Last Updated on June 13, 2017
A teenager who asked a fellow student she claimed was “getting on her nerves” if he or she was “trying to start [expletive]”  is facing a $637 fine. (The original fine should have been $340, but other charges, including one for failing to show for a hearing, were added on, according to a report from NBC station WDFW-TV in Dallas.)
A teacher sent the student to the principal’s office after hearing the remark. The student was given lunch detention. But the following day, she was presented with a ticket, and later claimed to have to take on a waitressing job to pay the fine.
I’m assuming that the expletive deleted in the quote above is the s-bomb. A somewhat tame curse word these days, compared to what a lot of the kids are saying. (And what a lot of the adults are saying as well.)
It seems to me that the trip to the principal’s office, and a lunch detention, ought to have been enough for one single instance of profanity.
The teacher says she was “offended” by the student’s language. This teacher, I suspect, is in the wrong line of work if she is this easily offended.
Not that I’m saying bad language should be either acceptable or tolerated in the classroom; it’s just that today’s kids aren’t your grandmother’s classmates.
Or even your mom’s.
And a $340 fine?
It just strikes me that the punishment didn’t quite fit the crime.
How about you: if you were this student’s parent, would you be okay with that kind of fine?
I would not be ok with it. But I would probably be ok if my son had to spend some time learning some accountability by community service or something, and he'd certainly have some consequences at home, too.
I have to wonder if this kid spent a lot of time swearing and messing up classes and this was just the final straw. And if this is the first time this teacher has heard that word, she's clearly a first-day sub! 🙂
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