Monday, January 13, 2014

HANNA: ALARCON MUZZLES STUDENTS' RIGHT TO PETITION

By Juan Montoya
In 1965, student expression against the Vietnam War was at its peak.
Marches, speeches, and rallies against the U.S. military southeast Asia adventure were the norm across the country's college campuses.
And so it was that in Des Moines, Iowa, a group of high school students (the Tinkers) decided to express their sentiments against the war by wearing armbands in protest. The school administration moved quickly and suspended them. A subsequent U.S. Supreme Court ruling came down in favor of the students and the court observed, "It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."
An so Tinker vs. Des Moines established that in order for school officials to justify censoring speech, they "must be able to show that [their] action was caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint," allowing schools to forbid conduct that would "materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school."
The Court found that the actions in wearing armbands did not cause disruption and held that their activity represented constitutionally protected symbolic speech.
Just last week, a group of students wanted to petition the Hanna High School administration to allow the campus to open during lunch time so that those who did not want to eat in an overcrowded cafeteria or the school fare food could either go home or go outside the campus and buy their own lunch at local restaurants. There is a Subway and Dairy Queen (as well as a Capt. Bob's) and Mexican food restaurants within walking distance from the school.
"It was basically saying that us students don't agree with what she's doing our lunch, that its a fire hazard and there's kids sitting on the floor which is unsanitary and it would take forever to get out of school pretty much," said a student who organized to petition Principal Terry Alarcon.
Reports from inside Hanna indicate that Alarcon went up to the student circulating the petition and seized it from him saying that it was making some students "uncomfortable" when they were asked if they would sign.
Alarcon didn't say which students complained or what caused their discomfort. However, once in her possession she now knows the identity of the students who were in agreement with the request that the campus be open at noon to give students the option of seeking their lunch elsewhere. That might cause some discomfort to them, it would seem. As the student put it, Alarcon alleged something that was far from the truth.
(She said) That I was pressuring kids into signing and making them uncomfortable but I explained to her how I approached the students and explained my cause which shouldn't have pressured anyone," he said.
So far, there has been no further action taken by the students who organized the petition. However, the organizers say that they will request that Superintendent Carl Montoya listen to their request.
The student said that no students told him that being asked if they would sign a petition caused them any discomfort.
(She said that) I was making kids doing something that they were uncomfortable with which isn't true cause they could say no at any moment," he said.
In partial response to the students' requests, the Hanna administration has placed folding tables outside during lunch. However, this token act is a band aid response to the more important issue of encouraging impressionable students on the value of exercising the right to petition authorities for redress and to allow them to freely express their opinions. Instead, she seized the petition and kept it.
A more important issue, however, according to a local attorney who specializes in First Amendment rights, is the unilateral prohibition of the students' right of free expression.
"What kind of a school does she think she is running?" he asked. "It seems to me that the students were not engaging in disruptive conduct or passing around anything lewd or obscene. It would seem to me that she would encourage their right to petition. After all, they were merely asking that the district listen to their request. She cannot run a school like a dictatorship."

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

As a student of Hanna High School, I can say that the administration is often unfair. If a petition is going around for other organizations (ex. something for PETA), administration ignores it. But the second a petition surfaces regarding the actions taken by administration and their unfairness, it's silenced immediately.
I understand the desire to make Hanna a closed campus. She made a valid point every morning over the intercom for a week saying, "everyone is tardy to class after lunch, so this will resolve the issue." This resulted in the idea of the lunch passes. What she failed to mention were the strict criteria you have to meet in order to get a pass for yourself, though. The criteria ranges from perfect attendance, to no tardies whatsoever (which is ridiculous if you know the layout of the school and the popular S-to-T building setup of our schedules). Not only that, but for seniors, this extends into our junior year, and whether we passed all of our classes that year. This doesn't seem fair to the seniors, who had no prior warning saying that their actions in junior year, purposeful or not, would affect their right to leave the crowded campus for lunch.

Concerning the large size of the student body: Yes. There are way too many kids to fit on campus. Especially when they restrict us from retreating to our favorite classrooms for lunch. (They set up "hall monitors," and they usually ask where we're going. If we mention a teacher's classroom, we have to have a specific reason as to why we're going or we can't go.)

tl;dr: Alarcon shouldn't have the right to silence us if we're clearly unhappy with an overcrowded campus, cheap food that doesn't completely provide the teenage body with the nutrients it needs, and the possibility of just not getting food at all due to long lunch lines.

