Example #43,675,219:
Stuarts Draft fifth-grader Grace Karaffa appeared before the school board Thursday night, saying she had requested the substance while on the playground after suffering chapped lips.
“I was told I couldn’t use it. Then later that day they (lips) started to bleed so I asked for Chapstick again and I was told that it was against the school policy for elementary kids to have Chapstick,” Grace said.
Grace asked the school board to change its policy. “Chapstick allows the human body to heal the lips themselves and protects them in any weather from drying out,” she said. She concluded her speech by saying, “Please school board, allow us to have Chapstick.”
I don’t know if you have to be a moron to be a school-board member, but it certainly seems to help.
Any kid who can walk and hold money can go buy some.
And yet it Must Be Prohibited For Their Own Good?
(As a “medication”, and they’re worried about kids “sharing” OTC medications.
Because, you know, the OTC ones are so dangerous that someone might fall over dead!)
Fire The Goddamn Lot Of Them.
A couple of things. This student, apparently, “asked for some Chapstick” rather than used her own. On the other hand, having her own might have been against the Zero Tolerance Policy so she had to ask if she were to use it. Again on the other hand, the school authorities have a point of not “sharing” a communal Chapstick for a whole variety of hygiene concerns — cold sores and worse. On yet another hand (do I have three?), if this child’s lips were bleeding and raw, what would have been so difficult to send her to the school nurse, is the school nurse unequiped to treat a minor condition like that?
And we wonder why airliners have to land when passengers get into disputes about the seat recline?
I suppose we are Libertarians around Rand’s fine Web site so we can’t see some blame when we look in the mirror to look for “Conservatives.” Maybe this Zero Tolerance in Schools as an extension of the War on Drugs is universal, but didn’t this start out as a kind of Red State movement?
One more thing. Isn’t a school board member generally a moron, but a moron within one’s own community and a moron according the standards of one’s own community and elected to office by the moron voters of that community?
School board members are morons, but they are locally-contained morons. When they are elevated to the national level, there is no way to constrain their behavior.
Remember those idiots who always ran for student council in high school? Yep, they’re the ones now running our schools, and government in general.
Yes. One way to look at this story is that it shows what is wrong with public school. Recently, I argued here that the same sort of idiocy would occur at private school despite market forces (and Leland, unusually, sort of agreed with me, said that this was an argument for home schooling).
But another way to look at the story is that it is an argument for what’s wrong with local government. The question: does this just show what is wrong with government in general, or would a less local government be able to draw on a larger pool of people who have either common sense and/or have whatever medical knowledge it takes to make the right decision about chapstick.
My concern about local government is that it is too easy for the minority to get steamrolled. This is why federal troops needed to intervene in integrating the schools in Little Rock. If the Surgeon General of the United States of America, in consultation with the American Academy of Pediatrics, was asked whether a fifth grader could have chapstick, it would be overkill, but at least you’d get the right answer.
“My concern about local government is that it is too easy for the minority to get steamrolled.”
It is pretty easy to get steamrolled by people operating at the national level. These school policies are a product of progressive ideology. It is an ideology that is taught in colleges but it is also taught by progressive cultural warriors. To end the insanity of whether or not kids can use chap stick or sunscream (yes, intentional misspelling because if you don’t use it you scream) at school without a prescription from the doctor, approval of the teacher, and a trip to the school nurse but not even have to tell a parent or anyone else if the child gets an abortion, one simply needs to ask the Democrat party to change their ideology on the matter.
We can point out how stupid these policies are and you may agree on occasion but we can’t change the Democrat party. That change has to come from within.
It has very little to do with local governments and everything to do with schools interpretation of laws such as these which are federal.
“Recently, I argued here that the same sort of idiocy would occur at private school despite market forces ”
Just out of curiosity, Bob, have you, or anyone you know, ever gone to private school? I spent a year of high school at one, and while I can’t say for certain this would happen, I’d be willing to bet money it wouldn’t have, because everyone treated us with as much autonomy as possible.
I think you might be over-generalizing from your experience.
My experience: I only attended public schools until grad school, but I know many teachers, mostly at public schools, but I know some at private schools too:
I am related to a teacher at a very good Catholic school and his kids go there as well. I hear all sorts of stories, mostly good ones, through them.
I currently know the computer science teacher at a well-known college prep school. The administration at that school is one of the most enlightened I’ve ever heard of. My wife is friends with a science teacher at a math and science academy and we hear great things there too.
I used to know a computer system support guy at a not-so-well known but quite elite boarding school. Part of the gig was that he and his wife lived on campus and acted as mentors. She was employed there too, although I’m not sure what her job position would be called. I had many happy visits there.
I know a former teacher at an Orthodox Jewish day school. The administration at that school is one of the worst I’ve ever heard of. Why it can’t easily be fixed is off-topic, but it has little to do with Judaism per se.
Before I was married, I dated a chemistry teacher at a Catholic high school, and that was where I first got to see how the sausage was made. I know many stories I can’t repeat which would shed a bad light on the administration there.
My overall personal experience is that private schools, secular or religious, can be absolutely excellent but they can also be laughably bad.
I wouldn’t generalize.
And every single one of those teachers would probably yell at me for not proof-reading my comments before I post.
I can only hope that the voters in this school district keep this story in mind when it comes time to elect school board members and vote for additional education funding. Stories like this prove some people are too stupid to be allowed access to children, much less have such impact over kids’ futures.