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Batavia school board disciplines teacher after Fifth Amendment survey flap

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Re: Batavia school board disciplines teacher after Fifth Amendment survey flap

#51

Post by rayiner »

nsxwolf wrote: post #47
rayiner wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went through public school here, and never suffered through anything worse than the general pettiness that is endemic to teachers and school administrators. There are problems with the American school system, but these outliers are not those problems. Heck, I remember in high school there was a huge protest over attempts to introduce minimum dress standards (e.g. no wife beater shirts, no spaghetti straps) in which…

Dryden didn't have time to hire a constitutional lawyer and hash out all the nuances on how the 5th amendment does or doesn't apply. He believed it did. To me it's pretty clear that it should apply here. If we're all going to restrain ourselves from asserting what we think our rights are we might as well all give up.

The problem is Dryden's gut feeling gets the gist of the rule wrong. The gist is not: "you don't have to tell the government anything that might make you look bad." The gist is: "You can't be forced to testify at a witness against yourself in a criminal proceeding." The further away you get from that core scenario, the less likely the 5th amendment is going to apply.

You're right, Dryden didn't have time to hire a constitutional lawyer. But he shouldn't be teaching his gut feelings as constitutional law. He could have just said: "I don't think the school can make you fill out this survey, so feel free to opt out."

And yes, I realize I'm being horribly anal retentive here. I was taught a lot of misinformation and oversimplifications as a public school student.

Re: Batavia school board disciplines teacher after Fifth Amendment survey flap

#52

Post by vaadu »

jentulman wrote: post #26

"And students cannot incriminate themselves because, even if the district shared the information with police, police can't prosecute based on that, he said. They are only allowed to arrest students if they are harming other students, such as in a fight, or if the student is in possession of drugs or alcohol, Barshinger said." I'm not saying that the school had anything but the best intentions, but It does give them a…

The administrator that said this is naive. Admitting to a crime is self-incrimination regardless if it can be held against you or not. Maybe the county or school system won't hold it against you but what stops the state or feds from prosecuting you?

You should always talk to a lawyer before admitting anything incriminating.

Re: Batavia school board disciplines teacher after Fifth Amendment survey flap

#53

Post by ctdonath »

tokenadult wrote: post #34

I am on record in the earlier thread about this incident https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5777578 saying that the first news report sounded like John Dryden is an unusually thoughtful social studies teacher, and that he was just relating the general concepts that he is hired to teach his students to a real-world situation facing the students. Even after reading the follow-up report submitted to open this thread,…

it was intended to identify students who could use help

"We're from the government and we're here to help you" coupled with "you have nothing to hide, right?" seems an unwise combination.

Re: Batavia school board disciplines teacher after Fifth Amendment survey flap

#54

Post by rayiner »

ctdonath wrote: post #53
tokenadult wrote: post #34

I am on record in the earlier thread about this incident https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5777578 saying that the first news report sounded like John Dryden is an unusually thoughtful social studies teacher, and that he was just relating the general concepts that he is hired to teach his students to a real-world situation facing the students. Even after reading the follow-up report submitted to open this thread,…

it was intended to identify students who could use help "We're from the government and we're here to help you" coupled with "you have nothing to hide, right?" seems an unwise combination.

The skepticism is mostly inappropriate in the context of public education. It is the purpose of public school educators to help their kids, and that often requires disclosure of information that would not be required of an adult in the same situation.

Re: Batavia school board disciplines teacher after Fifth Amendment survey flap

#55

Post by japhyr »

tokenadult wrote: post #34

I am on record in the earlier thread about this incident https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5777578 saying that the first news report sounded like John Dryden is an unusually thoughtful social studies teacher, and that he was just relating the general concepts that he is hired to teach his students to a real-world situation facing the students. Even after reading the follow-up report submitted to open this thread,…

I am a high school teacher, and I've been working with at-risk students my entire career. I have always paid attention to the surveys I am asked to administer to students.

If I were asked to administer this survey, I would have the same red flags. A survey asking these kinds of questions, with names on them, is pretty serious and students deserve to know what is going to be done with the results of such a survey. They also need to know they have the right to make their own decisions about how much personal information to share.

As a teacher, I would expect this kind of survey to be pretty heavily front-loaded. So either the administration did not prepare staff well enough about administering this survey, or this teacher was not paying attention when it was discussed ahead of time.

Many people in education are afraid of being perfectly honest with students. We need more openness in education, not less.

Re: Batavia school board disciplines teacher after Fifth Amendment survey flap

#56

Post by njharman »

stfu wrote: post #14

What I was wondering is this: Are there any good tutorials teaching kids their basic rights of freedom/privacy? With the right framing this could become really popular ("How to avoid your parents snooping on you"). I guess most kids have some phase of freedom-seeking and I would be happy to donate to a campaign encouraging this mindset even more.

