LA Times: Oakland High Students Interrogated and Coming Events

--A Gibbs Editorial--
http://www.gibbsmagazine.com/Teacher%20strange%20behavior.htm

Last week in Oakland, a local news daily, The Oakland Tribune Newspaper, reported that one of Oakland's high school teachers, Ms. Sandy Whitney, of Oakland High, called the US Secret Service on two 16-year old students in her classroom because the boys, in a class discussion said, "Bush is wacked" and "We need a sniper to take care of Bush." And one of the two boys said, "Yeah, I'd do it and take Bush out! "

Normally, such bizarre stories are placed in Gibbs' side column, under Strange News, but this was of such far-reaching implications, it merits special editorial comment.

It is hard to believe that an adult person who is a teacher, an educated person who is dealing with children, an Oakland High School teacher in Oakland actually bypassed the principal of the school and all other governing administrative structures in the Oakland School Unified District and picked up a telephone, found the US Secret Service number in San Francisco and actually called them to report two children.

First, no sensible adult in a school system who understands anything about children--little Black boys, no doubt--would hear the words spoken by these two boys and feel a hint of seriousness of a threat to a President Bush, who is not scheduled to come to Oakland in the foreseeable future or ever in his life. And two 16-year old boys are not going to Washington or any other place Bush is scheduled and attempt an assassination of Bush. If an adult teacher in Oakland believes that, the teacher is gravely ill and needs urgent care.

Let's assume the teacher who believes such a thing is functioning with all her faculties; wouldn't standard procedures, proper protocol, standard administrative procedures, etc., dictate that this teacher call the principal of the school she is in if she thought there was a true danger? Isn't that the chain of command? Assuming that she was operating with all her faculties and she was a fairly competent teacher and thought the comments of these boys raised a red flag, wouldn't she explore the comments further in class discussion to at least gage the seriousness of them and to educate other students concerning making such comments?

And the school's administration must be looked at as well. First, from all normal administrative standards, this teacher has breached the school's administrative procedures and gone outside the chain of command to the embarrassment of the school and the City, need we say the intimidating and truamatizing of the two 16-year olds. Shouldn't the principal have, at learning of what the rash teacher had done, taken immediate actions against that teacher? And shouldn't that principal, Mr. Clement Mok, once learning that this naive teacher had set in motion a chain of events he could not stop, viz., the Secret Service agents coming to the school, have contacted his administration for directions? And shouldn't the parents of these children have been contacted?

Neither the teacher, Sandy Whitney, nor the principal, Clement Mok, seemingly had the foresight to act responsibly. When the Secret Service agents came to the school, the children's parents had not been contacted, apparently his administrative heads had not been contacted, the principal sat in while two government agents interrogated the two 16-year old children!

There is something terribly wrong with this picture, from the teacher's reactions to the students' comments, to the principal's response to the teacher's action. This whole scenario should have never transpired.

This teacher's reaction to the students' comments and the principal's response to the the situation not only breached all forms of administrative procedure and school governence, both the teacher and the principal breach common understanding, common sense, and common teacher-student and principal-teacher-student-parents (remember them?) protocols. Is this weird behavior on the part of the teacher and the principal some rush to patrotism? When did 16-year old boys in the Oakland inner city high school become terrorists?

The would-be terrorists are not the two young, vain talkers--that is what young boys do! The terrorist, if there is one, is the teacher who is naive, inexperienced, and seemingly unfit to teach inner city children. Doesn't she understand anything about inner city young boys? Who placed her in this school? Where was she educated to be a teacher? What other absudities has she engaged in? Why is she still on the bloated payrolls of the Oakland Unified School District when they are in such dire financial straits?

High school children are children, and children say a thousand dumb and meaningless things a day. It is the nature of children, and any teacher of children should know this before he/she enters the classroom. Oakland's children deserve experienced teachers who are flexible and competent.

One can imagine what this tortured soul of a would-be teacher experiences when she goes home. She must think that every idle word a young, senseless 16-year old Black boy says he will actually do. At 16-years old all he has is a mouth. Jamaica Kincaid and other Black writers indicate that an inner city child has only a mouth, and he/she will take that mouth and make a gun with it. That is what we call shooting off at the mouth! Every inner city teacher should know this.

We lament because there were so many other things that could and should have been done: Talked to the children in open class discussion about their feelings and these comments; second, if the teacher perceived a real concern, go to the principal and allow him to talk to the teacher or the boys or call the parents of the children for a discussion; third, call the District for instructions; fourth, when the Secret Service agents came, the parents should have been called. These are no-brainers solutions and alternatives!

The action of this teacher and this principal of Oakland High shames the school, the District, and the City, but it may also indicate the two employees are unfit for their positions: the teacher does not understand children; she does not understand the chain of command structure, or maybe it is not in place at this school. The principal is not in control of his teachers when they are allowed to bypass normal channels and go directly to the US Secret Service in San Francisco!

There is a serious problem in our school system when teachers are allowed to engage in the type of strange behavior this Oakland teacher under took last week.

"Anytime the issue of a threat to the president of the United States comes up, the Secret Service has to look into it," John Gill, a special agent with the Secret Service in Washington, D.C., said.

Hey, John! Have you counted how many children there ARE in this country? Just starting with the elementary schools will keep the SS busy for quite a while!

"Some educators and politicians, including Felson and Hodge, have thrown
their weight behind AB 1012, a bill now before the California Assembly
Appropriations Committee, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and
sponsored by Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento). It would
require high school principals to tell students that they can request that
a legal guardian be present befor e they are made available to law
enforcement officials."
--I am a little confused by the wording here. Can students request the presence of a guardian, but the principal is not required to inform the students of this? Or as it now stands, a guardian doesn't need to be present. Which one?? I would like to let my students know.

Well, I don't know nothin' 'bout no any damned 'Bill 'o Rights', but what I does know is this: If them stoopid kidz had done been sayin' anythin' bad 'bout our President that was givin' from God Almighty of our blessed nation, them kidz should be shot like peace activists.

That's the way all those stoopid people with opinions that differ from our god-givin' President should be done with. When people have free minds, the nations security is at stake. The stoopid minorities might take hold in the country, like Californians er sumthin'.

So I'll end by saying that if people speak out against our blessed President, Country, and Texas, they should be put in a gas chamber or be put in jail for life. ...Or both! And if they don't believe in Christ almighty, the same thing should happen.

-John

There is a problem. They were interviewed under the provisions of the Executive Protection Act (a law that far pre=dated Patriot, in fact into the late Truman Admin). That law actually allows the secret service, on notification of a threat, to take any person into custody and hold them in secret until their status can be cleared up. I am amazed they interviewed them at the school and just didn't pick them up, interview them and drop them off. As far as any state law affecting this, not on a bet. The EPA trumps all other state and federal law in the area of alleged executive threat. In my hometown there is a gent who wrote a threathening, if lighthearted, letter to Carter. Every time the president or VP comes in, he is picked up, wherever he happens to be the day before the arrival and is held in a motel until after the dignitary leaves. He tried suing in federal court and was told he has no standing because under EPA they do own your body when you make such gestures. Scary, but true.