Parents of 15 yo Michigan shooter sentenced to prison terms

[Corraleno]

20 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

* not bolding social promotion only because the kid was in kindergarten so it hadn't come up yet in this particular case

Actually social promotion may have played a role here, because the child was expelled from kindergarten the previous year after choking his teacher and another student, and the parent supposedly put him in a preschool or daycare for the rest of the year, so he never finished kindergarten. Yet he was put in a regular 1st grade classroom the next year, with minimal supports even though Zwerner said he was way behind the other students, which was likely a cause of frustration for him.

[Pam in CT]

28 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

Actually social promotion may have played a role here, because the child was expelled from kindergarten the previous year after choking his teacher and another student, and the parent supposedly put him in a preschool or daycare for the rest of the year, so he never finished kindergarten. Yet he was put in a regular 1st grade classroom the next year, with minimal supports even though Zwerner said he was way behind the other students, which was likely a cause of frustration for him.

TY - I'd missed that.

[SKL]

I wonder if schools are under the impression that they aren't allowed to search students.

It's been such a fuss in the news at times.

[ScoutTN]

7 minutes ago, SKL said:

I wonder if schools are under the impression that they aren't allowed to search students.

It's been such a fuss in the news at times.

It is explicitly stated in our public charter school annual documents that the school has the right to search the student and his belongings (locker, desk, backpack, computer) at any time and without notice. I know the same rules apply at our zoned schools.
 

Maybe this varies by state or school district? 

[Heartstrings]

2 hours ago, Corraleno said:

Yet he was put in a regular 1st grade classroom the next year, with minimal supports even though Zwerner said he was way behind the other students, which was likely a cause of frustration for him.

I think this is a point that gets missed in so much of the discussion around school violence and just school misbehavior.  We are forcing kids into hours of daily frustration by placing them improperly grade level-wise, without the correct supports in place. Then we(as in society) are shocked when kids act out, aggressively in some instances.  It's like no one who works in or around schools has ever met a child, or even just another human.  Popeye was really on to something in the human psyche with his "I've taken all I can takes and I can't takes no more".   We have to stop trying to force children into inappropriate situations and then acting shocked that they act out in various ways.  

[Terabith]

1 hour ago, Heartstrings said:

I think this is a point that gets missed in so much of the discussion around school violence and just school misbehavior.  We are forcing kids into hours of daily frustration by placing them improperly grade level-wise, without the correct supports in place. Then we(as in society) are shocked when kids act out, aggressively in some instances.  It's like no one who works in or around schools has ever met a child, or even just another human.  Popeye was really on to something in the human psyche with his "I've taken all I can takes and I can't takes no more".   We have to stop trying to force children into inappropriate situations and then acting shocked that they act out in various ways.  

This is especially relevant because the expectations in K-3 are so incredibly developmentally inappropriate, in terms of sitting and writing and reading. I was student teaching in a first grade class, and I was literally speechless at the expectations. “Oh, you have put forth tons of effort and finished writing numbers from 1-100?  No, you absolutely cannot play or read a book or draw!  How dare you ask that!  You are to keep writing 1-100 over and over until the time is over!”  Or, “You’re not finished with your spelling because every line drawing on the paper hasn’t been colored “correctly.”

[Corraleno]

4 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

I hadn’t known any of this.    That makes it all so much worse.   

The mental image of the child in the office, crying hysterically while crouched in the corner behind the photocopier, absolutely haunts me. I'm sure the children in the classroom who witnessed the shooting are traumatized, too, but at least the other teachers immediately took them in and comforted them and made sure they knew they were safe. The child in the office had no idea what was happening, how many people were hurt, whether the blood-soaked teacher on the floor a few feet away was dead or alive, or whether the shooter might come bursting into the office at any second. I can't even imagine the level of terror of a small child left entirely alone as administrators locked themselves in their offices and the only other adult in the room was a random stranger desperately tending to the unconscious victim.

I imagine that image had an impact on the grand jury, too, and probably contributed to their decision to indict Parker, because it shows a level of callousness that is just unfathomable to me.

[Faith-manor]

31 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

The mental image of the child in the office, crying hysterically while crouched in the corner behind the photocopier, absolutely haunts me. I'm sure the children in the classroom who witnessed the shooting are traumatized, too, but at least the other teachers immediately took them in and comforted them and made sure they knew they were safe. The child in the office had no idea what was happening, how many people were hurt, whether the blood-soaked teacher on the floor a few feet away was dead or alive, or whether the shooter might come bursting into the office at any second. I can't even imagine the level of terror of a small child left entirely alone as administrators locked themselves in their offices and the only other adult in the room was a random stranger desperately tending to the unconscious victim.

