School Administrators Gone Wild

This week a Des Moines metro high school is in the news for suspending a student-athlete from activities, as outlined under their code of conduct, for being at a party where alcohol was present. But that's not why the school and student are in the news - they're in the news because the (ha-ha) parents of this (ha-ha) student-athlete won a court injunction to keep the kid playing in the state basketball tournament.

My take on this could go many directions. For instance, this being another example of how there are no bad kids, only bad parents. But this is actually a better example of a point I've tried to make for years, counter-intuitively, of how foolish it is for schools to try to have 24/7 authority over students.

There are very few high schools around Iowa, if any, that don't apply their code of conduct rules all day, every day, regardless of whether the conduct occurred at a school activity or not. This is one of the dumbest, non-academic decisions a school could make. It can't be uniformly enforced to begin with, and it's unfair to both kids and parents, good and bad.

Discipline is a 24/7 parent/guardian responsibility, not 24/7 a school responsibility. Just because some parents/guadians choose not to be responsible for their children, that does not give schools the default right to discipline them. Of course, I'm fine with schools getting into the act for those things that happen on school property or at school-sponsored functions. But outside of that, I don't want schools trying to parent my kids, thank you very much.....and I do not grant them permission to do so!

When exactly did it happen that schools decided to be the boss of me and my kids, all day and all night, 365 days a year? Because I want to get into a time machine to go back and club those responsible over their collective heads. Sorry, schools, but it's not your job, as much as you apparently want it to be.

I know nothing of whether the teenager in this particualar situation is a good egg or a bad seed, but it doesn't matter. Even though it might feel good and right to suspend this kid - there's no denying that he knew the rules and consequences - I reject the premise the rules should be in place to begin with.

In this case, as of this writing, true justice has prevailed.