<p>^Go back to the beginning of the thread and read the posts. I didn’t say it, they did.</p>
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<p>I am a person who agrees that cheating is cheating, rationalizing it just means you know it is wrong. That being said how can you say there are not differing levels. I am sure you have probably sped even though it is against the law, that is cheating! So if you drive 50 in a 45 should you have your license revoked? You knew it was against the law and yet you chose to do it anyway.</p>
<p>Maybe a one policy fits all is not appropriate, just as our justice system doles out punishments that fit the crime. We also need to consider that our cultural values are changing–HS kids are getting the message that cheating is sort of expected–sad but true ( think Bill Clinton). Think about the punishment that people got in the “olden days” for marrying someone of a different race; something we can all agree was ridiculous. Maybe the same thing is happening now. </p>
<p>Not that is it “right” but is just “is”.</p>
<p>You must have specific posts in mind since I can’t find any posts where a parent said - my kid cheated therefore…</p>
<p>I am curious how the parent determined it would mess up his kid’s chances to an Ivy. Looking at the accepted private university list for 2010, I can’t find any university outside of Stanford in the top 10 USNWR rankings or any Ivies listed. I can’t imagine a school known for sending kids to Ivies not to have a single admit to any for the year.</p>
<p>[Sequoia</a> High School](<a href=“Sequoia High School - HOME”>Sequoia High School - HOME)</p>
<p>I also don’t see any adverse impact to the GPA/ranking if the kid moved down for the semester.</p>
<p>GRADING AND RANKING: Sequoia High School uses an unweighted GPA to determine decile ranking. Sequoia calculates students’ GPAs using a standard 4.0 grading scale: A = 4 points; B = 3 points; C = 2 points; D = 1 point; NA, FA or F = 0 points. </p>
<p>GRADUATION AND TEST DATA: In 2010, 97% of the 376 Sequoia graduates went on to higher education, with 40% attending 4-year colleges/universities and 57% attending community colleges. </p>
<p>The average SAT scores for 09-10 were 476 Verbal and 508 Math. 89% of our International baccalaureate diploma candidates earned qualifying exam scores; 80% earned the full diploma. 200 students took 432 IB tests in May 2010.<br>
In May 2011, 242 students will take IB exams. 104 students took AP exams in May 2010 and 82 earned passing scores. Students of all ability levels are encouraged to take college entrance tests. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.sequoiahs.org/uploadedFiles/file_2637.pdf[/url]”>http://www.sequoiahs.org/uploadedFiles/file_2637.pdf</a></p>
<p>limabeans…I don’t dispute that cultural values are changing, but that doesn’t mean we should just accept it as irreversible, especially when it’s not right. You made a comparison to the historical punishment for marrying someone of a different race changing over time. Of course I’d expect the punishment to change, because the act itself was not wrong and never should’ve been punished in the first place. But when you know the act is wrong, why should we accept the current trend as inevitable and start lessening punishment for it? That’s the slippery slope I was referring to earlier. I think that once you start implicitly or explicitly saying “this crosses the line but that’s not so bad” it leaves too much open to interpretation. I love things that are clearly defined, and I truly believe a strict zero tolerance policy is the clearest, most effective method to stem the current trend.</p>
<p>Since I also love pithy quotes…“All that is required for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing”. If we could get more people to say “enough is enough” instead of “it is what it is”, maybe the trend could get reversed.</p>
<p>I believe most schools have policies that are CRAP - made up by bureaucrats who make them up because they sound great on paper without a clue to the unintended consequences.</p>
<p>An example - our local schools have policies that give detention after 3 tardies in a semester. All it takes is for a parent to get stuck in traffic and get delayed by a few minutes (the problem with a tardy - 1 min is tardy, 20 mins is tardy and so there is no grace and they don’t want to accept a note from the parent).</p>
<p>Consequence - it is better to skip that class and take a note from the parent for skipping the class than be tardy since the tardy note is not accepted by the school. Who makes up a rule like that?</p>
<p>^ and most kids I knew just skipped the class if they weren’t prepared for a test. Their parents would simply write them a note that they had an “appointment”. It’s still cheating.</p>
<p>Getting caught in traffic is just an excuse. Late is late. Does the school provide buses? Maybe the consequence shouldn’t be detention but a requirement that the student take the bus to ensure a timely arrival.</p>
<p>I would love to know what policy they could have that isn’t CRAP.</p>
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<p>That doesn’t seem like such a “CRAP” policy. You get three chances. As for 1 minute is the same as 20, if they didn’t have that, they’d be listening to all kinds of “crap” excuses all morning as to why 2 minutes late was for a “reasonable” cause vs. the other kid’s “unreasonable” cause. If they had a “grace period,” no one would ever feel the need to be there on time. And I agree. If you don’t want to get caught in traffic, leave the house earlier to allow for that.</p>
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<p>Hehehe, how about:</p>
<p>No worries Bay. My kid won’t get pregnant, because they don’t have premarital sex. Not because they’re afraid I’ll write letters disowning them, but because we’ve raised them to know that it’s wrong. No excuses, no justifications, no quibbling. They know it’s wrong and, more importantly, they BELIEVE that it’s wrong.</p>
<p>I laugh at all the parents who swear their kids don’t have sex, drink alcohol, or smoke pot. I don’t mean to imply Wolfie that your kids would do these things but just trying to point out that such extreme views might make you eat your words some day. You can NEVER know for sure what another person will do in a stressful situation. You can have a good idea based on past performance, but when you say never…it’s kind of creepy. It’s like saying you have programmed them and they never make their own decisions. All parents can really do is talk about their values, model those values and then hope their children make good decisions as they are becoming adults ( and be realistic that there may be some bumps along the way).</p>
<p>Kids make mistakes (as do adults) and have times when their judgement is lacking (immature frontal lobe issue). Lighten up, they’re humans not robots.</p>
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texas -The admin and parents of the students who wisely plan for unforeseen (bad traffic and the like) events. Several kids arriving 1 to 3 minutes late to a class is far more disruptive than one child coming 20 minutes late. It is fair to 95% of the students whose parents consistently get them to school 15 to 20 minutes early every day in the off chance something like being stuck in traffic occurs. Your school’s tardy rule is designed to avoid those situations where one or two kids basically change a 55minutes first period class into a 52-minutes/day class. Fifteen minutes / week may not seem like much but over the course of a semester or year it is.</p>
<p>That’s why buses get kids to school by 7:00 when school doesn’t start until 7:20. My kids wailed & complained about how “early” they had to get to school…but they were never tardy. And even when they drove to school as seniors, they got there plenty early, because obviously the entire school body cannot drive through the gates at 7:18, park, and still stroll into class on time!</p>
<p>^^^D’s school day starts at 8:05. She (and her sister before her) always wanted to be out the door around 7:00 (we live 10 minutes away) because “everyone” likes to sit in the hall, visit, and kind of compose themselves before the day begins. If we were ever in any risk of actually being late for class, my Ds would have been hyperventilating. They learned at an early age from a soccer coach, “If you’re early, you’re on time, if you’re on time, you’re late.” Much to DH’s chagrin, who lives his life at least 30 minutes late for everything.</p>
<p>“and most kids I knew just skipped the class if they weren’t prepared for a test. Their parents would simply write them a note that they had an “appointment”. It’s still cheating.”</p>
<p>How sad it is not labelled cheating and there is not another crappy policy about it. 
