Do you believe this BS

[Rawedge Rim]

First-Grader Labeled a Sexual Harasser
Has Zero-Tolerance for Sexual Harassment in Schools Gone Too Far?
By JUJU CHANG, ALISHA DAVIS, COLE KAZDIN and OLIVIA STERNS
April 4, 2008 —


In schools across the country, kids as young as three and four are now facing charges of sexual harassment that will stay with them permanently on their school records.

These so-called "zero-tolerance" polices, designed to protect students from weapons and drugs or sexual violence, are often being taken quite literally.

Randy Castro, 7, who likes recess and soccer, now has an alarming red flag in his school records. It started on the playground with a first grade classmate.

"I saw another kid like hitting her butt so I did it," Castro said.

His Potomac View Elementary School then called the police and wrote him up as a sexual harasser. Woodbridge, Md. school officials described the incident as "Sexual Touching Against Student, Offensive," in their report.

"When I hear 'mommy they called police because I am a bad boy,' that is the message that you're giving to a 6-year-old?" said Randy's mother, Claudia Castro.

Ted Feinberg, assistant director of the National Association of School Psychologists, was stunned by the school's reaction and says 6-year-olds have no idea what those behaviors mean.

"I believe they do not have the capacity for awareness of sexual motivation & it seems like a gross mislabeling of the behavior and an overreaction," said Feinberg.

The school declined ABC News' request for an interview, but said in a statement that a "misunderstanding" led the principal to call the police, and that "the police never spoke to the child and no disciplinary action was taken by the administration."

According to the state's Department of Education, 166 elementary students were suspended in Maryland last year for sexual harassment, including three preschoolers, 16 kindergartners and 22 first-graders.

In Virginia, 255 elementary students were suspended for offensive sexual touching last year as well.

Two years ago in Texas, a four-year-old was punished for sexual harassment after a teacher's aide accused the pre-schooler of pressing his face into her breasts during a hug.

While a school's priority is to keep kids safe, critics argue the "zero-tolerance" policies can mean zero discretion.

"Overwhelming research suggests that "zero-tolerance" is not effective and often engenders more bad behavior," said Feinberg.

Randy's school has told ABC News that this won't be going on his permanent record, but for Randy's mom, his childhood innocence has been changed forever.

"They are treating him like a teenager or a grown-up & He is not. He is just a child," said Claudia Castro.

Child sex offenders do exist. A Justice Department survey says that kids aged 7-11 were responsible for almost 4 percent of all the sexual assaults committed in the U.S. The question is whether some of the kids being slapped with these sexual harassment labels deserve them.

Let GMA know what you think and weigh in with your thoughts on our comment board.


Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

According to the state's Department of Education, 166 elementary students were suspended in Maryland last year for sexual harassment, including three preschoolers, 16 kindergartners and 22 first-graders.

3 preschooler (4 yrs old?) 16 kindergartners (5 yrs. old?) and 22 first graders (6 yrs. old?)

Am I the only one seeing something wrong here? And of course this goes to my other question; if they are willing to report 41 children 6 years old and younger, then how many in the 8, 9, 10, and 11 year old catagories are they reporting?

This is F***ing insane!!!!!

[rbwright]

This is totally messed up.

My son was 12 when he got in trouble for sexual harrassment. He wrote a note to a girl telling her he liked her and asked if she liked hiim too and put it into her locker instead of handing it to her (just like we all did when we were that age).

The next thing I knew he was called down to the office without me being notified in any way and told he was stalking and sexually harrassing this girl. The first thing I was upset about is that this was considered sexual harrassment, then the fact that they accused him of an adult crime such as this without even a call to his parents to let us know what was going on. This could have easily been avoided with either a phone call to us or calling him in and telling him that the girl didn't like the note and to please not write any more notes.

I honestly don't know if the girls parents just called to ask the school to watch the situation or what, but I really cannot imagine that this was their intent. I know they have sons also.

This thing with kids 6 and younger is ludicrous! These kids have no idea, they are just being kids. We wonder why our kids are having so many stress related disorders. I am so with you on this!!

[Cail]

I guess this makes my friends and I absolute degenerates. We used to (in 1st-3rd grade) drop our shorts and flash our little wee-wees at each other and the girls all the time.