Anonymous said...

AS A PARENT OF TWO KIDS WHO GO THEIR ,ONE A JUNIOR ONE A FRESHMAN I DON'T REALLY MIND THE CHANGES BUT ONLY IF THEY CHANGE CERTAIN THINGS.WHAT I'VE HEARD IS THAT SOME OF THE FOOD IS TERRIBLE AND NOT NUTRITIOUS LIKE SERVING PIZZA,AND CHOCOLATE CHIP WAFFLES FOR BREAKFAST,AND WHAT THEY SERVE FOR LINCH IS NOT ADEQUATE AND SOME OF IT IS STALE!ALSO VERY LONG LINES NO PLACE TO SIT INSIDE BUILING:DONT TOTALLY DISAGRE WITH CHANGES BUT OPTIONS FOR BETTER FOODS EVEN IF MY KIDS PAY OUT OF POCKET IS OK.GOOD LUCK MRS A

Anonymous said...

This is very interesting. As an ex BISD administrator I believe that the principal overstepped her authority in trying to keep her decision under wraps. As a result, this article brings her actions to the public eye. Students have protected constitutional rights. Schools should encourage students to exercise their rights as these students attempted. Hopefully, the upper administration will look into this matter. If not, maybe the parents can take this matter to the next level.

Anonymous said...

"... there are kids sitting on the floor which is unsanitary.."

This is not the only high school in which students are sitting on the floor eating their lunch. Take a visit to the oldest high school in the Southmost area.

Anonymous said...

Why didn't Bobby break this worthy news first in his blog? Perhaps he is running cover for the school principal.

parent said...

C. MONTOYA YOU NEED TO MOVE THE PRINCIPAL FROM THAT SCHOOL ASAP.

Anonymous said...

Yet another good post. JM, you are a local treasure. With dire consequences for the present and future the American educational system has engrained conformance rather than self-education. We the People should be up in arms, uh, figuratively, to respond to Alarcon's facist reaction that violates basic human if not basic constitutional rights.

J. Schmid, Lawyer

Anonymous said...

GOOD REPORT I GIVE IT AN A, I JUST HOPE THAT TRYING TO FEED MORE THAN 2000 STUDENTS AT ONE TIME AND PLACE DOESN'T CAUSE A FIGHT, FOR THAT I WILL HOLD MRS ALACRON RESPONCIBLE!

Joaquin said...

This is what happens when an education is mandatory. Ignorant and unruly students think they can run the school. We hire school administrators to do that and if the parents want to see a policy change, there is a process in place to make that happen. Idiotic petitions do nothing and instead of educating the students on the proper way to address an issue with their school, you people are encouraging to be future useless "Occupy Wall Street" thugs. Congratulations.

Anonymous said...

It is amazing how many words are misspelled in the comments above. When education is involved...poor grammar and spelling by parents and "students" proves that education is less important than feeding; and education is less important than the quality of food. The students need to eat at their desks so that maybe some education can sink in while they eat free meals. BISD is a day care organization....not an education oriented organization. Students are fat and ignorant.

Anonymous said...

Oh My God! Hanna is a closed campus?
I just drove down Price Road around 11:30 AM and counted 20 students walking down Eagle road towards the area where the fast food places are. As I got near where the bakery is (across from St. Lukes church) I counted another 12 students (yes, I did count one by one). There were also about3 kids with student back packs waiting for the city bus. If the school is a closed campus and it was a first lunch period, why were these students leaving the campus? If the students say that the monitors dont allow them to go anywhere, where were the securities and monitors that were supposed to stop these students? Hanna, Rivera and Porter are the high schools with over population (based on local standards). BISD has lost a great number of students to the charter schools so even with the over population, these schools are in no way shape or form as over crowded as they were in the 80's or the 90's. If their complaint is the food, then do what a selected minority of students do, eat breakfast at home or take your own,mom and dad's taxes pay for your transportation, textbooks, building, chairs, and salaries. I was a Homer Hanna High School student 34 years ago, I NEVER ate breakfast at school, my mom woke up EARLY to make me my home made breakfast and my home made lunch that I took in a paper bag and left in my locker until lunch time. Today's young people wake up at 8:30 am, expect their parents to take them to school, are embarassed to be seen in a school bus, want to be excused for getting to school late, EXPECT the cafeteria worker to pick up after them if they get to eat a "late breakfast", they seldom say "thank you" but they do expect to be served by the adult, when they dont get their way, they "cry wolf" and hide behind the constitution. That part they did pay attention to in their social studies class. When that part was being covered they were not texting in class with their friends, listening to music, falling asleep, or talking while the teacher was lecturing. THAT is what is really going on in today's classrooms. I dont know Hanna's principal, but I did spend many years in the public school system. My suggestion is that if things are so bad at Hanna HS, then PARENTS should approach the school board and the story stops there.

