High-Tech High School Drama

What we have here is a failure to communicate...

Two weeks ago, I awoke to a frantic gmail chat from Ranae.  To sum:

Her sister, Anna, had been the target of a new facebook group that had sprung up over night.  The "I dislike Anna Strong" group was full of vitriolic comments explaining how much she was disliked.  Basically, the two girls got into it on instant messaging and decided to bring the whole world into their drama by being mean on facebook.  

As I later figured out, the truth is usually somewhere in the middle in a situation like this.

Another teacher saw the group, and posted for them to knock it off after I had already issued this warning:

"This takes "Mean Girls" to new heights.  Solve this by school tomorrow or I get involved."  Shortly after these warnings, the girls took down the site, but others sprung up in imitation.  I stopped reading the drama. 

The next day, a colleague, who is Anna's swim team coach, mentioned it to me and was very appalled that the mean girls would do this to Anna.  She said the other teacher who had posted on the site had told the Principal, and the girls were being called into the counselor's office over the whole ordeal.

Later that night, I had a nagging feeling that I didn't know enough about first amendment rights as they pertain to the Internet and schools monitoring such speech.  I remembered the two previous times where I have turned in students for facebook infringements on common sense (The I hate Mrs. Danner group; The Bad/Good about XHS.)  In both cases, the Principal simply talked to the offending parties and asked them to take them down.  The kids obliged.  End of Story.

But is it?  Do students have the right to free speech on social networking sites?  Do schools have the authority to monitor student comments on them? 

Then, my way-back machine-like memory kicked in...I was a definite trendsetter with the XHS Planet X forum back in my first and second year -- young wannabe journalists would sound off on topics of their choosing and a culture was born.  BUT, the administration got uncomfortable when it was a school-hosted site and when the parent of a teen who committed suicide heard kids were discussing her son's death on the site protested.


So I've been on both sides of the proverbial fence.  Do I support student's first amendment rights or not?  So I set off on a google search (Rupert Murdoch, you may drop me a check in the mail for the product placement any time) for phrases like "student first amendment rights" "first amendment or harassment?"  "do schools have power over off-campus speech?" etc.

And the best part is i found a review of the related literature that was only 24 pages long.  Both the mean girl and Anna were in my newspaper class (that's why i was going to get involved) so I had mean girl read the review and write up a story, either opinion or feature, over the literature. 

Brilliant, eh?  I don't have to read it and she can educate the whole student body, and I'm also happy to report that nearly 3 weeks later, mean girl is not so mean and Anna is not so cocky. 

Nevertheless, I'm having the 5-year itch about switching jobs or direction in life.  Drama does that to me.