Look at that dang Facebook… causing trouble again! Two students were recently suspended and one student expelled after they posted negative remarks on their Facebook pages about a teacher.
The students were facebooking from their home computers and apparently the comments caught the watchful eye of someone at the school. School officials said the three students violated the disciplinary code.
Twelve-year-old Alejandra Sosa called one of her teachers at Chapel Hill Middle School a pedophile. While she says she regrets posting the comment online, the honor roll student was suspended for 10 days and she’s now facing expulsion.
“I was just expressing myself on Facebook, because like I said I was mad that day because of what he [did]. So, I mean I had no intentions of ruining his reputation,” said Sosa.
William Lambert, II was also suspended. He called the same teacher a rapist.
“I shouldn’t have done it,” said student William Lambert, III. “Because I could have still been at school, like right now, if I never had commented on the post.”
The honor student’s father said he didn’t condone the comment but believes that what’s done in the privacy of one’s home should not be the subject of disciplinary action at school.
“Because it is a privacy issue. When you’re at home on your computer, a lot of people say a lot of things on Facebook, about a lot of people, including our president, including senators, governors. [I think] the school should write the rules of Facebook into their policy before they try to take rules out of context,” said Lambert’s father, William Lambert, Jr.
A third child was expelled for posting that the same teacher is bipolar. The student’s mother asked not to be identified but said she believed the school’s punishment did not fit the crime.
“She made a disrespectful comment, however she is 12-years-old and she didn’t even get a chance to apologize for it before its done and over, you’re out of school,” said the parent.
At least two of the families said they plan to hire attorneys and fight the disciplinary charges in a school tribunal.
Social networking expert, Ben Halpert said the case should serve as a lesson for students and parents alike.
“When you go home, yes it is your private environment but the school can actually say we would expect you to have nice behavior, be kind to others, not be a cyber bully, not be a bully in general. But it doesn’t mean they can enforce it because we’re coming into free speech territory here.”
Do you think the school went to far in suspending the students?
(source)
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ok, what ever happened to our first ammendment, freedom of speech. come on this is going to far. checking facebook and the kid say’s something about the teacher they don’t like. you come back to school to be suspended. this is really dumb.
oops, one m. amendment.
How is that two of the students only got suspended for making the worse comments and the less damaging comment got expelled? Was it because she wasn’t an honor student?
I dont know if they went too far. As we all know cyber bullying is very prevalent and it has been causing a lot of suicides. I think the school acted so harsh because they didnt want to be like other schools who knew about bullying and didnt do nothing about it. However, I believe that they all should of got suspended, not expelled. Maybe the one that did get expelled had a prior record of being a bully.
This is BS. This is a direct violation of their freedom of speech… people send hate mail everyday. Are you going to arrest them? So they said some immature things, that’s expected of 12 year olds… but what the school needs to realize is that they said this at home! Not at school.. AT HOME!!! How can you punish them for what they did in their own privacy. They took it way left. I’d sue their ass from here to Tokyo. And if their going to punish them, they should do so equally, you can’t expell one and suspend the other 2 w/o raising a couple eyebrows… Today’s societies boy I tell ya.
I agree with the school 100%. Those remarks could have cost the teacher his/her job. That is slander. The students admitted that they only wrote those words because they were mad. The teacher should sue them for defamation of character.
The first amendment does not protect you when you attempt to defame someone’s character, regardless if you are 12 years old or 112 years old.
I agree with the school. Facebook holds a lot of weight these days, and could have easily sparked an investigation and could have cost the teacher his job. Parents need to get old school and keep the doors open and monitor all activity that children are involved in.
There is a fine line between freedom of speech and slander. We all have the right to freedom speech, but one must be willing to accept the consequences if things go wrong. Those kids should’ve thought about what they were posting before they put it on the internet. Being called a pedophile or a rapist is a serious accusation when your job is working with children. So many people believe everything they read on the internet is true so I see the severity of the situation. The worst part? I bet what those kids were upset about was extremely petty.
It seems the authorites are missing the biggest point!!! What is the root cause of the students posting this or being mad at the teacher. One called him a pedophile the other called him a rapist….THAT SHOULD RAISE A FLAG!!