Delftsman

Suspended for a phone call

This is a tough story to call. It's obvious that Kevin Francois broke the terms of the written policy of the school, and that the school officials stayed within the guidelines of that policy.

The question that should be asked is if the policy itself is flexable enough to meet the needs of both school discipline and student privacy rights. This is sort of an unusual case. I think that the punishment didn't fit the crime, but Mr. Francois did escalate the situation needlessly; that is what teenagers are wont to do, after all.

The policy should have been flexable enough to show Mr. Francois that he was in the wrong in some measure, but not where the school officials only had the two choices of arrest or suspension for the rest of the year to prove that point.