I suppose we can expect more of this knee jerk reaction and suspension of students across the nation as if it will somehow "make us all safer".

Why are people so ignorant to believe you can "legislate or ban evil away"

Story follows:


Boca high-schooler suspended for year over threats
Click-2-Listen
By Christina DeNardo

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Thursday, April 19, 2007

UPDATED: 8:24 p.m. April 19, 2007

BOCA RATON — A Spanish River High senior won't be returning to school this year after making negative comments directed at his classmates on Tuesday, school officials said.

Superintendent Art Johnson said the school's principal told him that the student pointed to classmates in a photo and made remarks such as "I like this one" and "I don't like this one." [WOW, THAT'S SOME SCARY SHIT!!!]


The remarks prompted a police investigation and an agreement between the school and the student's family for the student not to return to campus, Johnson said.

It is not clear why such comments triggered a police investigation or prompted Principal Constance Tuman-Rugg to send an automated voice message about the incident to the homes of Spanish River's 2,124 students. Tuman-Rugg did not return repeated calls on Thursday.

Earlier in the day, district officials said the 18-year-old senior had made not just negative, but threatening remarks against classmates. But they would not specify the nature of the threats or who they were directed toward.

A voice message to parents of Spanish River High students on Wednesday also said that police had searched for a list, weapons or symbols during its investigation, indicating a serious threat was made. In the voice message, Tuman-Rugg acknowledged the heightened security concerns following this week's mass shooting at Virginia Tech University and today's anniversary of the Columbine attack.

Though Johnson later Thursday downplayed the student's comments and denied there were any threats, the principal promised to put additional officers at school today.

District officials, who cited juvenile privacy laws, have refused to release any police reports connected to the incident, though the student is legally an adult.

Officials' refusal to release details of the incident have prompted rumors and frustrated parents who suspect the school is trying to cover up a serious problem.

Since the Columbine shootings in 1999, schools across the country have taken a zero tolerance approach to student threats, and in some cases have attracted criticism for criminalizing student misbehavior. Kenneth Trump, a national school security expert, said school officials "foil plots" the days before the Columbine anniversary.

In St. Augustine on Thursday, a 14-year-old high school student was arrested for making e-mail threats that he would top the Virginia Tech massacre by killing 100 people. Officials found nothing in the boy's home that could be used for an attack. Still, the teenager was charged with a second-degree felony for the threat.

  Yep.  Only in our case "Goldsteins Book" will
be called "Unintended Consequences".

I'm sure if you said something to the effect of "I hate my classmates" today in school they would go into lockdown, call the police, suspend the student, offer 'counseling services' for the 'grieving students', and a whole laudry list of PC bullshit over a stupid comment.

But it's OK for students to publicly burn the President in effigy and shout "I hate Bush!".

... and you wonder why kids go crazy, with a surrealistic psycho thought-policed environment like that to go to school in.

So glad I'm out of our fucked up education system forever. Every time I read even a word about it I'm more glad.

Glad I am out of school, by the time I have kids I wonder what school be like? A liberal free zone,  I hope.

Quoted: ... and you wonder why kids go crazy, with a surrealistic psycho thought-policed environment like that to go to school in. So glad I'm out of our fucked up education system forever. Every time I read even a word about it I'm more glad.

Even the Viet cong couldnt get our own soldiers to turn on their fellow soldiers, gotta make you wonder what they're doing in school.

yet another reason I will happily work my fingers to the bone to put my kids in private school

Quoted: yet another reason I will happily work my fingers to the bone to put my kids in private school

Every time I see something like this I start to realize I'm going to have to work some serious OT to afford to put my kids in private school.  For right now I'm ok with public elementary, but by the time it's middle school...I'll be forking out the big bucks for private school.

Quoted: But it's OK for students to publicly burn the President in effigy and shout "I hate Bush!".

or mexican kids getting a pass on skipping school to protest in favor of illegal immigration and shout racial slurs and burn the american flag

"I like this one" and "I don't like this one."

Where is the Ohh noes, omgz animation. There had better be something more to the story than this.

Quoted: It is not clear why such comments triggered a police investigation or prompted Principal Constance Tuman-Rugg to send an automated voice message about the incident to the homes of Spanish River's 2,124 students. Tuman-Rugg did not return repeated calls on Thursday.

Been my personal experience that any female with the hyphenated last name doesn't have sense of a pissant.................      

Yeah but just remember that if the kid came to school with a gun and shot the place up, all the Monday morning quarterbacks would be telling you how all the signs were there and nobody did a thing.  Can't win.

Of course the kid's parents agreed that he shouldn't go back to school.  The administration labeled him a psychopath to the community.  Now if THAT won't make the kid an outcast, I don't know what will.  

I think the family has grounds for a suit.   By law the shool has to provide the student an education until he's 18, even if he is expelled.

Right now I'm in graduate school to become a school counselor.  Things like this make me second guess my career choice.  The schools scare a away a lot of moderates and conservatives who would like to work with kids and could make a good impact.

Quoted: "I like this one" and "I don't like this one." Where is the Ohh noes, omgz animation. There had better be something more to the story than this.

Well, kicking him out of school will keep him from returning to shoot the place up

Of course, I'm sure it's a gun free zone and he wouldn't dare enter with a gun.


I will say that before you decide to put all your money in private school, evaluate the schools that your child would go to.  Where I live, the schools are wonderful, and the high dollar private school, IMHO, is a piece of crap, money grabbing, diservice to the spoiled children that go there.

He is a senior? Last month of School? Does he still get his diploma?

Quoted: There had better be something more to the story than this.

yeah, the kid was probably commenting on the quality (or lack thereof) of the photography.

EDIT: stupid freakin typos

Here's the message sent to parents.....

phone message

Quoted: Here's the message sent to parents..... phone message

OK, so they had full cooperation from the student AND the parent, found out there was no problem, and than expelled him anyway?

That was my understanding, from listening to the message.

Also, since when has Mr. Roboto been a principal?