School Suspension for Answering Dad's Call from Iraq

[Rhino]

Texas School Suspends Student for Answering Call in Class From Dad in Iraq
Saturday, April 12, 2008

A Texas sergeant and his son recently found themselves separated not only by an eight-hour time difference, several bodies of water, hundreds of miles and a war, but by a high school official who suspended the boy for answering his dad's call during class.

Cove High School in Texas, where half the students have at least one parent deployed, justified the punishment against Brandon Hill by saying he had violated the no-cell-phone policy when he took the call from his father, who is serving in Iraq....http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,350988,00.html

[Taylor1]

I don't give a crap about a no-cell-phone policy, if my dads in war, he calls I'm answering no matter what. Someone in texas do me a favor and talk to this guy

[Neil Peart]

The policy was "no cell phones," so I'm siding with the administration on this one.

[LivingDeadGirl]

The policy was "no cell phones," so I'm siding with the administration on this one.

I'd have to say the same thing. There were other ways that the mother could have made the son available to talk to his father, including pulling him out of school, that would not have violated the policy.

I'm glad that the boy got to talk to his father, but the rules are there for a reason.

[Lazarus]

Ya know, I recall entire generations of American children who survived public school and ended up being moderately literate without ever having casual access to even a landline telephone...

Call me a radical but I see absolutely NO need for kids to bring cell phones to school... Calculators, yes... Cell phones, no...

[Wolfcounsel]

"Call me a radical but I see absolutely NO need for kids to bring cell phones to school... Calculators, yes... Cell phones, no..." --Lazarus

How about milquetoast?:evilgrin:

Seriously, no calculators in school or at home for schoolwork!

As for the cell phone incident, the opportunity being there, to hell with the suspension, and the school can shove its zero tolerance where the sun don't shine!

[DesertFox]

Any policy needs to have sufficient flexibility to admit of exceptions for extraordinary cases. Seems to me this would be such a case.

However, also seems to me the mom coulda given the dad an hour at which to call that wouldn't cause problems. The War in Iraq isn't like WWII, where they fought around the clock.

[Wolfcounsel]

What DesertFox said. The family should have been advised on the calling procedure, but these calls from Iraq are not constant, so the school could have been less anal about it.

[Taylor1]

Any policy needs to have sufficient flexibility to admit of exceptions for extraordinary cases. Seems to me this would be such a case.

However, also seems to me the mom coulda given the dad an hour at which to call that wouldn't cause problems. The War in Iraq isn't like WWII, where they fought around the clock.

But they are fighting around the clock, at least in Baghdad.

[Rhino]

Not most of them. They rotate in and out of the Green Zone. They may not be there every night, but they most often are.

[Incident_command]

What DesertFox said. The family should have been advised on the calling procedure, but these calls from Iraq are not constant, so the school could have been less anal about it.


:yeahthat:

[Taylor1]

Not most of them. They rotate in and out of the Green Zone. They may not be there every night, but they most often are.

Ahh yes tis true.

[Suzie]

It depends on what kind of unit he is with that would determine the amount of access he would have to a phone.

[MSGT]

It depends on what kind of unit he is with that would determine the amount of access he would have to a phone.This.
Piss on the school. Talk to your dad kid. My son has a cell phone because he is a latch key kid for about an hour each day. If he looses his key or anything happens he can call me. He and the school was told that ANYTIME my son feels the need to call me, he will. He knows not to call me unless something is very wrong. They have the same policy and I'll deal with it after I show up to get him.

[Taylor1]

This.
Piss on the school. Talk to your dad kid. My son has a cell phone because he is a latch key kid for about an hour each day. If he looses his key or anything happens he can call me. He and the school was told that ANYTIME my son feels the need to call me, he will. He knows not to call me unless something is very wrong. They have the same policy and I'll deal with it after I show up to get him.

This... same here, I bring a phone to school everyday, my teachers have the "don't bring it out in class policy" though sometimes I do to spin it around on my desk, they don't care. As long as I'm not calling/texting people normally they don't give a care.

[Beowulf]

The policy was "no cell phones," so I'm siding with the administration on this one.

I have to agree. It's bad enough that people lack cell phone etiquette nowadays. I mean really, I survive rather nicely without one, then and now. Of course, we didn't have them "then."

[Red-voting Badger]

The policy was "no cell phones," so I'm siding with the administration on this one.

As a teacher who watches teachers answer cell phones in school constantly, a kid answering a call from dad in Iraq being suspended is barely laughable. Just a pathetic inability by the administration to deal with a mole hill and how to turn it into a mountain.

