Out of control, bullying public school officials continue their deplorable acts of violation against young children over incidents that puzzlingly seem to typically originate in the school lunchroom.
Recall the recent story of a boy who was suspended from school for five days after being interrogated in the Vice Principal’s office for hours on end, told he was carrying an “illegal” substance, threatened with transfer to another school and warned that he would be enrolled in a teen alcoholics support group after being called out by the lunch police for bringing a simple bottle of kombucha in his lunchbox packed by his own Mother!
Then there was the story earlier this year of a preschooler at West Hoke Elementary in North Carolina who was given a highly processed, cafeteria lunch containing pink slime chicken nuggets because the lunch police inspecting her lunchbox decided that the turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice her mother packed were not nutritious enough.
Apparently, North Carolina school officials did not learn their lesson from the huge negative publicity and backlash from that stunt because an even worse lunchroom incident has been revealed in a recent lawsuit by The Rutherford Institute.
According to the complaint Cox v the Sampson County Board of Education filed on December 6, 2012, Union Elementary School Assistant Principal Teresa Holmes allegedly strip searched 10 year old J.C. Cox as a result of the chivalrous act of helping a classmate retrieve her dropped coins from under the lunchroom table.
A press release by The Rutherford Institute on the matter describes in detail how the lunchroom incident went down all without a parent or guardian present at any time:
… on Friday, June 12, 2012, J.C. Cox, a fifth-grader attending Union Elementary School in Clinton, N.C., was in the school cafeteria eating lunch when a female classmate dropped money onto the floor.
J.C. went under the table, retrieved the coins and returned them to the girl. Upon approaching J.C.’s table, Assistant Principal Teresa Holmes, who was also in the cafeteria at the time, was informed that someone had dropped $20 on the floor, that the money was missing, and that J.C. had gone under the table in search of the missing money.
Holmes asked J.C. if he had the money and told him that unless he returned it, she would have to search him. J.C. told Holmes he did not have the money.
Holmes then ordered J.C. to come with her to her office. Holmes also called a school custodian and asked him to meet her at the office. Once there, Holmes again asked J.C. if he had the money and again, he told her “no.” J.C. even pulled out his pockets to show that he had no money.
The assistant principal then told J.C. she had no choice but to search him, and that she was within her legal right to do so. Holmes allegedly ordered J.C. to remove his shoes, socks, pants and shirt.
With J.C. stripped to his underwear, Holmes ran her finger around the waistband of his undershorts.
Holmes did not find any money on J.C. While in Holmes’ office, another teacher arrived to report that the $20 had been found on the cafeteria floor.
When J.C.’s mother later contacted the school to voice her concerns about the strip search, she was reportedly told that school personnel have the right to perform strip searches and that the assistant principal was within her rights in doing so.
Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute accuse Ms. Holmes of violating J.C.’s Fourth Amendment rights when he was inexplicably strip searched for stooping down to help out a classmate. In addition, they cite the 2009 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in Safford Unif. Sch. Dist. # 1 v. Redding which ruled that school officials such as Ms. Holmes absolutely do not have the right or authority to strip search a student unless there is evidence that the child is in possession of a dangerous item.
These frequent acts of violation against children and flagrant ignoring of parental rights by public school officials must stop and hopefully with this lawsuit, The Rutherford Institute can make some positive headway in this area.
The lunchroom has clearly become a warzone in many public schools instead of a healthy environment for eating and sharing with classmates that it is intended to be.
Do you have an act of lunchtime bullying by school officials to share? Please chime in with a comment.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
how does one with a spirit broken by conformity provide the alternate to their children? i was designed to do it they way they did….arrggghhh!
Educate yourself and allow your children to see you doing it. We can still think. We just were not encouraged to develop that confidence to do so.
Also, read A Thomas Jefferson Education. It is very inspiring.
I have just a few minutes and did a quick Google search. Why is this not all over the media!!!
Good question! That’s why I blog.
Billy Reddick
Wth
People worry about child bullies but the adult ones are worse! My children are home schooled and their “principal” would never strip search them
Bullying by other kids is bad enough, but by the adults they trust to protect them? Ridiculous!
Prison training . . . 🙁
And this is why I homeschool…so crazy and scary!!!
This type of abuse will only increase unless parental rights are upheld legally in a Parental Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. HSLDA is spear-heading such a movement in response to imminent erosion of said rights through two hotly contested UN treaties, the RIghts of the Child and the Rights of Person’s with Disabilities. Lovely sounding, but misleading titles to treaties that would uphold acts (rightly) mentioned as abuses in Sarah’s article.
no! this is not a parent’s rights issue! this type of abuse will increase unless the rights we already have are upheld. people are protected from illegal search and seizure via the 4th amendment but people don’t see children as real people so they don’t care.
according to the hslda, parents have the right to hit their children. people are protected from being hit via the 4th amendment but people (including the hslda) do not see children as real people so they don’t care.
the hslda are no better than the woman who strip searched this child.
