Jim Shrawder says:

Please don’t hold all the parents responsible for the excesses of the website cutusabreak.org. I know most of these parents and they do not have discipline problems at home. If a parent has a discipline problem they remove a privilege. School officals have a responsibility to act in place of the parents when the kids are in school. The administration could have simply temporarily suspended computer privileges. It works every time. The computer is their favorite toy. The administration refused to use this simple discipline technique because it might have caused inconvenience to the staff.

Billy Kebab says:

Okay, to be honest, I didn’t agree with you on the whole. In fact, I think that what the school should have done after the first warning, would be to take the notebooks from them. I know, call me crazy, but that just might remedy the situation.

Mark Potter says:

As far as Mike Boland sees it we should be allowed to commit crimes and just get a warning!!! Obviously a scumbag lawyer fighting for the ‘rights of the downtrodden!!’ I agree the punishment was too harsh. The laptops should have been taken back-case closed. Ask Mike Boland the lawyer if he thinks the guy that kicks his door in should get ‘a warning’

unknown says:

I dont think u can compare someone going into ur house… to someone using the admins account… sorry… but i do think the students were wrong, no doubt… but they were getting pushed into it by someone trying to be mr. big man on… not going to say names tho… but still im happy no one got in that much trouble…

Jon says:

Thank you for giving this story some perspective. I’ll come back to read you again.

mike boland says:

well you bought the district’s version hook line and sinker that the kids and their parents were given repeated warnings etc etc

my client was charged after NO WARNING and NO DETENTION

investigate first–then editorialize….

Chuck Staples says:

This is the first account I’ve read about the supposed extent of discipline these kids got. It puts a completely different perspective on the story. I agree that felony charges are extreme, but the kids deserve strict punishment. Everyone loses if felony charges is the course of action. What I want to know is – how many administrators were fired for being repeatedly negligent in securing school records?

Gnomic says:

This is yet another example of applying the law rather than good sense. America is quickly trying to apply the law – both criminal and civil – to everything we do as a society. We are suffering a chain reaction caused by too many laws, lawyers, and disposable income and not enough appreciation of the freedoms that we are giving up in our quest for judicial conquest.

The right thing to do: take away the kids computers for violating the rules. Then move on to solving real problems.

Applying the law simply ruins the kids lives and has little benefit other than providing some prosecutor a platform to run for office. The costs of ruining otherwise potentially productive lives with a felony record does society absolutely no good.

When I think back to some of the things I did as a kid – things that hurt no one but today would put me in jail and toss away the key – I wonder what lessons we a teaching the kids that will be one day standing on my oxygen hose in a few short years.

kefguy says:

I’m really displeased with the adults whose attitudes are that “kids will be kids.”

I too am wondering what’s happened to simple solutions. To wit: Take their computer’s away!

And/Or:

IF that doesn’t work,
THEN how about plain old-fashion expulsion?
ELSE these kids and their parents haven’t learned a thing.

I’m pretty sure the school board is within their rights to do that. Then it does become the parents problem (of where to put their kids for school). I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t happen again.