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

I just heard Obama say that the people cannot have both perfect privacy and perfect security. I think he is right.

A good example of the tradeoff is going through airport security. I think the public should be cheerful and cooperative about taking off shoes, getting scanned, etc. Absent this, we can expect a lot of attacks on airliners.

A good example of the tradeoff is going through airport security. I think the public should be cheerful and cooperative about taking off shoes, getting scanned, etc. Absent this, we can expect a lot of attacks on airliners.

I'm not averse to good security practices, but airport security is not an example of good security practices. Airport security is great at preventing people from taking water bottles on planes; it is not good at preventing actual threats.

Once more in most states of the US a child can be judge to be a delinquent by the courts for drug used ETC without any convictions for same and locked up in some training institution until he or she reach 18 years of age!!!!!

Children do not have the same protections as adults and do not need to be convicted of a crime to have their freedoms taken away by the state.

You really don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Here judge is a survey where this child had admitted that he or she is a drug user and therefore an out of control minor in need of the courts taking charge of his or her life at least until the child is 18 years old.

Minors do not have the same level of protections that an adult does.and it all for their "own" good!!!!!!!!!!!

That so call drug use study could result in great harm to individual children futures who was given little choice about taking part in such a study and when an adult teacher try to informed them of the danger and that they did not need to take part he was punish for doing so.

So is your understanding of the definition of an "out of control" minor, if you think that term can be appropriately applied to a child who has done nothing more than admit to some past drug use on a school survey questionnaire, and that a PINS declaration by a Family Court

Past drug used or ongoing drug use for that matter and yes the school system can label someone a drug abuser and treat him or her accordingly and a court can take note of such an admission and on and on as to the degree of harm that survey could do to a child....

Come to think of it under mandatory reporting rules/laws the school system might end up with not choice but to reported admitted drug use to the police and the courts and the child welfare system under the theory that the child current guardians or parents are being neglectful....

Hell if they did not plan on addressing the issue of a child drug use directly there would have been zero reasons to have the names of the students on the survey forms in the first place.

I get it that rich, white kids have social problems too, but all of this information taken together makes something in my brain itch.

They wanted to identify significantly "at risk" children so support services could follow up to see if any interventions were needed to help those children, given that the school district has had several student suicides in recent years. But the "at risk" scaled score on this survey was determined by considerably more than the 3 or 4 questions relating to substance use--and student services at Batavia H.S. did reach out to some students, and their parents, based on these survey results. This was an SEL assessment survey, not a "drug use" survey. And there were no complaints about the way the survey results were actually used by the school for these students.

Students punished for 'dark' writing

© 2004 Student Press Law Center

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but creativity is quickly becoming the Achilles’ heel for high school student authors, who face increased scrutiny over creative works done in and out of school.

Creative writing assignments and personal journals have become an object of concern for many administrators who fear that works which are "dark" or contain violent images are actually threats by students.

At a Minnesota high school, a 17-year-old was arrested Oct. 14 after students found his notebook containing violent and gloomy poetry and similar works on a school computer.

Because police officers said the students at Humboldt High School felt threatened by the writings, the incident was taken very seriously, said St. Paul Police Officer Paul Schnell. He said the works contained references to weapons, seeing others dead, and to the fact that the author felt ostracized and angered by others at school.

"The question becomes one of was there adequate probable cause to make an arrest," Schnell said. "On the basis of what we saw, yes."

The student, who was not named in police reports pleaded guilty in juvenile court to charges of disorderly conduct and was sentenced on Nov. 15. He also has been placed in another area high school.

"We are not unaware of the implications from the standpoint of freedom of speech," Schnell said. "If we didn’t take action, citing free speech, and something did happen, would the question be ‘Why didn’t police at least investigate?’"

Police often find themselves "right where the rub occurs" between defending and infringing upon free speech, he said, but officers would rather be safe instead of sorry.

Minnesota American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Chuck Samuelson said the school’s response was an overreaction, and while the student’s First Amendment rights may have been violated, these cases are difficult to win.

"Judges give great deference to school officials who claim that the free speech of the student impinged on the school process," he said.

A middle school student in New York was suspended when he took a class assignment too far, officials said. In addition to keeping a journal, a creative writing assignment for his English class, Dylan Finkle began writing a short story modeled after horror films.

