Student gets suspended for answering a phone call from his dad in Irak

that is just outrageous. here this dad callsfrom Iraq and this stupid school offical suspends the boy for talking to his dad. What on earth is the matterwith this person? The classcould not wait for what ten or fifteen minutes of a call. that young man might lose his dad one day fighting there in Iraq. while they are both alive let the young teen talk to his dad. that is only right.these men are risking their lives in Iraq and then to have some officious high school offical do that to them.

Hello Sergedan, First, I'll admit that I have not watched the accompanying video. And, I will not have time to do so until probably tomorrow. Though, I will report back after watching it. From the content of the Fox article, this story troubles me on a few levels. First and foremost, if the population of the school is that heavily represented by children of military parents, then these kids ought to have a good sense about following rules. So, if the mother initiated contact between the son and his father, then why didn't she make the tiny effort to pen a note for the kid, explaining that he was expecting a cell phone call from his father in Iraq? Or, why did the kid not apprise the teacher of the impending phone call when he first entered the classroom? He could have given the teacher his assurances that he would keep the phone ringer on buzz only, and if the call came in, would politiely ask to be excused to the hallway to take the call. He should have done this with all of his teachers until the call was received. So, it seems to me that disregard for communication is a key factor here. Second, I have to hope that the son's 'stress' is related to his father's absence. Otherwise, it seems that the mother and son should be working together the find other ways of coping with life, while the father is deployed overseas. It would seem to me that the father's stress far outweighs any stress that the son might have in his day to day life. I'm particularly troubled by the mention that the son views his Dad as a friend, with whom he discusses all manner of issues. I was raised to respect the workplace. Meaning that unless it was an emergency, a call to someone at work was inappropriate. Now, this gets tricky because of the time and military difference. Determining when his Dad is off-duty is near impossible. Hence, the need for the school to make some kind of allowances for calls from overseas. Which comes back to responsible communication, between all of the parties. It is irresponsible to expect that the whole class, and teacher should be disrupted because of one students need to talk with a deployed parent. If the school doesn't already have a policy about what steps need be taken when a student gets a call from a deployed parent -- then establishing that written policy ought to be a priority. I imagine that this is not the first time this has happened, and I doubt that it will be the last. So determining appropriate parameters for such calls would minimize the impact of any such future calls. The other issues are: 1. Does the school have an automatic suspension policy for cell phones in class? The article only references the no cell phone policy -- not the punishment. Though, to the best of my knowledge, in most schools the punishment is confiscation of the phone. 2. My sense is that the son is a bit emotionally underdeveloped, based on the reference to the father being his friend. So, was the son acting out, with regard to the incoming call? Or did he effort himself toward discretion when it rang? 3. The article references that resolution has been reached. Yet, the resolution was not outlined. So, from my perspective, more information is needed to assess the merits of the story. That's all I have time to share at this point. When I have reviewed the video, and sought out any additional coverage of the story, I'll chime back in. Though for now, my sense is that the disregard for responsible communication is at fault here, where all parties bear some culpability. If, after doing some more digging, I find that I'm mistaken, I'll report that also.