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Girl, 12, suspended four months for gym wall graffiti

The girl admitted to doing this, but THIS IS WAY TOO HARSH. MORE ZERO TOLERENCE STUPIDITY!!!!!!!!! STUPID PC GARBAGE!!!!!!!!!!! She should be forced to clean the wall up and have some detentions.

I'd go with the wall cleaning and detentions as punishment myself, the 4 month suspension is...an overkill.

bravo to the administration for digging in their heels. if it had been the outside of your house, you'd be screaming for justice.

alicia-w wrote:bravo to the administration for digging in their heels. if it had been the outside of your house, you'd be screaming for justice.

No. True justice in this case would be having to clean the wall and a week's detention. A multi-month suspension is a bit extreme. She wrote "I love Alex" on the wall with magic marker. That does not rise to the same level of trouble as drug dealing and terrorist threats.

If I were an attorney, I'd take this case against the schools and win easily if they don't back down.

alicia-w wrote:bravo to the administration for digging in their heels. if it had been the outside of your house, you'd be screaming for justice.

I had a neighbor's kid shoot a hole in my vinyl siding with a pellet gun. The kid apologized and the parents paid for a new piece of siding. I think they grounded him for a week.

I was quite happy with the way things went.

This is going to make this child fall far behind her peers in terms of her education and there's no excuse.

she's been assigned to an alternative campus for 4 months, so she wont be missing out on any education. and that's not exactly a suspension where she'd be sitting at home...

she should have never been sparying the wall in the first place.

4 months is not enough, IMO

alicia-w wrote:she's been assigned to an alternative campus for 4 months, so she wont be missing out on any education. and that's not exactly a suspension where she'd be sitting at home...

A disruptive alternative school environment where the child may feel out of place, scared, and overwhelmed, will most certainly set her back.

What's next? Jail time for etching your sweethearts name in the tree outside the cafeteria?

Derek Ortt wrote:she should have never been sparying the wall in the first place.

4 months is not enough, IMO

Read the article first, please. Also, if it doesn't give you enough information, read further. You would learn that.

-It was a very small 3-word statement written lightly with a marker.
-It was in an area of the gym where graffiti is common and is untouched by the school personnel.
-The girl is 12 and a good student.
-When school officials asked who wrote it, she did what was right and fessed up, showing a lot of maturity for a 12-year-old.

So basically, she made one mistake, but following it, did what was right. I think the real lesson she learned from this is that, in the future, when you make a mistake, you should lie about having done it.

I have to agree w/ Alicia and Derek on this one. Making sure the punishment is suspension instead of detention shows other students the consequences of writing or spraying on walls at school. With suspension, the kids would be less likely to do it than with detention. Anyway, destroying other's property needs a strict punishment b/c we don't want kids to grow up destroying other's property. Finally, the lot about the girl being too scared to learn is just not true b/c the willingness to learn can overcome fear.

By reading some of these responses I would have thought she killed somebody.

I think this is way too harsh, and I wouldn't even consider it "graffiti" is was a freaking marker! At my HS there was REAL graffiti and much more explicit than what she wrote and nobody was suspened for 4 months.

alicia-w wrote:she's been assigned to an alternative campus for 4 months, so she wont be missing out on any education. and that's not exactly a suspension where she'd be sitting at home...

"Alternative campus" for delinquents is not a productive learning environment.

The punishment is extremely harsh for the crime. As has been noted, the lesson she has likely learned is to lie when confronted.

UPDATE

Katy ISD rethinks girl's graffiti punishment

There is some good news, the girl may get her punishment reconsidered. Hopefully, the only punishment is that she cleans it up and gets some detention.

Cleaning the wall and some community service. I think that would be enought if she is in fact a good student.

Regit wrote:

Derek Ortt wrote:she should have never been sparying the wall in the first place.

4 months is not enough, IMO

Read the article first, please. Also, if it doesn't give you enough information, read further. You would learn that.

-It was a very small 3-word statement written lightly with a marker.
-It was in an area of the gym where graffiti is common and is untouched by the school personnel.
-The girl is 12 and a good student.
-When school officials asked who wrote it, she did what was right and fessed up, showing a lot of maturity for a 12-year-old.

So basically, she made one mistake, but following it, did what was right. I think the real lesson she learned from this is that, in the future, when you make a mistake, you should lie about having done it.

I see your point.. But I am sure she has also learned to not do it again in the first place

chadtm80 wrote:I see your point.. But I am sure she has also learned to not do it again in the first place

She would learn that lesson if forced to clean it up and spend time in detention. There's no need to interrupt her education to teach her this lesson.

I dont think she would.. Certainly would be driven home IMO

Can almost bet my last dollar this gets reversed though anyhow

I wonder if Alex knew little Shelby Sendelbach was in love with him before she wrote "I Love Alex" on the gym wall.

chadtm80 wrote:I dont think she would..

I did. In high school, I got caught writing on a desk with a marker. The punishment: clean the desk, and serve detention for a week. Guess what: I never wrote on desks again.