The Dawg has put several items on the Sheesh-O-Meter this year. There was the Oregon case that involved a 17-day special education due process hearing which resulted in a 163-page decision from the hearing officer. There was SB 179 that seeks to micromanage how counselors spend every minute of the day. But the high score on the S-O-M still belongs to the 3rd Circuit’s decision in the cheerleader/F-Bomb/Snapchat case that later went to the Supreme Court.
This decision belongs on the Sheesh-O-Meter because of the way the judges dismissed the efforts of educators to pass along important values. Notice the condescension in the following paragraph from the court’s decision:
The heart of the School District’s arguments is that it has a duty to “inculcate the habits and manners of civility” in its students. To be sure, B.L.’s snap was crude, rude, and juvenile, just as we might expect of an adolescent. But the primary responsibility for teaching civility rests with parents and other members of the community. As arms of the state, public schools have an interest in teaching civility by example, persuasion, and by encouragement, but they may not leverage the coercive power with which they have been entrusted to do so.
That’s poppycock dressed up in lofty language. It undercuts the important work educators do every day to teach values. This case involved a student who volunteered to try out for the cheerleading squad. She promised to be respectful to coaches and the program itself. She violated that promise and the school district applied a consequence. It was a teachable moment, and the school used that moment to attempt to teach something important.
The court says that educators may not “leverage the coercive power” that they have to teach “the habits and manners of civility.” In other words, educators cannot use their power to teach values. Why not? Educators use coercive power to teach kids how to multiply fractions, how to diagram sentences, how to conduct a science experiment. Are those things more important than “the habits and manners of civility”?
The Dawg continues to mutter….Sheesh.
DAWG BONE: LEVERAGE YOUR COERCIVE POWER FOR THE GOOD.
Got a question or comment for the Dawg? Let me hear from you at jwalsh@wabsa.com.
Tomorrow: The Case of the Year, 2021!