HSLDA protects the right of parents to properly discipline their children, which includes a proper spanking. That is not hitting! Spanking has been practiced throughout the United States and all over the world throughout time, and even “corporal punishment” was practiced in the schools by teachers and principals (and probably still is in some schools). Abuse should definitely been punished (sexual abuse, punching/leaving bruises), but an appropriate spanking should not be called abuse. Some people have visions of angry parents, screaming and chasing a child through the house, then violently beating them…..this is very different from a controlled spanking applied to the backside for the child’s benefit, administered by a loving parent. A school should not be allowed to strip search a child without the permission of the parent!
i don’t think you understand. parents do not have the right to decided whether or not the constitutional rights of a human being may or may not be applied to their child.
constitutional rights are the rights of every american.
children that are americans have the constitutional right to not be hit/”spanked”/strip searched by ANYONE including their parents. the same way i do not have the right to hit/spank/strip search you because i think it will be for your benefit.
LB, how do you propose the courts balance the “constitutional rights” of children to not be spanked with the “constitutional rights” of parents to raise their children? Seems to me those two things are in direct opposition to each other.
And don’t forget that these kids are minors under the law and, as such, don’t have all the right as privileges that adults have.
i’m not sure why you put quotation marks around constitutional rights. we all have them. there is no age limit. someone under 18 has the same rights to not be hit/illegally searched as someone over 18.
why do you think they don’t have the same rights? of course, they do! no where in the constitution does it say “these rights apply to everyone, except kids. they don’t count.”
i do not have the right to hit/take the cloths off of my children if they tell me they don’t want it to be done. my rights as a parent end where their rights as a human being begin.
you do not have the constitutional right to raise your children. if you did, cps wouldn’t be snatching up kids left and right they way they do.
To begin with ‘we’ do not have “Constitutional” rights. We have GOD given rights enumerated by the Constitution. We just do not have the balls to fight for them as did our forefathers. But to be more specific, if you have a marriage license and/or Birth Certificate for your child the State owns them and can do whatever they decide. Now before you start ranting about what you know nothing about look up what is a “Marriage” license as opposed to Holy Matrimony. A Marriage license is a 3 party contract between you, your spouse and the State, the State having final say over ALL ISSUES from said Marriage, ISSUES being CHILDREN! And yes, proper spanking has been around since God made man. Peace.
what the heck are you talking about? children exist whether the parents are married or not.
also, if the state has the last say in all issues and the state says you can not hit other people (as it does)…. then your point is moot.
It’s not that children don’t count, of course they count. But they are NOT adults. You must train them to become adults. Responsibility and respect for authority are not naturally occurring traits. Therefore they do not need the same ‘rights’ as adults. They still have rights, the rights to be loved enough to be disciplined so that they can become successful adults.
Sigh. So very thankful my parents loved me enough to spanking me.
I understand what you are trying to say, but spanking was disciplinary act even more so at the time when constitution was followed and respected. Do you scream at adults? That is not right? But every parent screamed at their children at least few times. What about striping down your child? Did not you ever undress your child? Of course if you have one. Don’t every parent take their kids diapers off? So, what you say does not seam applicable. Or we all should be in jail for molesting and abusing our children. Children are real people. No one argues this point. There is also something called being a parent. It is a role where you are responsible for little people who are totally irresponsible yet and you are responsible to teach them to become and to grow in to responsible adult people. I hope you see the difference. That is why we as parents have rights to apply disciplinary act, with love, of course. This is not violation of constitutional rights, but it is unconstitutional to do anything above without parent’s knowledge and agreement.
The 4th amendment protects you from governmental search and seizures – how does that have anything to do with parent/child spanking?
Agree. Spanking is not abuse. SInce the decline of spanking it seems there has also been a decline in morals and values in our society.
I agree that spanking is not abuse. I don’t think the state should have the authority to punish a parent for controlled spanking. I do, however, think that we should all consider better methods than spanking. My parents spanked me & I don’t think it was abusive. Defining spanking as abuse could be a slippery slope, but then again so can spanking become a slippery slope for some people. With the amount of mental illness we all deal with, we are best off promoting other methods of guidance & discipline. Should mere controlled disciplinary/controlled spanking give the state grounds to punish parents or remove children from a home? Never. Is spanking something that should be a defended right? Probably not. We might not all agree on this subject, but I’d hope that most (if not all) of us would agree that parental roles are not very well supported by our society & certainly not by government or public schools. Big Brother likes to be a constant threat to the role & duties of every parent. When he can’t soothe parents out of their responsibilities, then he bullies them out of it.
