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Posted by: kwflatbed

Boy's Mother Outraged At School Officials

BROCKTON, Mass. -- A Brockton first-grader was suspended from school for three days last month after school officials said that he sexually harassed a girl in his class.


NewsCenter 5's Jim Boyd reported Tuesday that officials at the Downey Elementary School called the boy's mother, Berthena Dorinvil, on Jan. 30, and asked her to pick up her child from the school. Dorinvil said that officials told her that her son was being suspended for sexually harassing a 6-year-old female classmate.


"My son told me that the girl touched him first, so he touched her back," Dorinvil said. "I was shocked. I was crying. I was out of control," Dorinvil said.




School officials would not speak on camera, and police officers were posted at the school Tuesday afternoon. The school superintendent released a statement that said, "The safety and well-being of Brockton public school students and staff is of the utmost important to us, and we take all allegations of sexual harassment seriously."

Dorinvil has asked school officials to transfer her son to another school, but officials have not agreed to her request.

"When he comes home, he says, 'Mommy, are police going to arrest me?' I can't even make a phone call without him (asking) who I am speaking to. He is very frustrated because he is a very emotional kid. It bothers me so much to see my son go through this," Dorinvil said. Copyright 2006 by TheBostonChannel. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Posted by: Pvt. Cowboy

Guess they were playing doctor...

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Posted by: MSP75

This PC crap is getting way out of hand!!! What next? Will the game of tag be banned? Oh yeah, it already is.

School Says Game of Tag Is Out

Thursday, June 20, 2002

By Anita Vogel



SANTA MONICA — A Santa Monica elementary school has banned the game of tag, once synonymous with youth and innocence, because they say it creates self-esteem issues among weaker and slower children.

"We had some children who were not playing 'it' appropriately. How do you differentiate between those that are playing correctly and those that aren't?" asked Franklin Elementary School Principal Pat Samarge.

In the school's weekly newsletter, Samarge told parents that without adult supervision, the game would be banned. The principal said children playing tag suffered both physical and emotional injuries.

"Little kids were coming in and saying 'I don't like it.' [The] children weren't feeling good about it," Samarge said.

Dr. Judy Young, executive director of the National Association for Sport and Physical Education, disagreed with Samarge, saying that games like tag "are organized to have a winner and a loser," which is simply a part of life.

"Self-esteem should not be imbedded in whether you win or lose a game," Young said.

Tamara Silver, a parent of a fifth-grader at Franklin Elementary School, said the school sent her two letters informing her of the new rules. The second letter cited safety concerns, not issues of self-image, to justify the tag ban.

"I want my child to know that he can have some freedom," Silver said. "I want my child to know he can play. I want my child to know that he can fall down and skin his knee."

Fox News' Alec Melman contributed to this report.

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Posted by: topcop14

Quote:

Originally Posted by MSP75 This PC crap is getting way out of hand!!! What next? Will the game of tag be banned? Oh yeah, it already is. School Says Game of Tag Is Out

Does that mean no more smear the queer?

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Posted by: Nachtwächter

6-year-old predator?

Brockton harassment charge defies common sense




It might have been a case of good intentions gone awry, but the decision of Brockton school officials to bring the full force of the law down on a first-grader for alleged sexual harassment was misguided on just about every level.

Absent a pattern of sexual touching or harassment — neither of which has been alleged — suspending a child who barely has attained the age of reason and reporting the allegations to the district attorney’s office constitutes disciplinary overkill that is difficult to understand — even in this liability-averse, litigious society.

Just what happened is disputed. School officials said a girl in the boy’s class told the teacher he had put two fingers inside the waistband of her pants. His mother said he told her he touched the girl’s blouse after she touched him.

In either case, what occurred did not appear to fall under the school district’s own definition of sexual harassment: “repeated, unwanted, or unwelcome verbalisms or behaviors of a sexist nature. …”

And it certainly it did not call for involvement of local police and the district attorney.

Education in the early grades is, by the very nature of young children, partly about socialization. Inevitably, there are times when 5-, 6- and 7-year-olds act inappropriately — fidgeting, poking, disturbing the class, teasing. Children of this age need to be corrected on inappropriate behavior and instructed in good behavior.

To turn this incident into a criminal case trivializes actual sexual harassment and could well scar both children involved. Schools are responsible for protecting the children in their care, but that doesn’t mean common sense should go out the window.

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Posted by: Nachtwächter

[quote=MSP75]This PC crap is getting way out of hand!!! What next? Will the game of tag be banned? Oh yeah, it already is.

Dodge ball went away a while ago, perhaps Chess will be the only sport left.

“Increasingly, Schools Move To Restrict Dodgeball." [Article].

New York Times. May 6, 2001



If students in Peter Heuberger's grade school gym class had their way, the weekly dodgeball game would be a daily event.

''We use dodgeball as an end-of-class activity,'' Mr. Heuberger, a physical education teacher at the Charlestown Elementary School in Cecil County, Md., said recently. ''The kids love it. They would play it every day if they could.''

But what was once shrugged off as a harmless game is now considered aggressive, unwholesome and a cause of injuries by some school administrators. So in school districts like Mr. Heuberger's, in the northeast corner of Maryland, officials have discouraged, limited or even banned the game.

Dodgeball pits teams of opposing players throwing balls at one another in a contest of elimination. The last player to avoid being hit is the winner. Sometimes the game is called bombardment, killer ball or even murder ball. And that bothers the critics.

''This is something that should not be used in today's classroom, especially in today's society,'' Diane Farr, a curriculum specialist in Austin, Tex., said. The Austin Independent School District, where Ms. Farr works, banned dodgeball more than two years ago.

''With Columbine and all the violence that we are having, we have to be very careful with how we teach our children,'' Ms. Farr said, referring to recent school shootings, including the one in April 1999 near Littleton, Colo., in which two teenagers killed 12 students and a teacher and then killed themselves.

Austin's school system may have been the first in the nation to ban dodgeball.

School districts in Fairfax County, Va.; Oslo, Fla.; and on Long Island, as well as a number of districts in Maine and Massachusetts, have formally or informally limited the kinds of games that students may play. In Mr. Heuberger's district in Maryland, officials have discouraged ''human target'' sports, including football, but not banned them.

As early as 1986, the journal Physical Education, Recreation and Dance published an article titled ''Premeditated Murder: Let's Bump Off Killer Ball,'' which denounced sports of elimination. And in 1992, Neil F. Williams, now a physical education professor at Eastern Connecticut State University, placed dodgeball in the Physical Education Hall of Shame, a list of gym activities that he suggested could damage children emotionally. The list included duck-duck-goose and musical chairs.

Paula Kun, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Sport and Physical Education in Reston, Va., said: ''There is a place in this world for dodgeball, like birthday parties and picnics. But we do not believe it belongs in a quality physical education program.''

The game's advocates, however, are not waiting to be picked off. In Schaumburg, Ill., the National Amateur Dodgeball Association holds tournaments for youths and adults.

''To even question dodgeball is silly,'' Rick Hanetho, the association's director, said.

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Posted by: EOD1

Quote:

Originally Posted by topcop14 Does that mean no more smear the queer?

now u can do still play, its just called tackle the hetro handicapped

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