<p>Another horrible, tragic, disgusting story of two wasted lives. What is with parents? Are they so desperate to be liked by their children that they put other children at risk? </p>
<p>Once stiffer laws are passed, nothing will be done. How about mandatory life sentences & seizure of all property, assets if you allow kids to drink in your home. </p>
<p>Should probably clarify that “ratting out” comment. That was meant towards how I felt that it wasn’t right to go after the kids that were at the party. The parents are absolutely responsible and especially since this is not the first time, they are idiots. But I feel like the school shouldn’t get involved in suspending kids. Just my two cents.</p>
<p>Going after parents-fair game in my opinion. Going after the kids who bought stuff in-fair game. Going after 15 kids that were just sipping a beer for all I know, doesn’t warrant suspension or action.</p>
<p>In theory I don’t think schools should get involved in things off the premises, but in our small district this gets covered in the code of conduct and is tied to ECs. Any kid who is present at a party with alcohol or gets an MIP is suspended from their activity for half the season (for sports) and for various other amounts of time for other ECs. The police are complicit and turn over information on high school kids regularly to the school so no-one escapes. The problem is that the way it is written it punishes kids who consume the same as kids who don’t consume so consequently plenty of kids consume since the end result is the same…or they take the smart road and just stay away from the parties but there were times during the 9 years of having kids in high school i feared those that stay away were a minority. I always wondered how the kids manage to get alcohol, but if I’d ever try to talk to my H or the kids about that they would roll there eyes (spouse included) and give me that “you are so stupid look” so I’ve decided it’s easy for kids to get alcohol regardless of the parents that “supply” and plenty do. </p>
<p>Private schools can have all the rules that they want, including a requirement that any student abstain from alcohol & drugs, even outside of school. If they do partake, they can be suspended/expelled.</p>
<p>Is this a private school? I know the private school my D used to attend did punish kids who drank at a house during a school break. </p>
<p>I agree that they should throw the book at those stupid parents. I’m so sick of the “well they’re going to drink anyway, so I’d rather it be under my roof” attitude. </p>
<p>Even if the event was off school property, I think it is appropriate for the school to address an issue that endangered its students and it is an educational opportunity. The parents should be prosecuted IMO. If my kid was involved, I’d want to know, so I’m fine also with them trying to find out who was at the party. I’m sure the main reason is to provide early intervention rather than just to punish. </p>
<p>How is this not a violation of civil rights? School personnel can’t publicly release the records of school children without endangering federal funds. How is it the police can turn over records of minors without parental consent?</p>
<p>I think people are too quick to give away their rights. I don’t drink, I certainly don’t condone underage drinking or providing alcohol to minors, but the ends don’t justify the means. Schools should not be allowed to exceed their legal authority. Questioning students without counsel in what, for all they know, could be a legal matter isn’t appropriate. What exactly does the school intend to do with a list of names? Suspend everyone on it? Based on what proof, the say so of some other kid? Is that how it works in the adult world? If a coworker accuses you of stealing, can you be disciplined as if you were guilty on their say so alone? What happened to the policies of innocent until proven guilty and meeting the burden of proof? We don’t convict on rumor and innuendo.</p>
<p>And confiscating people’s property isn’t something I’d encourage either. When people break the law, we send them to jail, we don’t profit from them. If some idiot provides alcohol to minors we toss his sorry behind in jail, we don’t turn his spouse and children out into the street so we can confiscate their property. The potential for abuse with such a policy is huge. Didn’t our forefathers go to great lengths to separate us from a country whose leaders confiscated property from their citizens whenever they wanted, whether the charges were valid or not? I wouldn’t want to go back to a system like that. </p>
<p>In our area, ALL the kids known to be at the party would have been punished by the schools and the AA. Suspensions from teams, loss of captainship or possibility of captainships, removed from NHS, etc. I’ve seen it all happen to kids who have gone to a party not knowing that it was going to be an “issue”. The state and the PUBLIC high schools do not fool around with this. And parents who supply alcohol are idiots!</p>
<p>I don’t know austin…^^…it feels like a rights violation but since it’s “tied” to the honor code I suppose that is how they get around it. It angers me more than the police turn over the names of any kids they catch whether or not they breathalyzed zero if they were caught with other kids who were drinking and it’s all year round, so if a kid gets caught on a boat with other kids that are drinking they are all SOL for the beginning of the next school year. To me that feels (the police sharing information with the school) like a violation more than the honor code. </p>
<p>In our district the school gets involved and suspends kids for drinking that happen outside of school and are not school functions in any way as long as drinking is involved. There was an incident several years ago with a party that took place over the summer with a large group of HS kids. The school had all the kids suspended for the start of school.</p>
<p>That very next school year, there was a problem with a threat made on line directed at another student. The school claimed since the threat was not made at school they had no control and could not step in and punish the student. It made no sense to me. You either have authority over the kids outside of school or you don’t.</p>
<p>As a family, we have discussed these issues a lot with our kids, our kids’ friend’s parents, and school administration.
