We're from the government and we're here to help....

it is a bullshit argument, as the schools are free to negotiate what they can use, and it is the scoring of the screen that is trade secret not the questions. besides, the parents have the right to know what info is collected, capitalists desire for secrecy be damned.

a couple of us had already figured out that it was almost certainly school politics that got him hung.

by Firefly:

"And I'm also under the impression that he reminded the students in his first two classes about their 5th Amendment rights, before the survey was scheduled to be handed out, so that when this survey was finally given during the third period throughout the school, other teachers, who then had those students in their classrooms, found students reluctant to complete it because they were afraid of "incriminating" themselves."

Good.

Contact the administrator to voice his concerns? He was probably in full tharn if he had just seen this. I'm not against administrators as a group, having been one off and on, but warding off fuss is an observed routine.

it is amazing how far one brave ************ can go towards roadblocking the police state. which is of course why they have gone after his hide....

Well, that would be after the causation of the child's beating because of the school telling iffy parents.

This is the school futzing, if that is what they do.

The obligation to protect children--mandated reporting--only pertains to protecting the child from the abuse or neglect of others. And it involves calling CPS, not the police.

It's not subjective when it comes to reporting or defining "illegal activity". The only thing that should be reported to police is actual illegal activity the school employee or another student actually witnesses, or that occurs on school grounds. You wouldn't say that a school employee shouldn't call the police if they witness a student dealing drugs to another student on school property, would you?

That is not the same as a student telling a staff member that they shoplifted a month ago, or indicated on a survey that they smoked a joint a month ago. Those things are not legal "evidence of illegal activity"--the police have no interest in receiving such reports, no one could be prosecuted on the basis of such information, and the school is obligated to protect the child's privacy with such matters.

I don't know that that's the case at Batavia High School, do you? The penalties if they don't self-report, and are discovered in some other way, or if they delay self-reporting, get increasingly stiffer.

Since they said they would take no disciplinary action based on this survey, and made that comment publicly, they would find themselves in significant difficulty, legally and otherwise, if they backtracked on that.

Also, the survey is scored by scales, not individual test items, only 3 or 4 of the 34 questions pertained to substance use, and 1900+ students took the survey. I think that whatever info they have, on any substance use, for a given individual student, is not only minimal, but probably not very revealing of anything, and it would be very hard to find the info after the test is scored. The original survey sheet the student marked might not be retained by either the school or MHS. What the school may have is the student's final scoring, reported on scales, which wouldn't reveal any specific test responses.

Wouldn't you think that any student, who engages in illegal activity, of any sort, should really worry more about actually being caught or discovered while engaged in the illegal activity? Or worry more about talking about their illegal activities through the social media, where their comments are not protected by the same sort of privacy rights they have in school when they talk to a counselor or respond to a survey?

I really think the reprimanded teacher raised a non-issue by even mentioning "self-incrimination" regarding responses to this survey. And I've done a lot of reading on this topic and can't find a single lawyer who agrees that those students might have risked "incriminating" themselves by answering the test items on substance use honestly. And I haven't heard any lawyers saying that the teacher was right in his 5th Amendment warnings regarding this particular survey.

you love blowing smoke up our asses dont you? kids are routinely hauled in front of the school cop when there is no chance the DA will want the case to make an "impression". behaviour modification is the goal, and the ends justify the means to according to these apes.

You haven't listened at all, have you?
You or those you rep will be all helpful to the self confessed. Set him or her up in the system. The confessing one is apt to be one of the least offenders, and you'll set that person on a track for possible years.

I am not against calling cps. I'm against causing the need without process for some poor fool who tried tobacco. Boomer will get this.

Gads, I miss Dys.

Your issue is with the school code--and the kind of penalties and interventions that occur with that. None of those things are relevant to this survey.

Look, one reason they wanted to identify at risk students with this survey was because they had several student suicides in recent years, at that high school, and the school hadn't been aware those students were in such emotional turmoil. If they can identify at risk students, before a tragedy happens, they certainly should make efforts to do so.

This was an SEL survey--it focused on social/emotional issues and areas.

You present the administration and test itself as fair and consistent. From a students perspective this comes down to trust, and I doubt there is much of that. It's been a long time since I was in school, but I wouldn't have trusted my 'secrets' to the school admins.

I don't give a whit about the survey, some kind of authorized whatsit.

The survey was off base.

No, you don't seem to listen. My issue is that it is none of your business what I do in my bedroom or out of school. You do not get to ask, much less by some slimy survey.

This is odd, I was miss saint and not only didn't do this stuff, had no clue.
However, I smell fish.

Are you going to send in paratroopers? If you do, will it help?

My issue is not just with the school code and penalties, though I argue. My issue is the matter of invasion across the board.

as we saw in the rape thread Firefly will insist to her last breath that the government has not only the right to police your bedroom actives but them not doing it is a dereliction of duty. i wish we could get more resistance going, but most people seem to think that those who do "wrong" by the government in sex are either child abusers or rapists who have it coming and anything done to catch them is A OK. but it is a very short walk from sifting our ideas on sex and re-educating as needed and sifting our ideas about everything else and re-educating as needed.

That depends ... is smoking pot illegal or possessing pot illegal?

Normally, it's the possession of the controlled substance that's criminalized.

who decides when "help" is needed? the entire premise of this screening is that it is the bosses who decide, it is not the citizens.

You ****, I was one of the few people who admitted on that thread to being raped after which you and others went on and on and on and on.. many abusive pages.
I hope you crawl.

it was not about you, it was about the boundary between the state and the citizen as well as what sexual/relationship practices should be allowed. no abuse other than verbal abuse took place in that thread, and verbal abuse is all over A2K. your victim status does not give you rights to silence debate/discussion, and that you would expect it to do so on such an important matter reflects poorly on you. if you are uncomfortable in a room or a thread you should make use of your freedom to get up and leave...it is not everyone elses job to make sure that the world revolves around you.

Good grief, what is this nonsensical distinction between "bosses" and "citizens"?

I know loads of teachers, one former school superintendent, and several school psychologists and social workers, quite well, and they're all citizens, just like you and me. And they all take their work very seriously, and they are all seriously concerned with the welfare of children. These people have no interest in prying into children's lives, or using the information they do have about children to in any way harm them. These people are also parents, and they treat the children they come in contact with at school with the same respect, and dignity, and concern for their rights and privacy, that they want shown to their own children.

Maybe we move in very different circles, Hawkeye. But I find this wholesale mistrust of school systems, and everyone in them, really at odds with my own experience. Not everyone is a saint, but, by and large, educators are a fairly dedicated, and more than decent, group of people.

In other threads, Hawkeye, you've ranted because you claim that people don't have access to the mental health system--you've blamed mass shootings on that. Now you say things like, "Who decides what help is needed?" Well, those same mental heath experts and professionals you allegedly want people to have access to. That's what they're trying to do with surveys that identify "at risk" adolescents--to find those red flags--to make interventions early enough so that tragedies can be prevented, and so adult lives won't be marred with social and emotional miseries that could have been addressed and remedied at an earlier stage of life.

Maybe you should make up your mind what you do want, other than another opportunity to do your usual "police state" rant.

Crawl on.