"Fairness" Vs. Expediency

For the past two weeks, I have had time to ponder the use of the word "fairness" when it is obvious that the person using the word actually means they are just taking the quick way out.

This has come about because of an incident that happened to D at her school (a magnet elementary school in LV that prides itself on its "international" affiliations and a politician's wife on hand).

To lay out the background, fifth grade at her school has a sleep-away science camp at the end of the year. The entire year, the kids are psyched up by the school about this event. In fact, it is held over their head as a threat like Damocles' sword. As it is a sleep-away event, the parents had to sign a sheaf of forms that give the school permission to seek medical aid, give medicine, transport the kids in school buses and ALL the papers said it was a school function (including the packing list for the trip, which told the kids they had to pack according to the dress code).

Well, in the two weeks before the trip, my daughter started getting harassed by her teachers. Every perceived "bad look" or "disrespectful" action was turned into a big deal--the incidents were mostly where a teacher or other student accused D wrongly of doing something and she spoke up to defend herself. Apparently that is a bad thing at her school. So is standing on a ball court when calling someone out, it seems.

The Friday before the camp, I had gone to the school to warn the assistant principal that some of the kids were planning to entrap and get D into trouble somehow (the little monsters were planning it the night before IN FRONT OF ME and one of them even mouthed off to me!!!). I was promised that she would be watched and protected by this same AP. Alas! That was not the case at all.

At recess that Friday afternoon, D was invited to be the judge in a game of tetherball. When she called one of the little brats out, the girl ("A") refused to leave. She then told D that "when the ball hits [her], it would be an 'accident'". Then she spiked the freakin' ball into D's face!!! She followed that by a kick to D's leg (a real no-no to me because of D's dancing). D ran to the AP who was supposed to be looking out for her (but was hanging out with another teacher) and told her what happened. The other girl figured out she was going to get in trouble and messed up her own clothing and then accused D of hitting her, too. But she freely admitted that she hit D first, no matter what else resulted. No matter! BOTH girls were banned from the camp without the principal being consulted or the other parent having a chance to come in. Then the AP left a chickenshit voice message apologizing, but still banning both the girls "to be fair". Total BS!

I went to the school first thing Monday AM before her class was due to leave and had a confrontational meeting with the principal (nice lady-NOT!!!). She was pissed because I was making her late for a meeting and she didn't want to discuss it. Then the beotch had the nerve to say that D instigated the fight (not there was any proof there ever was anything but A attacking my kid and then lying) because she "was standing in front of A and didn't move"! WTF is that kind of logic?!?! Then she pulled out a bunch of alleged incident reports that neither D nor I had ever seen before and said that she would have kept D from going for any one of those reports.

As for the reports: one was for D supposedly being disrespectful to her GATE teacher (the one who allegedly keeps adult type magazines in his desk--when reported the response was "Oh, no! Not at our school! We don't have those kinds of teachers here!") when he accused her of doing something she wasn't doing. Another was when her keyboarding partner started messing with the controls and the music teacher told her to stop and D said it wasn't her. Piddly shit, to be sure, and not worth more than a note to me (which I never got). BUT it was already known that just one report would keep a child from going to camp and a lot of teachers used those reports to keep kids they didn't care for from attending. Yeah... Really "fair", huh? She was holding the reports "just in case" she "needed them". Again, WTF??? She as much as told me that she was going to use something, ANYTHING to keep D from going. To add to the Bitch Quotient, the idiot woman had the nerve to tell me that it really wasn't a school function anyway and she could control who got to go anyway. So what was with all the forms with the school district logos and official letterhead all over the place that they made us sign?

The favorite word tossed around at the school is "investigate". Every incident must be investigated. Investigation is usually on the level of "Who did it?" "X did." End of investigation. No independent collaboration, no checking the tapes, nothing! Or, in the case of D and A, not even that was done. My daughter had the other girl's shoe prints all over her, quite visible from across the room. When I asked if they checked the other girl for similar marks, I was laughed at and told I watched too many crime shows. When I was teaching, it was standard practice to examine EVERY kid for evidence. Apparently, there was nothing to see at the time. Later, A had a tear in her shirt and claimed D bit a hole in it. It wasn't examined closely to see if it was a tear or cut, but they took A's word for it and said D did it. No proof, no witnesses, but that didn't matter. It was easier to be "fair" to the girl who assaulted my child by taking her word for it that my daughter bit her shirt than to be 100% certain. Expediency over fairness!

And what about the alleged "knock down-drag out"? With teachers and the AP on the playground, wouldn't you think that someone might have noticed that there were children fighting? Especially if there was clothing-rending and yelling? Not a single adult saw any altercation! And, of course, the surveillance cameras are not trained on the playground as it would mean they would be liable if there were a tape. My daughter had to go get the AP, crying all the way, when she got hit. But D was alleged to have been capable of tearing a shirt at the same time. PULEEEZE!

What I really take umbrage with is the portrayal of D as "a danger to others". I was told that to my face. My child had only one other referral in the four years the school has been open for fighting and that was when she was being choked by a bigger girl and she bit the girl to get free. Unfortunately, the girl was the daughter of a favorite substitute teacher and they wanted to keep the momma happy, so D got in trouble.

Part of the issue is that D has a 504 plan for her ADHD and PBPD (another parent I know is going through the same issues, so it isn't just D, BTW). The school, priding itself on its "elite" status, really doesn't like to deal with 504s and IEPs or anything that doesn't exude perfection. They don't like to deal with the paperwork or the special accommodations or 1:1 instruction, so they pick on the kids. It is far easier to single out the 504 kids as "troublemakers" and punish them constantly for anything they can, hoping the parents will pull the kids and the school wouldn't have to deal with them anymore. That's why the principal went to mandatory uniforms--she hated keeping track of the regular dress code.

Sadly, D didn't get to go to the camp at all (even though I gather Mr. H--the region supervisor--had told the principal to let the girls go and punish them some other way). D spent three days in a class with a sub doing worksheets and having the other kids alternately making fun of her or blaming her for getting A "in trouble" even though A attacked D to begin with! The other kids also spread the story around that A was minding her own business and D just walked up and hit her for no reason. The same little monsters who have been picking on her all year have been given carte blanch to make the last few days miserable for D and the administration of the school are being "fair" by allowing it to go on because my child is ALWAYS wrong, no matter what. I have tried to get her to go to an adult when she has a problem. It doesn't help when her teacher (more on her later) tells her to stop being such a tattletale.

A note about the other girl: I was told what an angel she was and how she NEVER got in trouble. Uh-huh! This girl has beaten up just about every kid in Safekey. Still on school grounds and contracted by the school district, right? So it is still a school thing, however obliquely, as far as I am concerned. Yet, despite the fact that Safekey went to the school when D tossed a pencil box at me and I yelled at her, I was told that Safekey had nothing to do with the school and visa versa, so A's fights there meant nothing. But D gets referrals? Like I said...

I didn't get the money for camp fees back, either.