Madness.

[lucimay]

this is frightening in its sheer absurdity.

i say, once again people, the major issue in this country is the one it started out with. liberty vs. order. what exactly are you going to give up
to have this ingeniously designed, perfectly frictionless, society?

[lucimay]

I guess this makes my friends and I absolute degenerates. We used to (in 1st-3rd grade) drop our shorts and flash our little wee-wees at each other and the girls all the time.

Madness.

i'll give you what i give pliss when he perfectly articulates my own sentiments.

[Avatar]

Hahaha, you know the decline and fall of the roman empire? Guess it's the 21st centuries turn for the newest decline. We're gonna throttle ourselves. Everything not compulsory will be forbidden.

--A

[[Syl]]

8-year-old suspended for sniffing marker

WESTMINSTER – Adams School District 50 is defending its decision to punish a third grader for sniffing a Sharpie marker.

"It smelled good," Harris said. "They told me that's wrong."

...

Benisch stands by his decision to suspend Harris, saying it sends a clear message about substance abuse.

"This is really, really, seriously dangerous," Benisch said.

In his letter suspending the child, Benisch wrote that smelling the marker fumes could cause the boy to "become intoxicated."

A toxicologist with the Rocky Mountain Poison Control Center says that claim is nearly impossible.

Dr. Eric Lavonas says non-toxic markers like Sharpies, while pungent-smelling, cannot be used to get high.

[rbwright]

Boy, 12, charged with assault after throwing cocktail sausage in 'Just William' prank
How the law made a meal out of a boy's childish prank

www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles ... ge_id=1770

8 Year Old Autistic Boy Charged for Biting Teacher

autisminnb.blogspot.com/2008/03/8-year-old-autistic-boy-charged-for.html

Neighbor Claims 5-Year-Old Assaulted Her

Link


Just a few more examples of the absurdity. You can see it is all over the world. I'm not saying by any means that we should allow our kids to throw things or hit people, but let's use some of the common sense God gave us.

[Avatar]

Agreed. Even the best parenting (which I will admit may be all too often lacking) can't prevent those "kids are kids" moments.

Mad, these people are all mad. They want to live in a sanitised and threat free world even if it means crushing every threat and sterilising every surface.

*shakes head* Is this good for the species? Or have we reached the tipping-point where the flaws we protect by virtue of our "society" are going to start proliferating into the seeds of its destruction?

--A

[storm]

WTF...just wtf, seriously.

...the sheer absurdity of accusing a 6 year old of sexual harassment is just astounding.

[Cail]

Just amazing.

[Brasidas]

The PC world is so often an easy target, but aren't we forgetting a couple of things here, like the fact that these actions, whilst way too extreme in themselves, are actually designed to help these kids grow up to be decent adults? All the examples could have been handled in a better way but the authorities involved were actually trying to make their schools a safer environment for everyone. It definitely has swung too much to the PC model, but isn't it a good thing that we're trying to make sure things like racism and sexism are at least on tha agenda?

[Avatar]

Interesting point. The intent is a "good" one. Does that make the reaction a less negative one?

Or is the inherent extremism (and the result) "bad" no matter the intent?

And I think the result can be bad here...just how does a conviction for sexual harassment at 6 help the record of anybody? Hell...whatever happened to "juveniles" and the "age of responsibility"?

On the one hand, people look for external things to blame, on the other, they're saying toddlers are responsible for their actions.

--A

[Holsety]

8-year-old suspended for sniffing marker

Don't you guys know that strawberry red is a gateway drug? This is srs bizness!

"Principals make hundreds of decisions everyday based on our best judgment. And in that time, smelling that marker, I felt like, 'Wow, that's a very serious marker,'" Benisch said.

All things considered, being a student in a high school a few years down the road can be a "very serious marker" for drug use. I'm sure most of the kids have sniffed markers before. Now I know how it all started...

[Baradakas]

I think the real problem that seems to loom here is accountability. What happens when a problem child commits the same infractions and nothing done until something serious or dangerous happens? A finger gets pointed, and someone has to be pointed at. People overreact, perhaps concerned for their own children's welfare. Perhaps even a twinge of personal guilt, to exacerbate things. Suddenly, a perfectly effective professional is out of a job, and new hurried and often over-generalized laws are drafted, that the masses can go to sleep without worrying that their son or daughter isn't playing doctor with some other child, or god forbid, an adult.

