Scott L wrote:

Over the weekend, at a neighborhood party, I learned that
4 of DD's classmates had been suspended, and maybe expelled
for smoking pot in the boys' room (during the last class
period!). If such a thing happened in your kid's school,
would you expect some kind of notification from the
principal alerting you to what had happened? (This is
7th grade, by the way). DD said it's been the talk of the
school, among her classmates. I guess I'd like to have
heard something from the administration, not from a
parent whose kid happened to mention something.

Scott DD 12 and DS 10


What kind of notification would you want? Name and addresses?
Or, just that 4 anonymous children were suspended for serious
infractions of school policy?

I don't think the first is reasonable under any circumstances
and is probably illegal under most.

Smoking pot in the boy's room? Well, even if it's rare in the
school, I don't think it's necessary to notify everyone.

The cases where I think it is necessary is when an incident places
innocent children in danger. E.g. guns or other weapons.

I can think of two incidents where this happened. The first was
at a small private school in the country. Two hunters were hunting
in field near the school and the children were scared by the gun fire.
The hunters didn't realize that they were near a small school. The
police were called and they were told to move on. All parents were
notified of the details the same day.

At a public school two boys were arrested for shooting paint balls
at the cafeteria windows. Again we were notified the same day.


/dan