Grissom student expelled for punching teacher, 3 students suspended in separate fight

[trailblazer11]

Oh, those options are only offered at SOME schools, and many of the classes are just add-ons for the regular teachers and they don't put any effort into teaching these specialty courses.
I wanted to take a Networking class and German at HHS last year, but discovered both of those were only offered at Grissom (which is also why Grissom's CyberPatriot team is better than ours). I also wanted to take Law and Society because I felt it would be interesting and useful in the real world, but discovered it was more of a "dump class" that counselors put students who didn't list any electives in. The extracurricular offerings vary from school to school, which makes me mad- why do I not have the same opportunities as a student at another high school in the system? If they can't offer it at every school, then why offer it at all?
Also, I find it interesting that Grissom seems to be the only high school ever in the news. Given, the gun incident absolutely deserved news coverage, but HHS had FOUR fights last week and not even a peep. We usually don't have that many fights in a year. There's also rampant drug use and solid rumors that Oxycodone and Adderall is going through the Freshman Academy. I feel like Grissom is constantly trashed for things that are just as bad at other schools- is it because our news stations want to keep HHS with its "good-boy" image?

[dijkstra]

Hmmmm, they redraw districts and move kids to unfamiliar surroundings in a new school away from long time friends and tensions rise. Now some of the schools are having disciplinary problems. Shocker.....who didn't see this coming?

[hey teach]

With all the publicity about the recent events at Grissom, we should ask "would the public have been informed about the situation if students had not leaked video of the incidents to the local news stations?"

Had the local news not received the video from students the entire episode would have been swept under the rug as many other episodes have been in HCS.

There was a large uprising at Johnson recently and additional HPD officers had to intervene, several students supposedly were taken into custody. We didn't hear anything about that.

An elementary teacher was assaulted last year, it was glossed over with no repercussions to the students or their parents.

With the current Code of Conduct, it will only get worse.

[trailblazer11]

Y'all were lucky to have seen that video. We've always been told that you get suspended if you pubish a video of ANY altercations, and they'll usually take your phone and wipe it when they find out about the video. Nintey percent of fights are indeed swept under the rug, with the only evidence of it on the hallway security cameras.

[writerwife]

Originally Posted by trailblazer11

Y'all were lucky to have seen that video. We've always been told that you get suspended if you pubish a video of ANY altercations, and they'll usually take your phone and wipe it when they find out about the video. Nintey percent of fights are indeed swept under the rug, with the only evidence of it on the hallway security cameras.

Is it legal for them to take your phone and wipe it?

[RatSnake]

Did these kids come from other districts?
Part of the 'de-segregation' program?

[trailblazer11]

This is from the ALCU (source:https://aclu-wa.org/student-rights-a...ton-state#IIIC)

"If school policy forbids having cell phones at school, then the school can take your cell phone until the end of the school day. But even if the phone is confiscated, your school does not have a right to read, copy, or search its contents.
A school can search a cell phone only if it has reasonable, individualized suspicion that you personally broke a specific school rule. The search must be reasonable and must be limited to content that is reasonably necessary to confirm or dispel the suspicion of wrongdoing. The search must stop once the suspicion has been dispelled.
If a school official asks for permission to search your phone, you do not have to consent"

But if we don't consent, they'll punish us anyways- we're minors, and even if we have rights while at school, we get punished for "defiance" if we voice those rights. Kids whose parents aren't involved in their education are victims of BS charges and punishments by administrators.

I don't know why they go to such lengths to cover up even the most petty of fights- they can happen anytime at any school in America, and everyone knows that. I also think parents have the right to know what's going on in their child's school from a safety standpoint. If the administration constantly sweeps incidences under the rug, what does that say about their integrity and competency to handle situations?

[pkbab5]

Originally Posted by RatSnake

Did these kids come from other districts?
Part of the 'de-segregation' program?

I saw an unedited video. The video starts with the videographer walking down the hall towards the "fight" area, before the fight begins, as if the videographer heard there was going to be a fight and turned the phone on and went to look.


You can see a large African-American guy with a short "fro" type hairstyle take off a sweatshirt, to reveal a green shirt underneath. He walks up to two white guys, one in a red shirt and one in an "Alabama" shirt, and there is another African American girl wearing some sort of black scarf in her hair standing next to them. The body language of the white guys look like they are standing there waiting for the green shirt guy to come confront them. When green shirt guy gets there, he gets "in the face" of red shirt guy and starts yelling obscenities at him, moving his arms in the "step off" motion several times. He keeps stepping forward towards red shirt guy with "you wanna fight?" body language, and red shirt guy keeps stepping back with "I'm getting mad but I'm going to let you say your peace" body language. The girl moves over to the side of green shirt guy with "see these are the guys I was telling you about" body language. There is a lot of yelling from bystanders at this point and it's difficult to hear anything green shirt guy is saying besides the obscenities.


At this point two teachers intervene and try to break it off. One teacher is a white female and one teacher is an African American male. They almost succeed, as everyone starts walking in different directions. Then it looks as if whatever green shirt guy was saying finally got to red shirt guy, because all of a sudden red shirt guy yells something, punches the door/wall in anger, then turns around and comes barreling back at green shirt guy. Black scarf girl jumps on red shirt guy before he can get to green shirt guy, and they go down to the floor, where black scarf girl starts pummeling red shirt guy. Red shirt guy manages to roll out from under the her and you can see him run off. Green shirt guy, meanwhile, has gone after Alabama shirt guy. He pummels Alabama shirt guy for quite a while, albeit standing up, with Alabama shirt guy alternating between trying to defend himself and trying to get away, and green shirt guy keeps chasing him to hit at him some more. Black scarf girl also chases, trying to get in some hits as well.


During the scuffle, the African American teacher continues to try to intervene, but the green shirt guy is rather larger than him and is able to brush him off several times. Many students can be seen filming the encounter with their phones. The white teacher, who is rather petite, appears to have gone to get help. Finally, a second larger African American teacher rushes in and manages to pin green shirt guy against a door, and the first African American teacher pins Alabama shirt guy into a corner. Then a third teacher comes by telling everyone to get to class. It is not shown what happens to black scarf girl.


Those are the facts according to the video I saw.


I do not know if the kids involved were new kids to the school being bussed in. But from the video it looks like the instigators were African American and the defenders were white. But it also appears at first glance that the fight was over some sort of previous slight done to the African American girl by the white guys, and it looks like the white guy was the first one to actually escalate to physical violence.

[unlblkrubi]

The parents of the kids fighting can now use the video for suing the teachers that layed hands on their precious little innocent kids.

[maillemaker]

This year at Providence we got a new Student Handbook. It specifically states that there is now a push to keep problem kids in school rather than suspend or expel them. Of course the reasoning is sound - these kids will simply view the punishment as a vacation and it hurts their educational outcomes. Of course the side-effect is you now have bad apples kept in circulation and it compromises the education of everyone else.