week one bd cled 815

Case Study 3.4 The School of Hard Knocks

Ricky Johnson was known as a school bully. During the school year several students suffered from his aggressive and mean behavior. Ricky was only in the first grade and had already developed a reputation among his peers and the school community.

This particular day, during lunch, Ricky decided he was going to challenge every boy in his class to a physical battle. He proceeded to run over to several of his classmates and punch them in the stomach. Unfortunately for Ricky, Mr. Washington, the school security guard, witnessed his behavior and was able to stop him before he struck another student.

Mr. Washington brought Ricky kicking and screaming to the main office where he was received by the school nurse and guidance counselor. While in the nurse’s office, Ricky continued to scream, stating that Mr. Washington had held him down and allowed another student (John Petterson) to punch him in the stomach. After hearing Ricky’s allegation, the guidance counselor immediately located John and questioned him about the incident. John confirmed Ricky’s claim and stated that Mr. Washington did give him permission to punch Ricky in the stomach while he held him.

In the midst of this incident, Ms. Henry, the school principal, arrived and immediately the guidance counselor and nurse apprised her of the situation. Not wasting a minute, Ms. Henry spoke to all of the parties involved.

Mr. Washington denied the allegations and stated that John did punch Ricky in the stomach, but it was while he was holding Ricky and trying to prevent him from punching another student. Mr. Washington also stated that he has worked in this school district for over 25 years and would never do anything to intentionally harm a student.

Ricky was very adamant about the fact that Mr. Washington had held him and allowed John to punch him in the stomach.

John Petterson confirmed Ricky’s allegation and stated for the second time that Mr. Washington gave him permission to punch Ricky in the stomach while he held him.

Ms. Henry questioned additional student witnesses who were sitting in the area where the alleged incident took place. Each and every witness stated that Mr. Washington held Ricky and gave John permission to punch him in the stomach.

It was extremely difficult for Ms. Henry to imagine that Mr. Washington would ever do anything intentionally to put a child in a harmful situation. She desperately wanted to believe Mr. Washington. Perhaps there was some misunderstanding. However, all the witness statements seemed to support Ricky’s allegations.

Later on in this disturbing day, Ms. Henry received a call from Mr. Green, the Millville District Superintendent. Mr. Green called, off the record, to inquire about the situation with Mr. Washington. Apparently Mr. Green had worked with Mr. Washington for 10 years. He was the security guard in the school where the superintendent began his career as a principal in the district. Mr. Green went on to further explain that something like this could ruin Mr. Washington’s 25-year career and reputation. Mr. Washington had never been involved in this type of incident previously. He was considered to be a pillar of the community. After hearing all the facts of the incident, Mr. Green went on to suggest that perhaps Ms. Henry could reprimand him behind closed doors and have him apologize to the student. After all, said the superintendent, people make mistakes and the student did not sustain any serious injury

Questions for Discussion

From a school administrator’s perspective, does a school employee such as Jenna Smith have the right to disobey school policy if she truly believes students’ lives are at risk?

If Principal Jones were acting from the ethic of care, how would he handle this case? Would Jenna’s honesty matter? Would the fact that Jenna needed the income because of her family situation matter?

From the perspective of the ethic of critique, does it matter that there is a growing momentum in some states to train teachers to use guns in case of school emergencies?

As part of the ethic of the profession, if the teacher was truly thinking of the “best interest” of her students, that is, her ability to protect them if need be, how should this case be handled?

Case Study 3.5 Teacher with a Handgun: The Right to Bear Arms, Protecting Students, and School Policy

Jenna Smith was sitting in the principal’s office shaking, wondering who among her colleagues could have been spying on her and who would have turned her in. She knew some teachers may have disliked her because of her strict conservative values and because she had failed to join the teachers’ union, the only teacher who dared do so in this small rural school district.

The principal, Ben Jones, a young, personable, and ambitious new administrator, walked in and sighed, “You have put me in a position I have never imagined being in this early in my career and have forced me to make perhaps the toughest decision I may ever encounter. I respect and admire what you stand for, Jenna.” He closed the door and continued, “You know you are the most hardworking teacher here, one whom I trust my students to use as a solid role model. You and I share the same traditional set of values. But, you have some explaining to do.”

As a new teacher in the school, Jenna had tried hard to prove herself and worked longer hours than any of her colleagues by arriving well ahead of her official start time and by staying after school daily to create dynamic lessons. Although she was a newer public school teacher, she was also one of the oldest faculty members in the district. She was unable to retire as had most other teachers of her age due to both her lack of years of service and her need for income as the sole provider for her still-young family. She could not afford to do anything wrong to jeopardize her job and consequently felt the pressure daily. She refrained from socializing much, sensing that some teachers found her values odd and didn’t want to include her in their private conversations, but she couldn’t be sure.