Here are my two cents:
Parent 2 will usually go to the HS administration, because they really don’t know where else to go to. But since it’s off school property, the school says that they won’t really get involved except for providing extra assembly lectures on drugs and alcohol to the student body which is reasonable. Expulsion of both kids is kind of unusual, but if both sides of the parents where causing such a ruckus, then sometimes it’s just the easier thing to do. Expelling other kids involved is completely over the line.
Parent 2 is upset. But really, their own kid did make the decision to drink and smoke pot, so their own kid is not free of blame.
It’s astonishing that Parent 1 was home and didn’t know or supervise what was going on. Are they really that clueless?
In many states, drinking alcohol under 21 is not illegal if done in a private home. Drinking and driving is illegal.</p>
<ol>
<li>I seem to be the dissenter in this group on this topic, but here goes…
Kids are going to drink alcohol unsupervised when they go to college. It’s important to give them training wheels so that they learn how to do it safely and do it in a safe place. So yes, I’d rather my kid to it at a house rather than out on the street. Rules for teenage drinking: must turn in car keys upon arrival, must spend the night if had drinks, if they plan on departing with a designated driver that had ZERO alcohol, then designated driver must physically speak to the parent at home and potentially blow into a breathalyzer before their keys are released back to them.</li>
</ol>
<p>And as for me as parent, we’ve told our kids that we would allow an alcohol party if it was
a. small
b. all kids turn in keys as above
c.we are home and make sure that it doesn’t get too rowdy
d. our kids and guest kids know that we as the parent hosts would inform every kid’s parents that there will be alcohol served at our party.
If a kid learns to drink responsibly and it’s not so “glorified” and rowdy, maybe kids would binge drink less, not drink and drive, etc.</p>
<p>Well obviously this parent didn’t inform all other parents that alcohol would be served or parent #2 wouldn’t have been up in arms. You can’t just provide alcohol for someone else’s minor child and not expect consequences. In out area there are definitely loss of athletic and other school privileged for out of school parties with alcohol or drugs. I don’t know the extent of cooperation, if any, between school officials and law enforcement.</p>
<p>^^ I don’t think you have #4 correct. It is legal in a FEW states (very few) for parents to give alcohol to their own children in their own home (and in Wisconsin in bars and restaurants if the parent is present). Your OWN kids, not other people’s kids, even with permission.</p>
<p>I grew up in Wisconsin when the legal drinking age was 18 and most everyone looked the other way. My parents had me go to the liquor store or bar when I was 16 to pick up liquor FOR THEM. We all drank freely at parties, except the athletes who drank secretly (smoked secretly too). The cops would just break up parties and take our alcohol and let everyone go home (or to the next party). They were more likely to give us parking tickets than minor in possession tickets. Those days are over. </p>
<p>I don’t want my kids to party like I did. One knows that if she does, she can lose her scholarships and if she does she’s done with that college and probably with college for a while. big risk to take for a night of drinking. Luckily, she’s usually in bed by 10 pm because she has to be up so early for practice.</p>
<p>“Well obviously this parent didn’t inform all other parents that alcohol would be served or parent #2 wouldn’t have been up in arms. You can’t just provide alcohol for someone else’s minor child and not expect consequences.”</p>
<p>I agree and said so in my post. A parent has every right to know what is going on with their child. And if I was parent 2, I would have had talks with my own kid, the parent of kid 1, and the school administration as well. Although I wouldn’t have yelled. In fact, we have talked to our own school’s administration about alcohol parties and the fact that many other parents may not realize that alcohol is being served at parties, which does not seem appropriate because, as I said before, a parent has a right to know what is going on with their child. </p>
<p>But if one set of parents provides alcohol to other kids even with the blessing of the other parents, parent(s) #1 are still liable for any untoward consequences. </p>
<p>Yes, this is true. This is what makes our sphincters tighten up and why we have so many rules set in place and include keys turning in, moderation, and supervision. But we also have a swimming pool too with all of it’s attendant risks and liability. In fact, one kid’s friend’s parent is a partner at a top notch law firm and he threw a alcohol party (in the same manner as described above). We were astonished and discussed liability issues with him and he said that he was ok with it, but maybe he knows that he can have a better defense team in place if needed. Kidding aside, I think that you can try to reduce risk, but there is no way to completely eliminate risk in life.</p>
<p>And perhaps because of the number of rules, neither of our kids has actually thrown an alcohol party. But they know what their own rules are for when they attend an alcohol party, informing us if it will be an alcohol party, spending the night there, calling us to pick them up if they don’t want to stay there, etc. </p>
<p>IMHO Mother #2 should have talked to the parents hosting the party immediately to register her objection. (Was certain at that point that they actually knew what was going on? She at least owed them the consideration of making sure.) She could have told them that she was going to inform the parents of all of the other kids at the party. Let each family deal with it in their own way. </p>
<p>Maybe her kid wouldn’t be invited to more of these parties, but presumably the kid didn’t want to be there or s/he wouldn’t have called to be taken home.</p>
<p>If I am reading this correctly they suspended the kid who called her mom to come get her. That doesn’t make sense to me. Aren’t all these programs encouraging kids to step back and tell an adult in a situation like this? Why would you punish a kid for doing what is supposed to be the right thing?</p>