The real problem, I think is the perfectly paranoid reactions that occur amongst otherwise sane adults, when they see their loved ones endangered. This current movement, of sexual predatory reactionism (my own term ) is the basic protective reaction of parents multiplied and intensified with this zero tolerance crap. Where is the accountability of parents? My step-dad was a teacher for 12 years. He watched more than one of his friends get sacrificed to placate this very sort of situation, so in response, the schools, and in many cases, state govt's pass zero tolerance legislation to protect their employees from litigation or termination. Did any of that make sense?

Sorry if this is rambling... tired.

B

[storm]

Interesting point...but it doesn't change the fact that a 6-year old and others in the same age group are being branded as "criminals" for behavior that several here have said they engaged in as children and i'm pretty sure none of them are sex offenders.

Punishing or teaching to refrain from an act is not inherently a bad response. If a little boy grabs himself in public, the parents will tell him not to do that a good parent will explain to him that its unacceptable behavior in public. The same notions of right and wrong can be taught be in the school setting without labeling kids as criminals...Robert Merton's theory on the evolution of a person being labeled as a criminal to believing they are criminal is pretty accurate. Punishing a relatively innocuous act at age 6 with age 6 appropriate discipline is fine, trying to put a 6 year old in the position of an adult with adult definitions of behavior is the problem.

Something else, someone mentioned this way of dealing with kids as teaching and fostering responsibility. I know we just had a thread in which it was argued quite vigorously on both sides about sexual activity among young people, personal responsibility and the consequences. This situation has me scratching my head...we could probably start another thread entirely on the contrast in how we have a PC attitude with no tolerance for 6 year olds but a pretty liberal policy when it comes to having a sense of personal responsibility for teenagers who get pregnant...where is the disconnect, i seriously don't get it.

[Avatar]

This current movement, of sexual predatory reactionism...

Good term.

Anyway, I agree with Storm...that sort of thing can be taught without branding the child as criminal, and without the almost certainly associated trauma. As has always been done.

Punishing a relatively innocuous act at age 6 with age 6 appropriate discipline is fine, trying to put a 6 year old in the position of an adult with adult definitions of behavior is the problem.

Exactly, and well put.

--A

[Rawedge Rim]

You don't teach a child correct behavior from incorrect behavior by putting the child in front of a firing squad for running with scizzors, or picking flowers from someone else's garden.

What I'm seeing here is a natural progression in a super-litigious society. The schools, in order to protect themselves from people who will sue like crazy every time little Johnnie's or little Janey's feelings get hurt, basically try to treat babies like adults.

[A Gunslinger]

2 things:

1) The age of liability. In public places, the culture sues over everything. As such, you just know that some parent would sue the school if their child was "harassed". Fo good, ill, or indiffrent you understand. Schools are terrified of lawsuits.

2) They go TOO FAR. How much public $$ is spent dealing with legal issues as daft and petty as this one, when schools need techno upgrades, etcd.?

[High Lord Tolkien]

It is BS but out of the tens of thousands of schools some odd ball stories that make the news isn't worrying me too much.

When I was in 4th or 5th grade there was a girl who developed in the chest area pretty early.
If I remember correctly all the guys, including me, wanted to "cop a feel".
Suddenly 10 or 12 little kids became a gang of little perverts that tried to grab her.
Sorry BM!
She pretty much had to run home for 2 days.
Her mom flipped out and busted some heads (probably literally, you could do that back then)and the school got involved, everyone was yelled at.
It was probably very traumatic for that girl.
And this was 30 years ago back when parents all knew each other and gave other parents permission to kick their own kids asses when they stepped out of line.
Now I have a daughter of my own, and you better believe if I ever hear of something like that happening to her or her friends I want all the boys suspended.
So today when I hear stories about schools going "too far" I think "probably not".
It's only a few isolated incidents that are mentioned here that are crazy enough to make the news.
(ok, I reread the article, it's a lot of incidents! )

Still, that 4 year old that got suspended for "attempted rape", doing what grown men pay good money for, won't even remember anything about it.
The parents on the other hand.......