Spanking is hitting. At least to me as someone who was ‘spanked’ by both parents. I have chosen to parent differently. There are better ways to guide and discipline your children. Parents make their own choices and many will say “Well, *I* was spanked and came out fine.” is also illogical. There are ramifications whether or not people want to acknowledge them are not. I completely agree with LB. Peace.
I would really like to hear you explain how the Rights of Person’s with Disabilities is a treaty that would uphold acts of abuse against children. SERIOUSLY?!
personally, i am against it because it would require people with disabilities to register with the state.
like you can only truly be disabled if the government says you are.
also, all disabled children will be required to go to public school. homeschooling will no longer be an option. and we’ve already seen what public schools do to kids (disabled and typical). actually, that may be what she is referring to.
Go to youtube and search for “slavery by consent”, here let me help you.
Your comment would be hysterically funny if it weren’t so ignorant and sad. The US led the way with Americans with Disabilities Act, signed by the first Pres. Bush. Did that act take away any control you might have over a child? No? Didn’t think so. Then we pushed other countries to adopt these standards that would greatly improve the lives of disabled people in THEIR countries. It was/is a completely WONDERFUL thing. Only morons on the right (are you listening in OK?) could have objected to this or found these bizarre and totally fabricated “reasons” to oppose it. You will notice the rightwingnut Senators who voted “no” had to walk past their former colleague, Bob Dole, sitting before them in a WHEELCHAIR and asking for their support. Really, hysterical if it were not so depressing …
Thanks, Melinda. My thoughts exactly. It sounds a whole lot like extreme right wing spin and fear mongering, and I’ve heard a lot of it. By the way, I’m so happy to see a more liberal real foodie here. I love the real food movement, but I feel really sad reading a lot of the comments when things get political. We’re definitely in the minority.
wait… are you talking about me? i am not republican. far from it. in fact, i think they are crazy people.
Wow Melinda, what a completely belligerent and attacking comment.
So you are saying that it is moronic to oppose an outside 3rd party having the right and ability to trump our own laws? Moronic to oppose giving an outside 3rd party say over our governmental budget? Moronic not to want to turn over the control of our children to the whims of an outside 3rd party? Moronic not to want some uninvolved government bureaucrat to have more say in what is in the “best interests” of the child than the people who know him/her the best? After all, everyone wants strangers to make decisions for their life… right?
So do you really mean that you want our rights, laws, and children turned over to the UN and international governing bodies… or is the real issue that you have listened to media and social media blips about this and not done any real research on it to find out the fall out of ratifying such a treaty? And I don’t ask this to be scathing, I ask it with great sincerity. I find that when people make comments along the vein of yours that it often stems from their ignorance of the issue. You can have a great heart, and the best of intentions, but if you do not know what the implications are of such an act of domestic compliance then you can inadvertently encourage acts that are harmful to Americans.
The treaty with the U.N. was a wrong deal, because it gave them control over what care for your children would get. If you’re for there control over children with disabilities, you must like the fact that in Europe, they take babies and leave them in rooms by them selves, without water or food for ten days to die. You better watch what you wish for.we need to get out of the U.N., they will only drain our country, if Obama doesn’t do it first. Go to the U.N. web site and see what their agenda is.
I know it seems like a bunch of crazy conspiracy theories, but this stuff has been done before. It’s not like fairytale stuff. People that oppose this stuff are just concerned about what it leads to. They are concerned about it because they know & understand history in more depth than most people. You can laugh at it or judge it, but when it really happens (& it already has- you just don’t hear about it from the mega liberal media) & happens to your family or friends then you’ll understand what the “right wing nut jobs” are talking about. I hope you don’t ever experience stuff like that, but it sounds like that’s the only way you’ll ever see it. So sad that so many people, such as yourself, won’t see it coming til it’s in their face.
I see how that comment can seem hilarious, sad & far fetched- even after watching the video. However, even things like the ADA are tools that the elite use to advance their agenda. I’m not necessarily opposed to the ADA &, frankly, I’ve never read it myself. But, I wouldn’t be surprised if they slipped things into it (as they do into pretty much every bill) that threaten our freedoms. These threats to our freedom are not done ignorantly or unintentionally- at least not all the time. I hope you will look into it further. It doesn’t take too much digging to see that these “crazy conspiracy theorists” (as many people see them) are not so crazy & the conspiracies that speak of are not too far from the truth. Have you ever heard of the Bilderberg Group? They used to be so “hush-hush” that no one would admit to going to any of their secret meetings. Now, they don’t even hide it. If you think there aren’t secret & powerful combinations in the world then, sorry to say it like this, but you are ignorant.
