Report Misuse

Checked my school email address this morning to find a "Report Misuse" email from a seventh grader (I'm the site administrator). He had forwarded to me an email from a classmate who'd emailed the entire seventh grade some lyrics - lots of "izzle" stuff - and then wrote that they should cheat on the "uckin CTB math test" - as though leaving off the F would keep it from counting as a curse - and then (now this was a clever move to evade getting in trouble) claimed in the email to not have written the first two lines of it - followed by a warning not to tell the teachers, followed by signing his name. I promptly disabled his email account, then went to another computer to print out the email. By that point he'd already realized his account was disabled, since they'd just turned on the laptops in Communication Arts class. I called him out of class and confronted him about it, at which point he tried to slip through the loopholes he'd so cleverly left himself - not actually typing out any complete curse words, claiming not to have written the email - but I wasn't hearing any of it. "What does the AUP say about emails sent from your account? You are responsible for ANYTHING & EVERYTHING sent from your account, even if your friend did write it... besides, you signed your name!"

I emailed the boy who reported the offensive email message and thanked him for doing the right thing. We are keeping his name out of this, which is easy to do when the email was sent to the whole seventh grade!

Called the first boy's mother. She was understanding on the phone, although when she spoke to the principal later, she was much less understanding and accused us of picking on him. But that's mostly because this is just the latest in a long string of incidents involving her son - three this week! - and she no longer has any clue what to do about him, so she's trying to shift the blame.

That's how we found out that another teacher has been calling parents and telling them stories about how we, his colleagues, are interacting with their children. That is so not okay. He calls them, acts like he has no problem with their children in his classes, and then weaves dramatic stories about small or non-existent problems that their children have been having with other teachers. Lovely. Wonderfully professional! He was absent today.