Foul-mouthed teen may go to jail

Casshew

Former Member
Joined
Aug 13, 2003
Messages
27,884
Reaction score
88
WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) — A teenager may go to jail for using foul language with a high school teacher.
Glenn Gattis and his parents don't deny that he cursed or has had other disciplinary problems at Ashley High School. But they say the misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct is an overreaction.

The 17-year-old Gattis says he became frustrated and used bad language when he got in trouble for being late to class again. He said he was ultimately stopped by deputies working as school resource officers, who gave him a citation for using language meant to provoke violence. He was also suspended for three days.

Gattis' mother, Judy Lewis, said she could understand if her son had to serve detention at school. But he could get up to 30 days in jail.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2004-10-11-teen-jail_x.htm
 
That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard about. Make the kid ineligible for certain jobs because of THIS???? Surely, these "adults" can come up with a more intelligent way of dealing with this situation? :slap:
 
Picture it: 32 students in the classroom; a student walks into class tardy; the teacher says, "Mr. Gattis, that is your third tardy." At this time Mr. Gattis cuts loose with the filthiest language imaginable. He refuses to sit down and continues with the vitriolic tirade making teaching, learning, even thinking impossible. The teacher calls for back-up using the emergency button because an angry student on a verbal rampage may become physically violent. The teacher's first duty is to the other students in that class who may or may not be in danger.
Was I there? No. Has it happened to me with other students? Yes. My guess is that this young man has a history of similar behaviors. Arresting students does not happen often. (I wish it did.) Students in my school who do bodily harm to others are never arrested unless they already have parole/probation officers. Keep in mind that this was a high school student(17), not a fifth grader. I teach eleventh and twelfth grades. Most of my students are much larger than I am.
Odds are the misdemeanor charge will be expunged or sealed (assuming a conviction occurs) upon satisfactory completion of probation &/or community service.
On another note, a student against whom I pressed charges when he was a ninth grader for vandalizing my car bought me flowers for his graduation and hugged me for turning him in...He said he was headed down the wrong road and the law forced him to take a long look at himself. He's now a sophomore in college and doing great. Sometimes the lessons teachers teach are not part of the state-mandated objectives for a course.
Please excuse the long-winded reply. This is one of those topics about which I am passionate! :)
 
Pandora, if what you posted had occurred, then I'd be right behind you in your opinion. However, what I took from this:

He said he was ultimately stopped by deputies working as school resource officers, who gave him a citation for using language meant to provoke violence. He was also suspended for three days.


doesn't get me from point "A" to point "B." There's a lot of wiggle room between what you posted and what was in that article. Maybe more information will come to light in the future, but for now, I still think it was too harsh.
 
Looks like they made a federal case of it. Keep it simple, a couple days of detention or cleaning grafitti off schoold bldg.s then let him back in.
 
Pandora said:
Picture it: 32 students in the classroom; a student walks into class tardy; the teacher says, "Mr. Gattis, that is your third tardy." At this time Mr. Gattis cuts loose with the filthiest language imaginable. He refuses to sit down and continues with the vitriolic tirade making teaching, learning, even thinking impossible. The teacher calls for back-up using the emergency button because an angry student on a verbal rampage may become physically violent. The teacher's first duty is to the other students in that class who may or may not be in danger.
Was I there? No. Has it happened to me with other students? Yes. My guess is that this young man has a history of similar behaviors. Arresting students does not happen often. (I wish it did.) Students in my school who do bodily harm to others are never arrested unless they already have parole/probation officers. Keep in mind that this was a high school student(17), not a fifth grader. I teach eleventh and twelfth grades. Most of my students are much larger than I am.
Odds are the misdemeanor charge will be expunged or sealed (assuming a conviction occurs) upon satisfactory completion of probation &/or community service.
On another note, a student against whom I pressed charges when he was a ninth grader for vandalizing my car bought me flowers for his graduation and hugged me for turning him in...He said he was headed down the wrong road and the law forced him to take a long look at himself. He's now a sophomore in college and doing great. Sometimes the lessons teachers teach are not part of the state-mandated objectives for a course.
Please excuse the long-winded reply. This is one of those topics about which I am passionate! :)
I also was not in the classroom but do live in the immediate area. The kid and some of the other students were on the local news this morning. If what you discribe in your post happened I could understand a more aggresive approach to handling the student but that is not the case here.

The kid did have two other tardies and 3 tardies here equals an absence that most likely will have to be made up after school or on a Saturday. (Sure, his fault) He said, "this is bull$hit" and he used the word B*tch. He did not disrupt the whole class. He did not refuse to sit down or pose a danger in anyway. The teacher did more to disrupt the class by over reacting.

Agreed, he should be punished but he should not aquire a criminal record over it. Suspension should have been sufficient in his case because like I stated above, that absense would need to be made up and he would accumulate more absenses with the suspension that he would have to make up. It wouldnt be an easy task for him and most likely would have curbed his mouth in the future. There are usually two kinds of kids when it comes to cursing, the caught and the un-caught. He was the caught and the teacher and school are going over-board with this one.
 
Thanks for the info!! I agree with you wholeheartedly. These days, schools expect children to be robots. They have emotions -- in fact they have more than their share of emotions. They're going through way more than their parents ever did in school. The schedules that some of these kids have to keep would wipe most of us adults out. My son, whose in the 6th grade, gets up at 6:00 a.m., is at school by 7:30/7:40 a.m., released at 3:30 p.m., band practice, soccer or baseball practice or game(s), homework, dinner, shower, bed at 9:30 p.m. He gets less than 30 minutes for lunch. They get less than 30 minutes outside for recess. That is a full schedule for anyone. Next year in junior high school it will increase and I don't even want to think about high school and then a full load at college. They've already got him thinking about college and scholarships and he's got a lot on his plate. If the most a kid does to "disrupt" school is say a couple of curse words, then I think a couple of afternoons in detention is a big enough punishment.
 

Members online

Online statistics

Members online
150
Guests online
918
Total visitors
1,068

Forum statistics

Threads
589,931
Messages
17,927,844
Members
228,004
Latest member
CarpSleuth
Back
Top