Entire School Board Recalled By Angry Students

JeanneSager — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 13:15:00 GMT

Note to boards of education: listen to your students, you're there for them. Or maybe you're not?

A collection of angry students at one California high school organized a recall election that might well be the first ever in the state to unseat an entire school board. The kids and their adult supporters collected enough signatures to authorize a recall vote on all five members of the board of education at the Big Oak Flat-Groveland Unified School District.

What made the kids this angry? The board fired a popular math teacher. Yes, a math teacher, not a football coach (although he is a former professional football player) or a gym teacher. A guy who teaches one of the core subjects. To be fair, he was also coaching baseball - but that wasn't at the heart of the kids' arguments.

The board released Ryan Dutton from his job teaching math at Tioga High in September over an allegation of plagiarism. Working toward his teaching credentials at Cal State Fresno, Dutton was accused in March 2008 of copying another student's homework. He denied the charge, and the university eventually found it was unfounded. Still, members of the school board say they're standing behind THEIR source, and they've refused to rehire Dutton. Nor have they revealed their sources.

Students have appealed to the board to no avail. So civics teacher Tim King helped them organize a civics project instead: collecting the necessary nine hundred ten signatures per school board member necessary to put the recall on the ballot. They got them. . . and more.

There's scuttlebutt, according to the Los Angeles Times, that these kids are being used to settle old scores in a fractious community. And while I'm often cautious about putting kids on the front lines of these kinds of arguments, I've seen what they can do. As a community reporter, I followed the case of a school librarian cut because of budget constraints, and the students who worked to have her reinstated. The kids were brushed aside by a school board that did not realize the gem they had in their midst - kids who cared enough about a librarian, with no ties to the sports community. They held lengthy executive sessions while the teenagers sat in the high school library, waiting patiently to have someone simply listen to their pleas. Never was there an explanation issued of the way budgeting works, of the intricacies of tenure. Nor was a thank you issued to the kids for their hard work.

Teachers can't always be reinstated simply because the kids care about them. But without the children, there is no school community, no school board. Not listening to them, at least providing some feedback and a "hey, you tried, but. . ." is tantamount to telling them you're not there FOR them.

Image: Los Angeles Times

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JeanneSager — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:18:00 GMT

He's stepping down from his post as a member of the board of education in Robbinsville, NJ, but maybe Joe Armenti would be better suited back in high school? The board has been facing pressures from an outraged public since Armenti used the word "faggot" in response to a teenager's presentation to the board on a ban on the use of offensive language.

His initial excuse? The teen said it first. Excuse me, who's the teenager here?

Joseph Armenti's exact words, according to the Times of Trenton were, ""If my son wants to call somebody a faggot he should be allowed to; it's his First Amendment right." In other words - he's protecting his son's right to be a bigot and a homophobe. What a stand-up Dad. It was a response to a presentation by a student who was advocating the school district begin a program to report using offensive language via a "suggestion box." Students who used inappropriate words would then be approached by a counselor to discuss the situation. The student presenting the idea to the board used the word "faggot" as an example of language that would fall under the program.

What's disturbing isn't that Armenti used the word. In fact, as a reporter who depends on the right to freedom of speech in this country to make a living, I wouldn't step in to tell an adult what he can or can't say - even if I don't agree with him. To paraphrase Hamlet, "words, words, words," are what you make of them. But for a school board member to promote kids' "right" to spew hate toward one another is disturbing. And that's what Armenti was doing when he chose the word "faggot" rather than "s**t" or "f**k" or any of dozens of words deemed offensive by some but not down-right prejudiced and hate-filled.

That this came from the mouth of someone at the top level in a school system makes this story that much more disturbing. If this is what they're feeling at the top, what's trickling down to the kids? When the board meets later in the month to accept his resignation, I'd suggest Armenti spend a day in a classroom, maybe follow around one of the members of the Robbinsville High School's Gay-Straight Alliance. He could see just who he's protecting his son to insult.

Image: PinkNews

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