[Deagle]

Couldn't the kid have asked to be excused while he took an important call?

[Rhino]

They probably would have suspended him for that too.

[Deagle]

I would have told them to suspend the back of my balls!

[Suzie]

If something happened to his dad before he was able to talk to him again he would regret it forever. If his dad was doing something over there where he knows the chances of being harmed is far greater he probably never lets go of the phone.

When my husband left I upgraded my phone to make sure it picked up the best it possibly could even with all the mountains around. I had text messaging added in case he made it somewhere he could use a computer, and I was still afraid to leave the home phone because there are lots of places the cell didn't pick up.

One of the worst feelings in the world is having it with you and when you get home you see you missed a call. :(

[LivingDeadGirl]

I would agree if this hadn't been an ARRANGED call. If it were a random call it would be understandable. But the mother had ASKED the father to call. Policies like this aren't just put in place without people being notified. The mother could have, and should have, kept the boy home from school so that she would be sure that he was available to take the call. But the child was still breaking the rules having the phone there in the first place.

[The_Elucidator]

I guess this could apply to a broad range of careers. A Father/Mother who was a Police Officer, Fireman, Border Patrol etc. Any one of these folks could go off to work and never come home again. Although in the Military you don't have the luxury of coming home and kissing the kiddo's good night, every night! As far as the cell phone thing goes, I completely agree with kids having them at school, and I completely agree with administrators taking them away if improperly used. To ban them from school IMO is not practical. In a pre 9/11 era where safety wasn't a concern, yeah maybe. But I want to be able to get in contact with my children by text message or call and vise versa if there was something seriously wrong.

And I'm sorry, but if I am in a combat zone and get a chance to call home and give my wife or kiddos a shout I should be able to do it. And if one of my kiddos is having separation anxiety and needs to call me because I have been away for 6 months, then they had better be able to call. PERIOD!!

[HomeschoolrsRUs]

The school had a rule. The kid has a father in the military on active duty during a war. If this situation happened to my family, I would have to say, I would agree the child/parent broke the rule, and accept the suspension (how long was he suspended for? I couldn't find mention of that in the story), HOWEVER, I would still feel justified in my child taking the call. What's it called when the defendant is guilty but found not guilty because of circumstance ... isn't that called jury nullification? I would say this should be a case of suspension nullification. The suspension should have been no longer than the rest of that day's classes at the most, then expunged from his record. Just my :2cents:

[DesertFox]

Don't think I've ever disagreed with Luc about anything before.

You have policy to deal with the big majority of cases. What you're calling for is a case by case decision on two thousand phones, and an argument in every single case. That's impractical.

if I am in a combat zone and get a chance to call home and give my wife or kiddos a shout I should be able to do it.I don't think that's the issue. I think the issue is phones at school, not you in a combat zone. And if one of my kiddos is having separation anxiety and needs to call me because I have been away for 6 months, then they had better be able to call.At school? Izzat really the only, or the best, time to call you in a combat zone? How 'bout if you're on an ambush and your cell phone rings? Sorta gives you away, dunnit?

The school certainly needs to exercise some discretion in its policy, but there's nothing basically wrong with the policy. Kids use phones at school for all manner of inappropriate things, most designed to disrupt. Even in a combat zone you can arrange to call your kid at a better time than while he's in school. If it really were a hard thing to arrange I could understand calling whenever you could; but it's just not that hard to do.

[Deagle]

How on earth did we manage without cell phones? :-)

[DesertFox]

I know how we managed without cell phones, but I can't even remember how I ever got anything done without a computer.

[Deagle]

I know how we managed without cell phones, but I can't even remember how I ever got anything done without a computer. I hear ya! I am so dependant on computers that I have 5 (no kidding!) in my home and 2 at work.

[The_Elucidator]

Don't think I've ever disagreed with Luc about anything before.

You have policy to deal with the big majority of cases. What you're calling for is a case by case decision on two thousand phones, and an argument in every single case. That's impractical.

I don't think that's the issue. I think the issue is phones at school, not you in a combat zone. At school? Izzat really the only, or the best, time to call you in a combat zone? How 'bout if you're on an ambush and your cell phone rings? Sorta gives you away, dunnit?

The school certainly needs to exercise some discretion in its policy, but there's nothing basically wrong with the policy. Kids use phones at school for all manner of inappropriate things, most designed to disrupt. Even in a combat zone you can arrange to call your kid at a better time than while he's in school. If it really were a hard thing to arrange I could understand calling whenever you could; but it's just not that hard to do.

