Students Rally In Support Of Principal
Metro Source News - Wed 07:54 AM 11/30/2011
About 50 students rallied outside Shawnee Mission East Tuesday in support of Doctor Karl Krawitz.
Protesters outside a Kansas high school show their support for a high school principal at the center of the dust-up involving Twitter, a student and Governor Sam Brownback.
About 50 students rallied outside Shawnee Mission East Tuesday in support of Doctor Karl Krawitz. He's been catching flak for calling student Emma Sullivan into his office and urging her to apologize for a tweet she made that was critical of the Governor.
Sullivan sent a tweet during a class trip to the state capitol last week saying Brownback "sucked," among other insulting comments.
Brownback's office staff saw the tweet while monitoring social media and contacted the school. The governor has since faced ridicule for trying to police a teenager's Internet musings.
One student who participated in the rally tells "KCTV-TV" that Krawitz did the right thing because it's his responsibility to make sure each student at the school is viewed "positively" by the community.
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grnthums
Wednesday 30 November 2011 10:12 Report this comment
Emma Sullivan's comment on social media outlet Twitter was immature. Her criticism of our governor was justified. Our governor further validates continued criticism of himself by knowingly spying on free speech at the people's state house. We notice that he refused to apologize for spying. He apologized for the ridicule this has brought upon himself and Kansas. I guess you could say this all s$#cks.
Iamgonnagetu
Wednesday 30 November 2011 12:25 Report this comment
We were discussing this over coffee the other day and our small group all felt that the principle should of handled this in house. His making statements to the media was totally uncalled for and unnecessary. Discussing any pupil with outside sources such as the media should be against school district policies if it isn't already in place. The school district should terminate the principle immediately for his error in judgement that caused this to be blown out of perspective. Why is it only 50 students out of maybe a 1000 are backing this Guy which continues to make the news this is poor reporting by the media.
The_Law
Wednesday 30 November 2011 13:47 Report this comment
The more disturbing part of the story is the fact that the Governor's office monitors Twitter and his office staff, which represents him, decides to go after a non-threatening message. If it had been a threat, it would not have been covered under free speech. Under the law, students are not allowed the same free speech as an adult (ex: promotion of drugs and sex in school). However, the message was very vague. Therefore, you would have to look at this quote in Tinker v. Des Moines (1969): "(Free speech can) only be prohibited by school administrators if they could show that it would cause a substantial disruption of the school's educational mission." In this case, I do not think the school could do anything to her.
The_Law
Wednesday 30 November 2011 13:48 Report this comment
They could recommend she apologize, but the school could not suspend her if she did not. The principal, I believe, was trying to show that it was inappropriate. We try to teach kids how to behave, then stick up for them when they make mistakes like this, instead of relating why what she did was in poor taste. We continue to have a new generation of students with poor social skills. This would have been the perfect opportunity to address this issue, but the media has turned it into a free speech issue, which it is, instead of a social skills issue.
The_Law
Wednesday 30 November 2011 14:11 Report this comment
Both sides are wrong. Brownback's office, not for monitoring Twitter, but for blowing up a non-issue. The student for inappropriate comments. She would be more highly thought of if she said, "Brownback sucks b/c he cut school funds and now I'm in a class of 30 where I've received an inadaquate ed. on how to construct an arguement."
uneducated
Wednesday 30 November 2011 16:13 Report this comment
The student is 18yrs old which in the USA is legal age. The use of the cell phone represents a form of privacy, even if she used a public forum, just like right here. She made no threats to life or liberty. The monitoring of this "social media" is questionable to say the least. Was she rude or inappropriate, good question, because of the "staffs" response this came to light or you and I never would have known any different. Quoting a law from 1969 is only going to open a can of worms the ACLU will jump on in mitigation. None of this is anything close to what the people of the State of KS needs, and/or wants. I'm sure the taxpayers are going to have to foot some/all of the bill directly/indirectly. It's NOT just going to go away. Look, we have a kidnapper suing his hostages, need I say anymore.
politicalmama
Thursday 1 December 2011 23:27 Report this comment
@brownbackblowsalot: Impeach Brownback and restore sanity to Kansas.