{"id":360,"date":"2005-05-07T00:02:23","date_gmt":"2005-05-07T04:02:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scaredpoet.com\/wordpress\/?p=360"},"modified":"2005-05-06T22:54:23","modified_gmt":"2005-05-07T02:54:23","slug":"lets-get-stupid-about-the-cell-phones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/?p=360","title":{"rendered":"Let’s get stupid about the cell phones"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, a school district in Georgia suspended a kid for 10 days for refusing to end a cell phone call while in school. Normally I’d be all for this, but the call was from the kid’s mom… who’s serving in Iraq<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 10-day suspension was issued because Kevin Francois was “defiant and disorderly” and was imposed in lieu of an arrest, Spencer High School assistant principal Alfred Parham said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, let me get this straight. They were planning on arresting<\/em><\/strong> this kid over a stupid phone call<\/strong>? <\/p>\n

What’s worse, the story goes on to reveal that the kid was on his lunch break<\/em><\/strong>. That’s right, he wasn’t in class, and he probably wasn’t even interrupting anything or anyone as he took the call. Not to mention, it’s probably difficult as hell and expensive as hell<\/strong><\/em> for a soldier serving in Iraq to arrange a phone call back home. While it’s quite easy for us back in the states to sit back and dial a few digits, and in many cases not pay a dime for it, reaching out isn’t so easy while being the target of insurgents half a world away in a war-torn country.<\/p>\n

And besides… it was his mom<\/em>. Whom he probably hasn’t seen in over a year, no less.<\/p>\n

Parham said the teen’s suspension was based on his reaction to the teacher’s request. He said the teen used profanity when taken to the office.<\/p>\n

“Kevin got defiant and disorderly,” Parham said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well y’know? If I were that kid, and I got a call from my mother in Iraq, and some anal retentive stick-to-the-rules-and-have-zero-compassion schoolmarm decides to get his or her kicks by throwing the rules into my face, I’d be a tad “defiant and disorderly” too.<\/p>\n

Updated story here<\/a>, where it appears the district is starting to exaggerate its claim in order to bolster ts position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A kid was suspended for ten days for refusing to end a cell phone call in class. Normally I’d be for this, but the call was from the kid’s mom… who’s serving in Iraq.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaredpoet.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}