid down that slippery slope for many years now. We have had teachers or aides wear completely inappropriate attire for the workplace, let alone the school. There were men wearing cargo shorts and ladies wearing tank tops with embarrassingly low cleavage. In my opinion it has drastically changed the demeanor of the school and the value that is placed on the teacher or school faculty. I don’t think it is appropriate to wonder who is the teacher and who is the student when 2 people are walking down the hall. There should be much more of a distinction. I am a firm believer that you need to dress for success. I don’t think it needs to go as far as a dress code for teachers. As the article stated, that could be a nightmare dealing with the union to even get that approved, but it should not have to be written in stone. It should just be a simple matter of good judgment and adult decision making.
What do you think?

Elizabeth Haraseth a.k.a. Id_rather_be_golfin