The story featured fictional characters named after fellow students at Thompson Middle School. Finkle claims he got permission from students to use their names, but another teacher was unsettled by the graphic murders and sexual situations depicted in the story.

In one scene, the main character, also named Dylan, decapitates his girlfriend upon finding her having sex with another boy. The story ends with Dylan’s death and the question, "Will this be the end of the masked killer? All we know is that true Evil never dies…"

Finkle’s appeal to the commissioner of education was denied. He has since filed a civil suit seeking almost $2 million in damages for violations of his First, Fifth and 14th Amendment rights.

"It’s an estimate of damages in regards to mental anguish," Finkle’s attorney Chris Murray said about the damages. "Ultimately, it comes down to a jury to decide the price tag for him being socially ostracized and [having] his life disrupted."

Murray said the suspension and the school’s handling of the event, including its refusal to transfer the boy to another area school, has made the 11-year-old a "social pariah."

School officials could not be reached for comment.

A Georgia high school sophomore, Rachel Boims, was given a one-year expulsion after a teacher confiscated and read parts of the girl’s private journal about a student who dreams of killing a teacher.

Though the suspension was overturned in late 2003, a month after it was issued, Boims withdrew from Roswell High School because of the negative effects of the situation. She returned later in the semester and is in the initial stages of filing suit against the school, according to her father.

Robert O’Neil, executive director for the Thomas Jefferson Center for Protection of Free Expression, said the most common First Amendment rights violations he sees involve high school students.

The proliferation can be attributed in part to the transition students make from having behavior controlled exclusively by parents to becoming somewhat autonomous, he said.

"These types of things go in cycles from Tinker [v. Des Moines] where things are in ascendancy to Hazelwood [v. Kuhlmeier] where rights dwindle," O’Neil said, citing two U.S. Supreme Court cases that defined the First Amendment rights of students and the student press.

"Secondly, administrators tend to assume – almost like a paramilitary organization – that their ability to maintain discipline and order depends substantially on taking a hard line when an issue first arises," he said. "When the first person does something novel or challenging, he is likely to be caught in the crossfire."

The convergence of these elements makes censorship almost inevitable – but not acceptable – O’Neil said.

Illinois Learning Standards

Social/Emotional Learning (SEL) Resources

In 2004 the Illinois State Board of Education adopted standards in social and emotional learning (SEL). Drafting of the 10 SEL standards, along with goals, age-appropriate benchmarks, and performance descriptors, was a collaborative effort between ISBE and the Illinois Children’s Mental Health Partnership with technical support from the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). ISBE is now focusing on helping educators across the State provide high-quality education in SEL to their students. Those interested in this work often ask a range of questions about SEL standards. We have provided answers to these FAQs by way of orientation to this work.
http://www.isbe.net/ils/social_emotional/resources.htm

BHS Social-Emotional Survey

All BHS students will be taking a 34-question survey during their 3rd block class that evaluates their social-emotional perceptions. Please click here by April 17th if you do not want your student to take this assessment.

Why are we doing this? In addition to the Illinois Common Core Learning Standards, school districts are required to provide instruction and monitor student progress on the Illinois Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Standards

Over the past several years, Student Services Staff have reviewed and researched a variety of tools intended to monitor student performance relative to the SEL standards.

What is this assessment? The Behavior Intervention Monitoring Assessment System (BIMAS) was chosen to be utilized to monitor student progress on the SEL standards.
The BIMAS is designed to be used for screening, progress monitoring, outcome
assessment, and program evaluation within the Response to Intervention (RTI)
framework.

How will the results be utilized? Batavia High School will use the BIMAS to monitor students’ progress in the areas of social and emotional development. Results of the BIMAS will be analyzed at a building level to assist staff in planning and implementation of social emotional supports to help all students grow to their fullest potential. It is a systematic process of detecting students who are struggling behaviorally and are at-risk for experiencing a range of negative short- and long-term outcomes. If your child is found to be at risk and is not currently receiving social-emotional supports within the school, a member of the building’s Student Services Team will notify a parent to discuss options for support.

http://bhs.bps101.net/bhs-social-emotional-survey