Jenna’s beliefs stemmed from a patriotic, conservative background focusing strongly on an individual’s constitutional rights, especially those based on the First and Second Amendments. Jenna’s beliefs also were affected by an incident of spousal abuse that occurred to her several years ago. Following the incident, she had gone to several National Rifle Association (NRA) classes for firearm safety and personal protection. She slowly began buying firearms for home and personal protection and further attained her license to carry firearms, which meant she could carry her handgun with her everywhere she went in public other than in a school, federal building, or courthouse.

Jenna became more politically aware of gun laws as a result and was aware of her state’s law on the prohibition of weapons within a school although she personally felt the law violated her right to bear arms. Further, she questioned its main premise: to keep students safe. Jenna viewed horrific events such as Columbine and Sandy Hook as the very reason that she needed her handgun with her in a school; that is, to protect the students she cared about so much. She was also aware of a number of states that allowed teachers to carry handguns and actually provided training in handgun safety. There had been rumors of such legislation being proposed in her own state, which had had a number of school shootings.

As in any public school in America, practice lock-down drills were now becoming as required as the fire drills of the past. Jenna’s room, as were all in this poorly constructed school, had moveable, cardboard-like walls, a remnant of the open schools of the 1970s. During her first drill, she mentioned jokingly to her new students that a real school intruder could easily punch through the wall, and a boy loudly exclaimed, “The bullets surely could get through faster. Our lockdown drill is such a pitiful joke and a waste of time.” Jenna thought to herself that he was probably correct. No crazed gunperson would be stopped by the nearly broken lock on her door with all its windows and the lack of solid walls. Nevertheless, she followed the rules, as she always did, and held up the properly colored collection of “safety” cards as she had been instructed to do.

At night after the drill, as she was leaving school, Jenna began to feel more and more frightened about her drive home. The community had had home invasions, was not wealthy enough to support its own police force, and with the popularity of hunting, there were certainly enough adults around who owned guns—just not in the schools. Jenna pondered these concerns walking across the poorly lit school parking lot. On the long drive to her isolated new home, she questioned why she would want to risk her personal safety yet again after her survival from the abuse that had left her neck and back permanently injured by not being able to have her handgun with her at all times.

That evening, she read the state’s firearms law yet again, thinking of how vague it was on the issue of school safety zones. She couldn’t understand how she could not, as a trained gun handler with hours of practice, protect both herself and her students by having her small handgun with her at work. She knew she was not the insane shooter of the highly publicized school shootings on the news and she was aware that there was some movement in her state as well as others. After all, she had her FBI, state, and child abuse clearances and was a respected member of society. She then made a decision, a compromise.

Jenna went to work the next day, but instead of having her handgun inside her purse in her classroom, she felt she could lessen her risk by keeping it locked and hidden inside her car. It could not get into the hands of an irate student or a disgruntled employee. In that way, she justified to herself, she could be safe after school no matter where she went and, in the unlikely scenario of a violent incident inside her school, her classroom was only three minutes from her parking spot.

In her chair facing Ben Jones, Jenna pondered who could have possibly known she had a handgun tucked away in her car. She had told no one. Then she remembered one evening she had stayed after school, as usual, and had had a long conversation in the parking lot with a female colleague. Her handgun, which she normally kept well hidden in her car’s glove box, was in the side door panel instead. Jenna kept it there most days for quick access outside of school but put it securely in the hidden glove box every morning on her way to school. Jenna doubted this young female teacher would tattle on her, but there was no other explanation of how she could be sitting in Mr. Jones office waiting for her fate to be known.

Mr. Jones began by saying, “Jenna, you know I agree fully with your right to own and bear firearms, don’t you?” He then asked her if she was aware of the Gun Free Schools Act, part of No Child Left Behind. Jenna nodded politely that she was. Mr. Jones went on to state that he had not yet gone to Superintendent Walters about the matter because he needed to first hear if Jenna really had been keeping her handgun in her car on school property or if this was a one-time event in which she had simply forgotten to leave it at home. He added, “I certainly am not going to call in the police and search your car. Our poor district doesn’t need that kind of headline news

Questions for Discussion

From a school administrator’s perspective, does a school employee such as Jenna Smith have the right to disobey school policy if she truly believes students’ lives are at risk?

If Principal Jones were acting from the ethic of care, how would he handle this case? Would Jenna’s honesty matter? Would the fact that Jenna needed the income because of her family situation matter?

From the perspective of the ethic of critique, does it matter that there is a growing momentum in some states to train teachers to use guns in case of school emergencies?

As part of the ethic of the profession, if the teacher was truly thinking of the “best interest” of her students, that is, her ability to protect them if need be, how should this case be handled?