That's ok boss, I knew I would be disagreed with. :thumb:

[DesertFox]

:D

[Suzie]

I would agree if this hadn't been an ARRANGED call. If it were a random call it would be understandable. But the mother had ASKED the father to call. Policies like this aren't just put in place without people being notified. The mother could have, and should have, kept the boy home from school so that she would be sure that he was available to take the call. But the child was still breaking the rules having the phone there in the first place.

That would also depend on when he gets the chance again. If she knew right at that moment she was talking to him he would be able to call. I have been talking to my husband knowing that I might not be able to again for quite a while and told him his mom wanted him to call so we keep our conversation shorter to give him time while he was somewhere that he could call to call her.

This isn't as easy as some of you seem to think. You take what you can get when you can get it. You can't schedule phone calls unless you have a desk job on a base.

[DesertFox]

It isn't really all that hard, either, Sooz. Everybody's got a buddy with a desk job on a base.

Still, as I've said, I think the real issue here is inflexible policy.

[Suzie]

It isn't really all that hard, either, Sooz. Everybody's got a buddy with a desk job on a base.

To me, as I've said, the real issue here is inflexible policy.

And once again I say it depends on what kind of unit he is in. Some units ANY communications they have are monitored and you have to be at certain facilities to even make the call and it's in a room where you know it's being listened to. If they say something they shouldn't say it's cut off. My husband almost had one kid sent home for saying something he shouldn't have, they did let him stay but he was busted a rank for it.

[Trance]

I agree that children in school should not have cell phones, but a father is serving his country and calling his son, and who knows when or even if (God forbid) he ever sees his father again.

I say cut the kid some leeway.

[DesertFox]

And once again I say it depends on what kind of unit he is in. Some units ANY communications they have are monitored and you have to be at certain facilities to even make the call and it's in a room where you know it's being listened to. If they say something they shouldn't say it's cut off. My husband almost had one kid sent home for saying something he shouldn't have, they did let him stay but he was busted a rank for it.But none of that's the issue we were discussing. In context, we were discussing whether a call can be made with reasonable effort. It can. I don't know how many phone calls I've had listened in on to ensure I wasn't spilling any beans. Didn't stop me from telling my kids I luvved 'em or discussing their teacher or the dawg or any of the stuff you talk about with your kids.

[gnome]

With the knowledge of the policy against cell phones, it would have made sense for the parent to contact the school in advance and advise them of the situation. Punish the kid for that? No, don't think so.

[Suzie]

But none of that's the issue we were discussing. In context, we were discussing whether a call can be made with reasonable effort. It can. I don't know how many phone calls I've had listened in on to ensure I wasn't spilling any beans. Didn't stop me from telling my kids I luvved 'em or discussing their teacher or the dawg or any of the stuff you talk about with your kids.

It matters if that soldier can only be taken to a certain area set up for units like them to call/email with those restrictions in place to have that extra security. Not all troops have to do this ... but some do. And they don't get to do it often.

[DeclinetoState]

I can remember most things that we take for granted that didn't exist at some time in my life (cell phones, computers, the Internet, etc.). However, the great technological breakthrough that I can't imagine ever living without is toilet paper.

Think about it.

[Beowulf]

How on earth did we manage without cell phones? :-)


I always have and still do! I know that if I had one, I'd never be left alone. Mrs. Beo has one of the pre-paid jobs and she knows she will get yelled at if I find out she's been talking and driving.
As I said before, people need classes in cell phone etiquette, like to NOT use them in a crowded restaurant!!

[LivingDeadGirl]

With the knowledge of the policy against cell phones, it would have made sense for the parent to contact the school in advance and advise them of the situation. Punish the kid for that? No, don't think so.
Exactly!! It seems that the mother was in rather "instant" contact w/the dad...she could have found out when he was going to call and let the school know.

[LivingDeadGirl]

I always have and still do! I know that if I had one, I'd never be left alone. Mrs. Beo has one of the pre-paid jobs and she knows she will get yelled at if I find out she's been talking and driving.
As I said before, people need classes in cell phone etiquette, like to NOT use them in a crowded restaurant!!

AMEN!!!

I was once in Victoria's Secret shopping w/a girl friend of mine and there was a guy outside the store talking on his cell phone about the Illini. He was so loud we could hear him in the back of the store. Needless to say it's more than a little awkward to be shopping for frilly things when you can hear some guy you don't know discussing basketball scores at the top of his lungs. I kept expecting to turn around and him be right behind us...and he was creepy.

[PrezLeefun]

While I sympathize with this kid, no cell phones means no cell phones. There are rules and you are supposed to follow them. Its pretty simple.