I imagine that image had an impact on the grand jury, too, and probably contributed to their decision to indict Parker, because it shows a level of callousness that is just unfathomable to me.

To be honest with you, I feel like our society has deteriorated to the point that not only have we demonstrated school is not safe for anyone, and it also is massive source of abuse and trauma. I don't blame the teachers because all of this abusive crap is dictated to them in pain of job loss. They do not have any agency. The elephant in the room is that children would probably be better off not attending. Gen Alpha is going to be so riddled with PTSD that they aren't going to be functional. Since the Oxford shooting, the number of parents reporting their kids - in my district which as yet has not had a shooting but has had credible threats so it is likely a when, not if situation - are having major mental health issues, nightmares, gastro intensinal distress, stress migraines, bouts of uncontrollable crying, mounting phobias, anxiety, OCD, total distrust of all adults, survival mentality. For them, school is a no man's land and the fact that their parents keep making them go has made them feel deeply betrayed, as if their parents truly do not care what happens to them. 

 

[Katy]

Social promotion is a policy at my kids district because, “there is no evidence that holding kids back helps.” Ie: they argue that holding children to be accountable to entirely inappropriate standards will only make them feel inadequate to learn anything and drop out. Which will lower district ratings and also make a very crowded and rapidly growing district population more difficult to predict. 

This led to a large minority of teachers to open enroll their own children to a different district to force a “redshirt” against district policy. Once the child has enrolled in K in another district, they can transfer back and our district is forced to keep them in their current grade by state law. Honestly if I’d known any of this I would have done the same for my 5 & 6 year olds. The standards are ridiculous. Even the teachers agree it isn’t age appropriate in any way. At any rate, next year there is at least one in-school, full day alternative kindergarten class in every elementary because the district was losing so much money to a neighboring district that had to offer a more age-appropriate program. And that’s after forcing summer and early fall birthdays to enroll at 4. Neither of my younger kids will be 18 before they graduate. 

[ScoutTN]

5 hours ago, Terabith said:

This is especially relevant because the expectations in K-3 are so incredibly developmentally inappropriate, in terms of sitting and writing and reading. I was student teaching in a first grade class, and I was literally speechless at the expectations. “Oh, you have put forth tons of effort and finished writing numbers from 1-100?  No, you absolutely cannot play or read a book or draw!  How dare you ask that!  You are to keep writing 1-100 over and over until the time is over!”  Or, “You’re not finished with your spelling because every line drawing on the paper hasn’t been colored “correctly.”

Exactly. 
Partly why we homeschooled! 

[ktgrok]

10 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

I know at one my point my husband tried to “prove” to me that our 3 or 4 year old at the time wasn’t strong enough to pull back the thingy to chamber a bullet on the hand gun and was truly shocked and upset to find that he could in fact do it, easily and pretty much knew how without much instruction because it’s fairly intuitive.  He had to rethink a lot that day.  

Wow - I'm a full grown adult and I struggle to rack the slide to chamber a round on a semi automatic hand gun. I can't fathom a preschooler doing it. All I can think is that we are talking about very different guns! (ours are locked up in a biometric safe, ammo in a different safe, also locked up, and on a very high shelf in my husband's office - so I never counted on a child not being able to  - but I'm still surprised)

[Heartstrings]

4 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

Wow - I'm a full grown adult and I struggle to rack the slide to chamber a round on a semi automatic hand gun. I can't fathom a preschooler doing it. All I can think is that we are talking about very different guns! (ours are locked up in a biometric safe, ammo in a different safe, also locked up, and on a very high shelf in my husband's office - so I never counted on a child not being able to  - but I'm still surprised)

I couldn’t tell you what kind it is, or was. I’m not sure if the one we have now is the same one.  The guns are his thing.  I know that I struggle with some guns because my wrists are incredibly weak, but some I can handle.  It was a pretty strong preschooler though!  He was a Mighty Mouse type kid.  
There are 100s of accidents every year where little kids accidentally shoot people with guns so some guns must be operational by tiny ones.  

Edited April 12 by Heartstrings

[ktgrok]

2 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

I couldn’t tell you what kind it is, or was. I’m not sure if the one we have no is the same one.  The guns are his thing.  There are 100s of accidents every year where little kids accidentally shoot people with guns so some guns must be operational by tiny ones.  

I know a LOT of people keep a round chambered - they store it with a bullet ready to go. To me that's terrifying and I assumed in most cases that is what happened. I think it's insane - people say it is because there maynot be time in an emergency to rack the slide and chamber it. I figure it you don't have time to rack the slide you don't have time to make a decision on if you should shoot. 

I'm sure you are right though, that some are easier than others. 

Edited April 12 by ktgrok