In the Student Rights and Responsibilities handbook given to New Century High School students, it clearly states that "all students posses the constitutional right to be secure in their persons, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures." No kind of article is actually secure when staff members always confiscate everything belonging to my friends and I. Tell me you’ve never had a teacher take away a paper you were working on (related to school or not is of little importance).
Two of my friends were in the office and they had been told to wait in Mrs. Wertz’s (behavioral discipline) office. They had waited in the office for two hours. (Is it just New Century or do other schools do that also?) During this time, they saw three openly displayed expulsion notices for their friends. One of them looked at the articles and Toni Bottomley/Karterakis immediately turned the papers over and said to the boys, "what do you two think you’re doing?! Those are none of your business"! Now she is right, but doesn’t the rule also state that students have a right to their articles to be unseen by staff if they do not wish? Why yes, it does.
They were finally called in to have a "hearing" with Mrs. McBride (school principal). They were called in one at a time. The first of the boys was repeatedly blamed for threatening a student who had made a false accusation (of which I will cover later on in the article) and when the student denied it he was called a liar and told if he didn’t tell the truth he was going to be in big trouble. This student had made no threats to the student who made the accusation.
My other friend was then called into the office and blamed for calling this student a "nark" and threatening to "kick his ass," which he also did not do. He as well denied it and was told to stop lying and tell the truth before he got in big trouble. My friend then said "well, you were not at the incident so how could you prove it had happened," to which Mrs. McBride said, and I quote, "the student must care an awful lot about his school to report an incident like that." My friend then said to her "so, if I was this kid and I saw something happen I could place the blame on anyone and get them in trouble like you’re doing to me right now"? He was then suspended.
Now, about the false accusations mentioned above. Three of my friends came running up to me at lunch. They were frantic and I grew weary, not knowing what was going on. They told me they were just expelled for vandalizing the bathrooms. Just like that. No trial, no nothing, just all of a sudden, BOOM!, they were expelled. It later turned out that a student (the same one who my other friends supposedly threatened) had reported that they had vandalized the bathrooms. The three were immediately expelled. They were told that the only way they could come back is if they wrote an apology. Now, I ask you, would you apologize for something you did not do?
Ever since then, my friends who where suspended have been getting blamed for everything that comes up. One of those guilt by association deals.
On a different note, what happened to the freedom of religion deal? Don’t get me wrong, I am not a religious freak, in fact I myself am atheist. But tell me why it is that students are allowed to wear "Jesus loves me" shirts and when a friend of mine wore a shirt that said "Hello, my name is satan" he was told to turn it inside out or get suspended? Their reply to this is that the shirt my friend wore was offending people. Well, what if the "Jesus loves me" shirt offended someone too? It’s a two way street bud.
Quite some time ago, my friend was called to the office about being on LSD. My friend was simply laying his head on his desk and Mrs. Lovos (who just visits classes and supposedly helps teachers) claimed that something wasn’t right about him. They later called him to the office and made him follow a small keychain light with his eyes. Then, this is what really gets to me, they told him to close his eyes, then move into the light, then open them. Now as anyone knows, when your eyes are in a darker atmosphere and moved into a lighter atmosphere they will dilate. Now, when his eyes dilated they acted shocked and sent him home for the rest of the day claiming he was on hallucinogens. About two months later, Mrs. Lovos had him sent to the office for laying his head on the desk again. This time the claim was that he was drunk.
On a lighter note, it was rather funny when we were briefly allowed to use netscape (for searching purposes only) and we went to the Oblivion page and Wheeler’s article titled "Oppression at New Century High School." The teacher ran over and shouted "No, don’t read that!" and quickly clicked to net search.
In closing I would like to say that as a student at New Century, I don’t feel I can work to my fullest abilities with all the put-ons of "oh, our school is so great," when in a normal school day I see all the hypocrisy they throw in our direction, the biases they have towards certain students, and all the rules they fail to follow. Nowhere does it state that these rules are for students only, the rules affect everyone. They seem to think we are just mindless goons herded into their school to be filled with what they want us to know and not the information that is truly important. When a student shows he or she knows the rules and how it’s all supposed to work they are suspended or expelled. Wake up New Century, for we know our rules, and you and I both know you are bending them to serve yourself and those you deem worthy.