I was once told by a reporter never be surprised by how stupid a school district can be. He talked about how in his 30 years of reporting that there seemed to be no lower limit to the depths of idiocy that school districts could plunge to.
I waited a day to hear BVSD's response to the ACLU accusation. And today we get it and the BVSD reply makes it sound even worse. They not only read the students cell phones, but they impersonated the student sending messages from the phone.
- The law appears to be very clear - it's illegal to read someone else's text messages & voice mails. And the district's lawyer approved this. So we have the district taking illegal actions compounded with incompetent legal advice.
- And then they sent messages from that student's phone impersonating them. What kind of lesson does this teach the kids? That lying is fine if you're in charge? Do we have Dick Cheney as the principal there?
- Students lives are in their text messages to each other. Putting the law aside, the district should be respectful of student's privacy and realize that this was a massive overreaction to the issue of a student that might have been smoking. What's next, SWAT team invasions of our home if you suspect cheating on a test? BVSD clearly has no concept of the idea of keeping responses appropriate.
- TXT messages are how we parents communicate with our kids at school (changes in when/where we pick them up, etc.). The district is now invading private communication between parent & child.
- And they then went after additional students. Over one student smoking? No wonder we have so many students flunking out, not passing the CSAPs, etc - the district is spending all it's time trying to catch kids smoking. The district has it's priorities totally screwed up.
- If we treat the students as irresponsible children, they will act as irresponsible children. If we treat them with dignity and respect and an expectation of responsibility, almost all of them will act as responsible young adults. BVSD, as you sow, so shall you reap.
So now we go down the typical response here. BVSD has defense shields up (Monarch administrators already will not talk to the Camera) and is insisting it did everything right. It will continue to insist that whatever they did was what they should have done and it is legal for them to do so.
The community will lose even more respect for the school district as this drags on for a week or so in the press. BVSD will be clueless to the ongoing damage to their reputation as they continue to plug their ears and keep repeating "we are right, we are right."
The school board will either do nothing or issue a statement of support for the district. Why? Because that is what the school board always does. No independent critical thought. Heaven forbid, no disagreement with the district. Rah rah, sis boom bah - go BVSD!
The ACLU will fight the good fight and as it becomes clearer and clearer to BVSD that they are in an indefensible legal position, they will agree to do the bare minimum required by law.
And BVSD will never understand why we the people of Boulder, their constituents, find their actions abhorrent and un-American.
