The four New York middle-school boys who were caught on video bullying a 69-year-oldschoolbus monitor until she was reduced to tears have been suspended from school for one year.
Now, I’m all in favor of serious punishment for these young miscreants — but I have to wonder whether the school district punishes other bullies just as severely, or only the ones whose verbal sadism goes viral on YouTube.
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© 2012 by Bill Bickel unless otherwise noted.
Let’s give kids a year off of school for misbehaving, then they will have 365 days to find all sorts of new trouble to get into.
I’d sentence them to summer school and then make them repeat whatever year they just finished, myself. Put their graduation back a year.
It looks like they will go to a special troubled students school actually.
“The Greece Central School District is legally required to provide all students ages 5 to 16 with an education, therefore, during the 2012-13 school year, the students who have been suspended will be transferred to the district Reengagement Center, located in a non-school facility,” the district said in a statement. “This alternative education program keeps middle school students on track academically while providing a structured opportunity for students to take responsibility for their actions by completing community service hours and receiving formal instruction related to conduct and behavior that prepares them for a productive future.”
I understand your point that maybe (or probably) they punished these kids more severely because they were in the spotlight. By the same token, it spreads a message to a large audience that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated. Maybe kids all over the country will think twice before bullying.
They never punish the ones that don’t get caught!
Can you suspend one-incident bullies for a year without very clear video evidence? That would probably be irresponsible in most cases.
I found it quite disturbing. Far worse goes on every day at nearly every school in the country. The only reason this is being punished — and the punishment is ridiculously severe, IMO — is because it was caught on tape and went viral.
That’s not fair to these kids — 12-year-olds, remember — and it’s not fair to the millions of victims of bullies who don’t have the good fortune of having their abuse caught on tape.
My problem with this is that a one-year suspension will interfere with their education. These kids need more education, not less. Only problem is how to do it without them messing with other people…
The district still has to educate them.
As others have alluded, I don’t know if these kids were published any more harshly because the “video went viral”. They were, however, published harshly because the evidence was irrefutable. I would like to think it didn’t matter if a million people saw it, or only the ones deciding the punishment.