Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
High school students' writing screened for danger signs
Had Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho written his violence-laced plays Richard McBeef or Mr. Brownstone in a public high school classroom, a teacher would have been obligated to report it to school officials, parents, counselors and possibly police.
In Texas, K-12 public schools have a legal and ethical obligation to report threatening compositions on topics such as physical abuse, suicide and homicide. Even adults who grade student essays on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills are expected to flag such essays, and they've done so on hundreds of occasions already this year.
Though educators of younger students err on the side of caution — closely monitoring classroom journals and essays on the state assessment exam — higher education institutions typically have no policy in place to deal with threatening words penned in a creative writing or English class.
"The university has always been the place where ideas get tested and explored, and if they're bad ideas, discarded or called bad," said Doug Hesse, director of writing at the University of Denver. "But boy, it's a devilishly tricky line between inappropriate and appropriate."
Most universities have some formalized process for addressing students who show signs of being troubled, but creative writing is, after all, an art form that encourages self-expression and experimentation.
And student writing is what it is — the words of impressionable and still-maturing young adults, and "it can be problematic," said Robert E. Crafton, chair of the National Council of Teachers of English Committee Against Censorship.
Evidence of abuse
The legal safety net in place at public elementary, middle and high schools leaves little wiggle room for teachers to interpret their students' writings.State law requires that any state-licensed or certified professional — including teachers, doctors and nurses — who works with minors report any evidence of abuse to the appropriate law enforcement authorities, said Texas Education Agency spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson.
Texas also requires school districts to have a policy or code of conduct in place for dealing with violence or potentially violent situations.
"Sometimes we do get alerted through writings ... about something that's going on at home. It could be some sort of abuse issue," said Charlotte Davis, director of guidance and counseling for the Aldine Independent School District.
Counselors, in turn, will talk to the student to figure out what inspired the writing.
"You have to have some indication of abuse or neglect to turn it over to authorities," she said. "If a student is threatening to kill someone, you do notify the parents and police."
At the public school level, even writing on Texas' standardized exam is closely monitored by state officials. Exam graders flag so-called "outcry" essays on the TAKS when they come across disturbing content.
"We don't know if these children just have an active imagination or if these things are happening," Culbertson said.
Most of the "outcry" essays, 351, came from 10th- and 11th-graders, and 91 came from fourth- and seventh-graders, Culbertson said.
Context of writing
In the case of Cho, though his writing horrified his professors and classmates, it wasn't merely his works that caused him to be kicked out of a writing class, according to media reports.What matters is context — whether a violent story is an isolated case, how the student relates to peers and professors, and the severity and personalization of the message.
"You normally don't have a model student writing a horrendous piece that suggests trouble," said James Kastely, director of the creative writing program at the University of Houston.
Rarely will a single dark piece of writing raise alarms and warrant action, he said.
Kastely said professors and teacher's assistants in his program learn how to deal with disruptive students, although there's no clear policy on problems that come to light through writing assignments. Generally, a department head is notified, and counseling or other appropriate action is taken.
Expelled for writings
High school and college students have been expelled from schools across the country and even prosecuted for their writings. In 2003, two students were expelled from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco for their threatening writing. And students at high schools across the country have been punished, expelled or arrested for writing objectionable poetry and rap songs, and taking a stand against the Iraq war.Crafton said zero-tolerance policies are well-intended but problematic because the cases are rarely clear-cut.
Still, in the post-Columbine, post-Sept. 11 and now, post-Virginia Tech era — where safety and security sometimes trump free speech — there are some educators who prefer to be proactive and preventive.
"I'm not comfortable looking the other way in this day and age," Arizona State University associate professor G. Lynn Nelson said. "So I tell (students) early on in my writing classes that if you write something that's disturbing or personal I have to take that further because I see that as a cry for help."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source : http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4745656.html
Needville High School students to retake TAKS
NEEDVILLE — State education officials have approved a plan to let high school students whose TAKS tests burned up in a deliberately set fire to retake the exams, possibly as early as next week, officials said.