> good tutorials teaching kids their basic rights of freedom/privacy?

Social Studies class, depending on teacher. ACLU, EFF, and the internet in general.

Re: Batavia school board disciplines teacher after Fifth Amendment survey flap

#57

Post by carbocation »

rayiner wrote: post #43
carbocation wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. FERPA information can be released in a "health" or "safety" emergency. 2. Records created by a designated official for the purpose of referring violations to police are not subject to FERPA. 3. Institutions have relatively broad power to designate people as school officials with legitimate educational interests, and thereby to designate who may receive FERPA-protected records. Some sources recommend to schools tha…

These cut in favor of the school, though. 1. FERPA information can be released in a "health" or "safety" emergency, but only for the immediate duration of the emergency, and only to "appropriate parties." Moreover, FERPA has a specific carve out for disclosing student health records to parents in the case of drug or alcohol abuse. Read together, the provision can be interpreted to imply that drug use is by itself not…

> These cut in favor of the school, though.

I completely agree.

> The purpose was to try and identify kids who needed additional psychological support, not get kids to cop to their drug use so they could be prosecuted. (Quoted from your prior post.)

One of the reasons I replied is to show that, regardless of the stated purpose of the survey, the FERPA rules appear to favor of the school even if they should decide to use the survey for other purposes. From my reading, FERPA may very well not protect these kids from a school's decision to ultimately convey this information to police.

Re: Batavia school board disciplines teacher after Fifth Amendment survey flap

#58

Post by DanBC »

fmstephe wrote: post #3

I worry that sitting here and reading the articles which turn up in HN each day that I am getting a very particular impression about life in America. Between this and Kiera Wilmot I feel genuinely horrified. Am I just seeing outliers here? Am I seeing frightening trend where children are needlessly criminalised (Kiera) or willfully (even if well intentioned) manipulated (my interpretation of this survey debacle)? Oth…

> Am I just seeing outliers here? Am I seeing frightening trend where children are needlessly criminalised (Kiera)

Zero tolerance means that often police are involved much earlier than they need to be, and for minor things. This is a political area, and so care needs to be taken when reading the following stories.

Here's a young child who took Lego toys to school, and who was threatened with suspension. Luckily the principal called the education board who recommended confiscation of the toy and no further action (http://gothamist.com/2010/02/03/student_nearly_suspended_ove...)

Here's another story about a 5 year old child who made a gun out of Lego. This child got a written warning. (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/02/5-year-old-boy...)

We don't always know the full story. For example, there might be more to the story of a child suspended for 10 days (reduced to 2) and given psychological assessment after she wanted to play with bubbles. (http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/kindergartner-suspended...)

Here's a 7 year old suspended for pretending his pencil was a gun (https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/va-7-year-old-susp...)

A boy wore a t-shirt with NRA slogans. He was suspended and arrested. (http://www.rightwingnews.com/education/after-student-is-susp...)

Here's a deaf child who must change his name, because the sign language for his name "looks like a gun" (or maybe a gang sign?) (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/nebraska-school-3-y...)

Here's a teacher given a 4 day suspension without pay for endangering students by "displaying weapons". The weapons were garden tools. (http://cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/teacher-sues-school-...)

Here's an example of children being arrested for minor scuffles. (http://www.change.org/petitions/children-should-not-be-arres...)

LA is reviewing zero tolerance policies (http://articles.latimes.com/2012/sep/03/local/la-me-citation...)

(http://www.lewrockwell.com/whitehead/whitehead26.1.html)

Re: Batavia school board disciplines teacher after Fifth Amendment survey flap

#59

Post by warfangle »

tokenadult wrote: post #34

I am on record in the earlier thread about this incident https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5777578 saying that the first news report sounded like John Dryden is an unusually thoughtful social studies teacher, and that he was just relating the general concepts that he is hired to teach his students to a real-world situation facing the students. Even after reading the follow-up report submitted to open this thread,…

What I think is rather ridiculous is the reliance on survey methodology to assess drug/alcohol abuse among the student body.

Questions about drugs/alcohol/sex on student surveys are typically rather inaccurate.

Re: Batavia school board disciplines teacher after Fifth Amendment survey flap

#60

Post by warfangle »

rayiner wrote: post #54
ctdonath wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it was intended to identify students who could use help "We're from the government and we're here to help you" coupled with "you have nothing to hide, right?" seems an unwise combination.

The skepticism is mostly inappropriate in the context of public education. It is the purpose of public school educators to help their kids, and that often requires disclosure of information that would not be required of an adult in the same situation.

A survey seems a rather crude method, though, surely.
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