I admit that I’m a little out of the loop, since my severly disabled daughter died at the age of 7 in 1997. However, I do know at that time that the ADA allowed for disabled children to be schooled in the “least restrictive environment”. For my daughter, that meant HOME. Yes, the school district paid for and sent a teacher, and an Occupation Therapist to our HOME every week. No cost to us. We, along with our in-home pediactric nursing specialist (who was there 40 hours/week) also did various homeschooling activities with her.
I’m definitely going to research this issue, because my gut is screaming BS at your claim that “all disabled children will be required to go to public schools. homeschooling will no longer be an option.” Under the ADA, the school district must pay for and provide schooling in your home, if it is determined to be the least restrictive environment for the child. It allowed us to say that our daughter was not able to go to public school, and still receive the skilled nursing care she required.
This treaty is modeled after the ADA, passed 22 years ago in this country. It is written to encourage the rest of the world to follow what we have already done in America. I don’t believe for a second that “it would require people with disabilities to register with the state”. Again, I will actually go and read the text of the propsed treaty. Have you personally read it?
These comment sound like a lot of extreme right wing spin and fear mongering to me. I KNOW what the ADA is all about. I’ve used it to provide the best schooling I could for my disabled child. Have any of you? Do you even have disabled children? I personally think it is shameful that republican senators discraced themselves by voting down this treaty.
i had only heard rumors earlier but i read it today before commenting as to not provide false information. i am not republican in any way. my son and i both have aspergers.
article 24 -2.a
“Persons with disabilities are not excluded from the general education system on the basis of disability, and that children with disabilities are not excluded from free and compulsory primary education, or from secondary education, on the basis of disability;”
says nothing about the least restrictive environment.
article 31 – 1
“States Parties undertake to collect appropriate information, including statistical and research data”
Jen, thank you for sharing your experience with us. It was very enlightening. I am very sorry for your loss.
Jen you said ” I personally think it is shameful that republican senators discraced themselves by voting down this treaty.” However, you also implied that you haven’t read or researched this treaty. May I ask how you determined it is shameful for anyone to vote against it if you don’t even know what it is? Are you aware that this treaty would supplant ADA as international treaties trump domestic law? Therefore, Americans with disabilities would NOT have the same protections and assistance as you experienced. Instead, they would have whatever the 3rd party international body deemed was in compliance with the treaty NOT pre existing US law.
Jen,
The treaty would become a higher law in our land than the ADA. (per the constitution, ratified treaties become supreme law) The treaty has written in it that the state would be in charge of making the decision THEY think is best for your child in the way they receive education.
Someone explain to me why we would need a treaty when the ADA already exists and we lead every other nation in the world with our treatment of those with disabilities?
I have a disabled child! We were terrified that this insane treaty would pass! The government DOES NOT KNOW what is best for MY child or any other child!!! They don’t know her. How can you think that giving control over your child to COMPLETE idiots is a good thing? Do some research on Hitler and see the similarities between how he slowly took over and what our government is doing to us. It’s time to wake up and realize our government is against us and our freedoms.
for Sandy:
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/06/langevin-u-n-treaty-does-not-trump-u-s-law/
In which Rep. Langevin, the only quadreplegic in Congress, debunks the foolish idea that this treaty would “trump US law.” As I said, the objections to ratifying this treaty were based on falsehoods. Don’t you think we all make better decisions when we’re working from truth and reality? Or, at least defensible decisions?
And people still ask us why we homeschool?
Exactly.
I’m so happy I’ve decided to homeschool my 2-year-old.
I usually just get comments (or excuses) as to why they don’t homeschool their kids. Stuff like “that’s just too much for me” or “I could never handle that”. I try not to judge, but I sometimes wonder “what do they think homeschooling is nowadays?” Technically, my daughter is in a public charter school (online), but this just makes the curriculum simpler for us. However, I’m considering just pulling her out altogether. I was so annoyed they made me sign a paper officially opting out of immunizations for my child that doesn’t go to school outside of our home!!! Ridiculous! If my kids went to public school, I’d have to spend all my time making sure they weren’t being given crap food or treats on top of supplementing the awful dumbed down curriculum. It’s easier to home school, I think. At least for parents who are as particular as I am about my kid’s nutrition & learning.