The test results were destroyed when the fire heavily damaged Needville High School early Monday in rural Fort Bend County. The tests were administered last week.
"Once we determine a date when they are actually going to conduct the testing, then we will ship those materials out to them," Texas Education Agency spokeswoman Suzanne Marchman said Tuesday.
Marchman said the tests could be sent to Needville at the end of this week so that ninth-, 10th-, and 11th-grade students could take the state-mandated exams sometime next week.
The Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills is an annual statewide standardized test used to measure student and school performance.
Classes for high schoolers will resume Monday with students going to school on a staggered schedule, said Needville Independent School District Superintendent Curtis Rhodes.
"With the classroom space that is available, we will just kind of double up and share the classrooms," Rhodes said.
Only 19 instructional days remain in the school year.
Rhodes said a dollar estimate on the damage has not been determined because insurance adjusters have not been able to go onto the property to examine the building.
He said investigators still have the smoky ruins cordoned off searching for evidence.
While school officials worked to find classroom space and get ready to restart instruction, fire investigators were following leads and clues in the case.
The blaze was first reported about 4:30 a.m. at the high school building just south of Needville along Texas 36. No one was injured, but a portion of the building was destroyed and other parts were damaged.
Fort Bend County Fire Marshal Vance Cooper said the fire was intentionally set and that it was ignited at two different locations.
Fire departments from 21 cities battled the flames. Firefighters quickly exhausted campus water tanks and had to shuttle tanker trucks about two miles to Needville to bring water to the site. The school buildings are located in the unincorporated part of the county where there is no regular water system and people usually get water from wells.
Rhodes said neighboring school districts have agreed to loan Needville ISD any needed materials or books lost in the fire.
Next year's school term starts Aug. 27, which gives officials almost three months to get ready.
"If there is anything good about a late school start, it's that it gives us another couple of weeks to bring in portable buildings," Rhodes said.
Anyone with information about the fire is asked to call Fort Bend County Crime Stoppers at 281-342-TIPS.
Source : http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4745943.html
Virginia Tech victims at a loss for justice
AP
Richmond, Virginia: Five years before last week's massacre at Virginia Tech, a deeply disturbed student went on a murderous rampage at the Appalachian School of Law, killing three and wounding three others.
Some victims and family members sued the law school and eventually settled for $1 million (Dh3.67 million). Similar lawsuits are virtually certain in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, but legal experts say it could be difficult to win damages.
The gunman in the law school shooting in Grundy, Virginia - graduate student Peter Odighizuwa -had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
Plaintiffs claimed in their $23 million lawsuit that school officials ignored a pattern of threats and disruptive behaviour that should have warned them Odighizuwa was dangerous. Sounds very much like a profile of Cho Seung-Hui.
However, there is one significant difference: While the Appalachian School of Law is a private institution, Virginia Tech is a state school and therefore enjoys a level of immunity.
How much immunity is a question that likely will be tested in court.
"When plaintiffs' lawyers get ahold of this, people may be surprised by their creativity," said Ashley Taylor, a former deputy attorney general who represented the state's colleges.
Sovereign immunity
The state, its institutions and employees are largely protected from civil lawsuits by "sovereign immunity" - a doctrine rooted in a tradition that allowed grievances against the king only if he said it was OK.
Virginia's government has waived sovereign immunity in a limited fashion through the Tort Claims Act, but it only permits damages of up to $100,000 for bodily injury caused by the state's negligence.
Source : http://www.gulfnews.com/world/U.S.A/10120691.html
Grenade prompts school evacuation near Fort Worth
SOUTHLAKE — A suburban Fort Worth elementary school was evacuated for more than an hour Tuesday after a fourth-grader showed up with a hand grenade, authorities said.
The grenade brought to Old Union Elementary School in Southlake still had the pin in it but appeared to be hollow, Carroll school district spokeswoman Julie Thannum said. A bomb squad removed the device from a classroom.
"The boy wasn't mad at anyone," Cpl. Mike Bedrich of the Southlake Department of Public Safety told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "He just thought it would be cool to bring it to school."
Source : http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4745919.html