There are so many ways someone can do something unethical but it does not seem to be considered cheating since the system allows it.</p>
<p>Why is a policy that encourages a kid to skip class vs being tardy because a parent screwed up/a major accident in a major city causes traffic gridlock at least a couple of times a month any good? </p>
<p>“That’s why buses get kids to school by 7:00 when school doesn’t start until 7:20.”</p>
<p>The same buses get caught in the same traffic and are late a lot more than someone dropping them. The interesting part is that a kid catching the bus is NEVER considered tardy because it is the fault of the school district although it is a traffic problem.</p>
<p>OTOH, there are parents who had to weigh the trade off between sending their kid to a prestigious magnet school and putting them on a bus vs dropping them personally. Someone said the magnet school was out of question because the parent was tired of driving a kid to school for the past 3 years and can’t do it for 4 more. Why not the bus - It comes at 6.15 for a school starting at 7.45 but 20 minutes away for a parent to drive because it takes the kids on a tour of the town.</p>
<p>But we digress - a kid cheated in a california school and his father sued the school. I am all for hanging both.</p>
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<p>Seriously what is the big problem here? You get 3 tardies before you have a consequence. And the consequence is…a detention? Big deal.</p>
<p>There are kids who are NEVER tardy. What is their secret? They leave the house early enough to allow for traffic/accidents/construction whatever. And if they fail to do so three times, they sit in detention one day. They get over it. I just fail to see how this is some kind of authoritarian, bureaucratic injustice.</p>
<p>And yes…we digress…after 21 pages of the same arguments, it’s bound to happen.</p>
<p>“Seriously what is the big problem here?” </p>
<p>I think a kid should not have more incentive to skip a class as opposed to attending it.</p>
<p>And kids don’t drive until they get to 11th. By then, the teachers look the other way and don’t issue tardies.</p>
<p>Detention due to tardy in the morning: Essentially it is punishing a kid for something they did not do.</p>
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<p>That’s the only problem I see with your scenario.</p>
<p>^You must be a teacher or an administrator!</p>
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<p>At least your local schools give you 3 chances before getting penalized. </p>
<p>I had a government/US History teacher at my urban public magnet who if you were assigned to her 8 am or 9 am classes before homeroom and were even a second or two late after the bell rung, she’d lock the door to the class and would count you absent for the period. Then…you’d have to explain that absence to the dean so you don’t get cited for deliberately cutting her class. </p>
<p>She won’t accept legit excuses such as delays on public transit unless they were announced officially by the school beforehand. When asked about it, she says this is part of her effort to teach kids how to plan ahead so they’d wouldn’t have this happen to them as future employers may not be as tolerant about tardiness. </p>
<p>While I felt this was harsh, she did have a point as I’ve worked for employers who did sanction or even fire employees who had issues with tardiness because as far as they were concerned…those employees should have planned ahead to avoid it becoming more than a one-and-only-affair.</p>
<p>cobrat - what happened if the school bus was late?</p>
<p>Nrd - Glad to see early birds! We need them to keep the ecosystem alive.</p>
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<p>I’m a nurse.</p>
<p>And a lifelong perpetual “early bird.” It’s a compulsion which annoys my perpetually late husband to no end.</p>
<p>I searched for the court records in this case and found them, with the boy-plaintiff named only by his initials, because he is a minor. The contents of the complaint do not appear to be accessible, but the school/principal’s answer is there and contains general denials of all allegations.</p>
<p>The boy’s father may have been better off if he had refused to comment on the case or even acknowledge its existence, because it would have forced the press to use only their original source if they wanted a story, and kept the boy’s identity shielded.</p>
<p>It would be unfortunate if people do not pursue their rights because they are afraid of internet/Googler backlash. While I’m not sure that this boy’s father’s course of action was the correct one, I understand why he did it and have experienced similar (but not as dire) instances of feeling my child was “wronged” by public school administrators and considered elevating it to a higher level. In the end, I used those experiences to educate my children about how they will often be treated in ways that feel unfair throughout their lives, and they will have to accept that and move on, unless there is serious damage that must be addressed.</p>