High School Students Ordered To Smile All The Time - Or ELSE

Bert from Sesame Street would not do well in the Northern Lebanon School
District in Pennsylvania. 

My nominee for the most Orwellian high school in the nation goes to the Northern Lebanon School District in Pennsylvania.

Students there are required to smile at all times while in the hallways between classes, or else they get in trouble. If they don't, they must go to the guidance counselor to discuss their "problems" or get detention.  

So you're not allowed in the school to show any normal emotion other than benign (fake) happiness.

No anxiety over an upcoming tough test. No thoughtful contemplation over which colleges to apply. No anger or grief over the latest school shooting elsewhere in the nation. No thoughts of regrets over the argument with  Dad this morning over smart phone use.

Any normal thing like that is grounds for counseling or detention. It's just bizarre.

Meanwhile, according to the Lebanon Daily News in Pennsylvania, some parents are complaining that bullying incidents are being ignored by administrators. My guess is because the school district has some obsession with turning the school into some Stepford Wives perfect world.

Several teachers told the Lebanon Daily News said the smiling thing isn't a written rule in the school, Assistant Principal Benjamin Wenger has been enforcing this smiling "regulation."  I guess the fake smiling is more important than dealing with the real bullying in this school district.

After the "forced smiles" article came out, North Lebanon School District Superintendent Erik Bentzel denied that there is a "must smile" rule, but I suspect that's PR in the wake of the embarrassing news coverage.

So, if you ever go to this school for a visit, smile! You're on Orwellian camera!

High School Journalism Students Out Fake Principal: Investigative Journalism Rocks

The reporting staff at the Booster Redux, the student newspaper
at Pittsburg High School in Kansas. The reporters did some
investigative reporting on their new principal, which led
to her resignation under a cloud. 

Recently, Pittsburg High School in Kansas got a new principal.

Like any decent news organization reporting on a change of leadership, the kids working on the student newspaper (called the Booster Redux) decided to look into Amy Robinson, the new principal, just to see her background, where she went to school, all that routine stuff.

"She was going to be the head of our school, and we wanted to be assured that she was qualified and had the proper credentials," Trina Paul, a high school senior and editor of the Booster Redux told the Kansas City Star.

The reporters at the Booster Redux didn't find routine information, though. "We stumbled on some things that most might not consider legitimate credentials," Paul said.

The Booster Redux ran a front page story on what they found about Robinson. It wasn't pretty. And soon, Robinson resigned from her new $93,000 per year position at the school.

What the reporters at the Booster Redux did was good old fashioned investigative journalism, something a few of their adult peers in the journalism biz ought to emulate.

Maddie Brown, a junior at the high school and a Booster Redux reporter, said an electronic search of Robertson's background turned up a bunch of articles by Gulf News about an English language school in Dubai that was connected to Robertson.

The Gulf News articles said that Dubai education authorities had suspended the license for Dubai American Scientific School and accused Robertson of not being authorized to serve as principal of the school, the Kansas City Star notes.

The Dubai school received an "unsatisfactory" rating every year from 2008 to 2012 and was shut down in 2013.

Hmm.

"That raised a red flag...If students could uncover all of this, I want to know why the adults couldn't find this," Baden said.

Good question!

Usually, school boards vet the heck out of prospected principals. What happened with this one?  Might be a good follow up story for these young reporters.

Especially given what the Booster Redux reporters uncovered next.

Robertson had said she got her master's and doctorate degrees at a place called Corllins University. By the way, the Kansas City Star checked the Booster Redux reporters' work and came up with the same thing they did.

U.S. Department of Education officials confirmed what the students said. They could find no evidence that Corllins was in operation and couldn't find it in a data base of schools closed since 1986

The Booster Redux reporters DID find several articles referrin to Corllins as a diploma mill, where you can buy a degree, diploma or what have you.

Again, I wonder why the school board didn't catch what the students did.

Robertson, for her part, was kind of defiant, as is often the case when people are caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

"All three of my degrees have been authenticated by the U.S government," she told the Kansas City Star, whatever that means.

Also:

"Robertson declined to comment directly on students' questions bout her credentials, saying, 'I have no comment in response to the questions posed by PHS students regarding my credential because their concerns are not based on facts."

Way to go! If you don't like what a reporter is telling us, just yell "Fake News!"

She could have cleared all this up by telling us what really happened if she things the high school  journalists got it wrong.

The way things are going these days in Washington and elsewhere, we need investigative journalists more than ever. And we'll probably need lots of them for the forseeable future.

Which means I'm so glad the reporters at the Booster Redux had this scoop. I hope it inspires them and kids all over the country and the world to keep asking questions, keep demanding answers.

It's what we all deserve.

A Beard, A Graduation And Stubborness Make A Big Mess in Amite, Louisiana

Amite, Louisiana High School valedictorian was
not allowed to participate in graduation ceremony or give his
speech because he refused the principal's
demands to shave his goatee. 

Andrew Jones was the valedictorian of Amite High School in Louisiana, having earned straight A's and academic and athletic scholarships to college.

Yet, he wasn't allowed to march in his graduation or give his valedictorian speech.

Why?

Because he has a bit of a beard. More of a goatee, really.

I'm not sure how a little facial hair could possibly get in the way of academic success and a graduation ceremony, but people are weird, as we all know.

School administrators said no facial hair is allowed on students at the school. Jones, and a few others were told by the Amite High School principal just before the graduation that they could not have beards. They must shave.

Jones refused to do so. Yeah, I know, stubborn kid.

But really. His faint beard doesn't seem to be the most important issue in the world.

And the school's position was undermined because, although the no beard policy is supposedly always in effect, lots of photos show students at Amite High School all year with facial hair, as television station WVUE reports. 

There was never any enforcement of the no facial hair rule all year. Why the sudden demand for freshly shaved faces at graduation, after a full academic year of bearded male students? The Amite High School principal isn't talking.

But he did force Jones out of the graduation ceremony, so no speech, not proud moment of getting a diploma as beaming relatives watched.

Because a beard - and the high school principals' inflated sense of authority - squashed that idea.   No facial hair at this school, no siree. Facial hair is MUCH more important an issue than academics, let me tell ya.

I'm sure the principal of the high school is proud that he is leading the charge to make all men clean shaven.

Jones is black and most of the Amite High School administration is white, so people are raising the idea of racism.

It's possible. An uppity black kid in a rural Southern town being valedictorian instead of a "more deserving" white kid?  I can see how people with bigoted minds might think that way.

I really hope I'm wrong about that. We can't know for sure. I do know the NAACP is getting involved with this. 

Meanwhile, the whole thing has caused a national uproar and is a big trending topic on Facebook.

All because of a bit of stubborness from a smart kid. And a lot of juvenile pettiness from one stupid high school principal.

I hope the principal is enjoying all this sudden negative publicity.