Did Town Really Turn the Tables on School 'Prank'?

I get why people think of punishment at a time like this, but is more punishment really going to help? A lot of bullies get their habits by handing down what they get at home, or have been bullied themselves. Further punishment might just seem like more bullying to them, and continue the cycle. Wasn't showing the bullies that people should be treated with respect a better response? Wasn't trying to make something good out of this mess a better idea than tightening the screws a bit more?

I truly see no glorification of bullying here. I see people responding with care. And who says the parents haven't addressed the issues at home?

 

Punishment won't change what's already happened but the act itself needs to be addressed and the ones responsible need to be taken to task in one way or another. This was a bullying incident and needs to be treated as such by the school as well as by the parents. School administrators aren't exactly known for their creativity but if they were, I'd like to think they could find something exquisitely appropriate like making the culprits wear humiliating signs over their necks for a week or two during school hours that say "Don't feed the slug," "Most likely to do something ignorant," or "Infested with lice". Bar them from all school functions for the rest of the year, including sporting events. Give them cafeteria duty for a month requiring them to serve their fellow students and "fetch" on demand. Punishment doesn't have to be overly punitive - it just needs to get the message across to all.

I don't see this as tightening the screws. I see it as giving these students an opportunity to learn that with actions come consequences. For the bullies who were weaned on this sort of behavior at home, how reliable is it to expect that these parents will address the issue at all? Even if they do, there is nothing that says the school can't deal with it as well, especially considering that the incident occurred at the school.
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By the way, anyone know where Plan9's been lately?

I miss him.

 

I think that it's especially important for the school to do something, if only to send a message that this kind of behaviour is unacceptable. It isn't just about this year's students, but about the younger students coming through and what they will do next year - the message needs to be sent.

If the ringleaders can be identified, I'd be asking questions about whether they should be in any position that represents the school. Thus, any football players, cheerleaders, etc. might, for example, be barred from that activity.

Punishment for wrong-doing isn't bullying.

Also, am I the only one who doesn't think that giving this girl "stuff" will help rebuild her self-esteem? In some ways it could simply underline her "otherness" as a deserving recipient of their "charity". However, it probably makes THEM dfeel better.

 

Well, individual punishment is fine with me, where involvement can be proved. It's not 100% that everyone who voted for this person were being mean, though. I might have voted for an underdog (if I voted at all).

The cancelling of activities, which was mentioned before, seems to punish everyone else. That's mainly what I meant by tightening the screws.

 

I said something similar in an earlier post - I don't think those who voted as a way to support the underdog rather than the popular favorite should be involved in disciplinary action. Deciding who's who would certainly pose a challenge but I guarantee you, most will at least know which students concocted the idea in the first place.

I also agree that punishing the entire student body would be unfair unless of course, it's a very small school and a huge majority of the students were in on the prank. I hope that wasn't the case.

 

I guess I don't really see cancelling the event as a punishment - rather a sensible and natural reaction.

Who is going to get pleasure from this now?

 

No, you are not the only one. I'm actually concerned that the going overboard of the celebrating of the girl will make her feel singled out--when she never aspired to any of this. Who would feel good about the red hot spotlight on them when otherwise they were just a regular high school sophomore, trying to go about her own business. She never asked to be a homecoming queen. Given that she is described as being 'different' in her appearance than many of her classmates, it may be the last thing she wants to be molded, if only for one night, into one of them.

In the OP I suggested that perhaps this excess was to assuage their feelings of guilt, whether they are culpable in any way or not.
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No one. It's gonna be awkward all 'round.
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Here is the Support Whitney Kropp Facebook page which details her story as well as others: Support Whitney Kropp | Facebook.

On another note, there are now 1951 comments on the news story I partially excerpted in the OP.
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It was only the sophomore class who voted for homecoming Queen/King for the sophomores. Each grade voted for a Queen/King set so it would seem like overkill to punish the 3 other grades who had no participation in the events.


From what I can gather from their rather barren home page, the high school which is described in the article as being in a 'tiny town,' can't be very big. It only has one vice-principal, compared with my son's (class of 2010) who had 8--at a high school with 4000-plus students. There are also only 2 counselors, who appear to be academic in nature only, split up by the first letter of the kid's last name.
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I can see your point Cayvmann. The town rallying around her is very sweet. Will it change the behaviours of the dipshits who conspired to make this girl a laughingstock--then did? I can't see how it will. It was an incident that took place in the school. I think the school should be responding, which thus far they say they are 'looking into it.' Parents that give a damn surely have discussed this with their kids...but how to know 1. how many know about it and 2. then actually care enough to do something?

 

On reflection, cull the entire town. Raze everything to the ground and start again.

It's for the best, really.

 

Maybe I'm feeling a bit skeptical of changing the behaviors of dipshits, but is there really any changing them? If you can get the less alpha-dipshits to see that what they did was wrong you may have won something. The real bullies, in my experience, don't learn. The followers might quit following their leads if you can show that what was done actually hurt somebody.

The school should have done something, I agree. "Looking in to it" is a code phrase for, "some of these dipshit bullies are children of important local people, so we'll drag our feet". The towns people probably know this and that's why they responded as they did.

 

A happy ending... maybe.
VIDEO: Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

West Branch, Michigan (CNN) -- A Michigan teen is making the most of a homecoming prank that she says left her feeling suicidal.
Whitney Kropp, a self-described outcast with just a handful of close friends at Ogemaw Heights High School, was picked to be the female representative of the sophomore class royalty. It certainly came as a shock.
But hours later, the 16-year-old learned classmates voted for her as a joke. She spent the night in tears.
"I'm like, 'Wow, I feel like trash,'" Kropp said. "I feel like I'm a little thing that no one really cares about."
That night, she said, she contemplated ending her life "right here, right now."

Read the rest: Michigan teen targeted in homecoming 'prank' gets last laugh

 

Probably not, although I'm biased by a high school experience that involved being sent to the dean's office with a few friends because another group of kids was grabbing everything big enough to throw from the trash and throwing it across the courtyard at us while we were sitting in our corner minding our own business. Nobody was actually punished, but the kids who were attacking us weren't even told to stop.