ST. MARY'S COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION CELL PHONE POLICY CHANGE

[3CATSAILOR]

St. Mary’s public schools will not tolerate students recording and sharing videos and photos of student fights.
That was the word from Superintendent Scott Smith during the school board’s Aug. 10 evening meeting. Revisions to student conduct policies 802 and 810 were announced and discussed as informational items during the meeting.

In most school systems, cell phones have been a major distraction from educating the students. Some Counties have increased the restrictions on cell phones for that reason. For some reason, St. Mary's has been hesitant. They appear to be more concerned about reducing the sharing of videos and photos of students fights. Why are they so concerned about it? Could it be that they do not want video evidence of fights so that those involved can be identified? Or, are they concerned about glamorization of the fights? Good luck enforcing this latest rule change. What will they do if the rule is broken? I didn't see any mention of what they would do. Perhaps it it out there. I haven't seen it so far. Public Schools in general seem to be having more and more issues when it comes to violence in our schools. I suspect parents of children will start to demand more available alternatives to public schools. It seems to be not a matter of if, but when.

 

[NorthBeachPerso]

Gee, that only should have been enacted fifteen or so years ago because that's how long filming school fights and posting them on social media has been going on.

 

[NorthBeachPerso]

To follow on a couple of questions:
It isn't a matter, necessarily, of identifying who was in a fight (we always knew who was involved, even in the ones that had multiple players) but just tamping the whole thing down.

It stirs crap up, makes the school look bad, and actually encourages more fights.

We had one video posted years ago (before PG hired some people specifically to search social media for references to any of the system's schools) of kids in the parking lot playing "ball" games (for the uninitiated that's a group of boys hitting each other in the testicles as hard as they can). That damned video had a couple hundred thousand views before it got taken down.

Some kids go to school specifically to be crap stirrers. I lost count of the number of kids my last fifteen years or so who complained that the school was "boring" because we didn't have constant fights like other ones did.

 

[Bare-ya-cuda]

To follow on a couple of questions:
It isn't a matter, necessarily, of identifying who was in a fight (we always knew who was involved, even in the ones that had multiple players) but just tamping the whole thing down.

It stirs crap up, makes the school look bad, and actually encourages more fights.

We had one video posted years ago (before PG hired some people specifically to search social media for references to any of the system's schools) of kids in the parking lot playing "ball" games (for the uninitiated that's a group of boys hitting each other in the testicles as hard as they can). That damned video had a couple hundred thousand views before it got taken down.

Some kids go to school specifically to be crap stirrers. I lost count of the number of kids my last fifteen years or so who complained that the school was "boring" because we didn't have constant fights like other ones did.

There’s a couple reason why I imagine. 1. Sheds negative light on the specific school and 2. It sheds negative light on a specific demographic that majority doing the fighting.