Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Decide which of these stories from today’s newswires show more unethical conduct.
First, the Mom:
Tampa mother Ronda Holder was at her wit’s end trying to get her son, James Mond III, 15, to take school seriously. Neither she nor this father finished high school, and she told reporters she wasn’t going to let her son end up begging for spare change. She said they have offered James help, asked to see his homework, grounded him, lectured him and taken away his cell phone. Still he fails. “He’d tell us, ‘That school doesn’t give homework’ or ‘That teacher has a problem with me,’ ” Mond Jr. said. James did poorly in math, poorly in history, and when his latest report card showed an F in physical education, his mother felt it was the final straw.
So, naturally, she forced her son to stand near an East Tampa street corner for nearly four hours on a Wednesday afternoon, wearing a large sign around his neck with the message:
“I did 4 questions on my FCAT and said I wasn’t going to do it … GPA 1.22 … honk if I need education.”
People honked at him the whole time.
“It definitely would fall within the category of emotional abuse. It’s shame, embarrassment and humiliation. This will be a lifelong memory for him,” Arlinda Amos, a licensed clinical psychologist and ombudsman for the Hillsborough Children’s Board, told the St. Petersburg Times. Dr. Peter Gorski, a developmental and behavioral pediatrician at the Hillsborough Children’s Board and the University of South Florida, added, “It’s such an unfortunate strategy, and of course it’s ineffective.”
Next…the School (King George High School in King George, Virginia)
A sophomore at King George High School went to School Assistant Principal Duane Harrison at the start of the school day and said that he had been threatened with “getting jumped,” and was afraid that he would he beaten. The principal took no action, and sent him to class. As the sophomore prepared to leave the school cafeteria after having lunch, he was attacked by at least three students and thrown to the floor, where he was repeatedly kicked and punched. The bloody and obviously injured victim was taken to the school nurse, who instructed the sophomore to go to the Interim Principal’s office. There the sophomore was required to write a report on the incident. After leaving the school, the sophomore and his mother drove to the King George Sheriff’s Office and requested to speak to an intake officer. The front desk dispatcher, upon seeing the injuries the sophomore had sustained, immediately called 911 to request medical assistance. The student was taken to the emergency room, where he was diagnosed to have sustained two fractures to his bottom jawbone and one fracture to his top jawbone.
The sophomore and his mother were also informed that he was being placed on a 10-day suspension status for participating in a fight.
Well, there you have it! The first “Natalie Munroe Ethics Challenge,” pitting two of Ms. Munroe’s targets, parents and school administrators, against each other as you must decide which most egregiously failed to meet ethical standards in caring for the third of her objects of scorn…students.
Good luck!
Ethics Alarms 
For me, this is an easy call.
The school is far worse. The uneducated mother was trying desperately, albeit ill-advisedly, to help her child. She tried everything she could think of, and only then resorted to public humiliation. There may be long-term scars from this conduct, but it’s uncertain at best that they’ll be any worse than the traumas this lying, lazy young man had already created for himself.
By contrast, the school officials, who are paid to know better, were more concerned about their paperwork than about the well-being of one of their students. Hindsight is 20-20, and the initial inaction of the assistant principal may not have been irresponsible (I can’t say without more context). But the nurse and interim principal are monsters. And whoever decided the boy should be suspended for fighting should be fired.
Doing something horrible out of desperation must certainly rank as less unethical than doing something horrible out of arrogant adherence to a policy whose relevance has been superceded by events.
Great analysis, and I strongly suspect it will prevail. But I’ll wait til the precincts report…
Jack,
You seldom present opportunities to decide which is worse. I would like to see more of these thought provoking conundrums. Thanks!
No brainer – As has been demonstrated ad nauseum by school administrators, the safety and well being of a MINOR AGE child placed in their care appears to matter not as much as “getting stuff off my desk”.
God forbid, did the sophomore dye his hair red? I hope not, he would have been in big trouble then. In my opinion, while the parents who had their child stand outside with a sign around his neck, should consider actually having a face to face conversation with teachers to ascertain what options are available to help their child improve in his scholastic endeavors.
It appears to me that the initial response by the school was irresponsible at best and negligent at worst.
Add the facts that the child got a severe beating (humiliating enough), and gets suspended for getting his ass kicked, after he expressed his concerns to school admin., what were they thinking? What is that kid supposed to do?
That kid did everything that a sophomore should have done. He was placed in the care of adults who are expected to look out for his needs. He expressed concerns about his safety to those adults. They abdicated that responsibility, and made it worse for him after the fact. Disgusting.
Having to make a choice on the above choices, I’m with Rick and Regular Joe.
Story #1 – Humiliated – yes. Scarred for life – no. “This will be a lifelong memory for him,” – Yep. Depends on how the young man handles it. Depends on his parents. Hopefully, it was a wake up call.
Story #2 – The Sophomore did exactly what we parents instruct our children to do. Tell an adult. Go to the Principal. Something tells me though, there is more to the story. But, if it is exactly as stated above, the administration was out of line.
Hey, it’s a shoo-in. Ronda wins hands down. What bothers me here, though, — and besides the egregious behavior of the King George (wasn’t he the crazy one?) HS administration — are the words of the “ombudsman.” My definition of ombudsman is one who acts as an intermediary, who investigates complaints and mediates fair settlements, especially between aggrieved parties. I don’t see any indication of mediation or settlement here. In fact, the “aggrieved party” seems to be the Hillsborough Childrens Board who were brought in by a newspaper to invent a villian/victim situation. This ombudswoman is not only taking sides but prognosticating a terrible “lifelong” result of “emotional abuse” out of the actions. The emotional abuse charge seems to me to be subjective and may well be quasi forensic, applying psychology to what could be a legal issue against the parent. But the “lifelong” harm statement is what can do the lifelong harm. See, Mom. Now I’ve REALLY got a reason to duck school. (Wouldn’t it be great if we could actually get follow-up on some of these incidents?)
I was afraid some one was going to say this some day. I have follow-up info on a lot of the posts, and haven’t figure out how to use them yet. It’s time, though.
OMG, Jack. I went back and re-read the article on the Virginia school incident. Coupled with the hair-highlights incident and some stuff that came out of student comments in my own class the other day (you can read about that on my blog piece on Confucius a couple days ago, if you’re interested), this really does suggest a trend, doesn’t it?
But what I noticed the second time through the article is that, between the time of the incident and the time of the article’s publication, the School Board made permanent the appointment of that utterly irresponsible principal. That’s not just a lack of sanctions, it’s a pro-active affirmation. I mean, WTF?
WTF indeed. It IS a trend, I am certain of it. There are too many of these brain-melting incidents not to believe that. And this has to become part of the larger dialogue on education.
I’ll repeat a canard – very unfair, but still has a milligram of reality:
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach. Those who cannot teach, teach teachers. Those who cannot teach teachers, become school administrators.