If you were the Principal . . .
By whymrhymer
@whymrhymer (26)
United States
March 11, 2007 5:22am CST
Imagine you are the principal of an elementary school and a 10-year old boy was brought to your office; you are told that he removed the cover from a hallway fire alarm, initiating an internal fire alarm (the fire department was not called). You browse through his records and see that he is an excellent student who has never been in trouble in school. You talk to him and he admits that he took the cover off the fire alarm after being dared to by his friends but didn't know that removing the cover would do set off an alarm.
Would you as principal:
a) Call his parents and give him several weeks of in-school detention.
b) Notify his parents that he would have to spend the rest of the term in an alternative school.
c) Call the police and have him arrested.
This really happened in a suburban Houston, Texas school and the principal opted to call the police. The 10-year old boy (Casey Harmeier) was removed from the school in handcuffs (that's standard procedure in Texas) and taken to the police station where he was searched, photographed, fingerprinted, booked and placed in a holding cell. Only then were his parents notified by the police. He now faces charges that could put him in juvenile detention for up to one year.
What would you have done if you were the principal?
1 person likes this
2 responses
@czechdoll1 (153)
• United States
11 Mar 07
Sounds like there was some overkill in this situation. I probably would have given him detention for a day or two and of course called his parents. He has the fact that he is a good student going for him and that he has never been in trouble but I don't think I would take such extreme measures.
@whymrhymer (26)
• United States
11 Mar 07
I completely agree czechdoll,
I think that sometimes school administrators need to take a time out themselves or they will find themselves overreacting to situations like this. To subject an otherwise well-behaved, intelligent 10-year old kid to police booking procedures is unthinkable.
Thanks for the comment!
@nicolec (2671)
• United States
14 Mar 07
Interesting situtation. I don't about the laws in texas. Is it possible that it is a state law that tampering with the fire alarm is a criminal offense? In that case, I suspect the prinicpal had no choice but to call the police. However, it seems as if the police took it a little too far. If it's not a law, then calling the parents would have been sufficiant. Even if the call to the police was a 'scare tactic' it seems it got a little out of hand.