Anonymous said...

THINGS HAVE CHANGED IN 34 YEARS BUD THE SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM HAS ALWAYS TOLD THE TAX PAYER (PARENTS)THAT THERE KIDS WERE GETTING A NUTRITIOUS MEALS AND THAT HAS NOT NEEN THE CASE .THE COMPANIES THAT SERVICE THESE FOOD CONTRACS SHOULD BE LOOKED AT MORE CLOSELY I PERSONALY FEEL BASED ON WHAT THERE SERVING OUR KIDS .STATE PREACES NUTRITION I THINK WERE GETTING SHORT CHANGED STALE FOOD CAMON MAN

Anonymous said...

DON'T BE SO CRITIAL ABOUT THE SPELLING DAM, IT'S THE MESSAGE MR PERFECT

Anonymous said...

THAT IS THE MOST STUPID COMMENT SO FAR ON THIS BLOG.I DON'T THINK THEY WERE BEING UNRULY DUMMY THEY WERE EXERCISING FREE SPEECH EVEN THOUGH I AGREE WITH THE PRINCIPAL ONLY IF THEY TWEAK SOME OF CHANGES NEEDED FOR THIS TO BE SUCCESS.

Anonymous said...

This is what liz valdez is doing at Porter.. You would think she is related to Fidel Castro. She mistreats teachers and treats bullies and gang members with more respect (fear) than she does her teachers or staff. She walks by teachers like she does not know them but calls thugs that bully, cuss, drug push, and disrespects teachers MIJOS, MIJITOS. BS. She is always upset at staff. She needs to buy a cat to get some love, and maybe change her poor attitude. Teachers talk and want to act on getting her out of there but board just gets rumors started that she is getting moved and nothing happens.. she gets a by..
Hanna students are complaining of close campus .. valdez is taking kids out of all their electives to put them in classes that earn them no credit towards graduation.. but teaches them the STAR TEST. Then students fall behind in credits.. my niece was so behind in credits but when my brother said something she was able to magically take 6 credits in the stars program to get her back on track.. so much for real teacher teaching subject matter.. star modules 6 credits all on her own.. when my brother complained about what was happening he was told that he could sign a form saying he refused what school recommened and there fore if student did not graduate it was on him.. but the way the form is explained threatens parents into just looking the other way. Now folks thst is bullying. I sub at high schools in bisd and only at Porter I hear teachers feel so bullied. Kids open up and discuss all this with me.. they show me transcripts.. and schedules which show prep classes for bio .. alg I.. creat writing.. and all for local credit which does not help graduation.. so sorry eagles.. Dr. Montoya please address the problem and how teachers feel at Porter first before lunch passes at Hanna. Dr. Montoya go by Porter and observe her rapport with teachers.. and of course she will put a front like she does when Dr. Rita is there.. will post anonymous cuz I love to sub at Porter.

Anonymous said...

I applaud the principal. The students and stupid parents who defend them are the exact reason we have school shootings and violence. Back in the day if a student got out of hand they were spanked. Today the student does something bad and the parents get after the teacher. They want to do shit and hide behind the Constitution. Que no sean tan mamones. C'mon Juan, stop writing about bullshit like this. You know the principal is right pero te gusta el pedo. Grow up, dude.

Joaquin said...

The students went around asking for signatures all over the school. This was a distraction ergo, students were unruly ("disorderly and disruptive and not amenable to discipline or control"). Dummy.

I think we would all agree there is a time and a place to exercise one's freedom of speech. During school hours is inappropriate, in my opinion.

Anonymous said...

That was actually the seniors. We had an excused open campus day because of the benchmarking from the rest of the school which caused the seniors to be in the gym for the entire day.

Mil masacaras said...

Give me liberty or give me death? viva Villa nachos

Anonymous said...

OH A BIG DISTRACTION AND UNRULY SURE GUAWKING!I BET EVEN IF THEY DID IT AT LUNCH TIME OR AFTER SCHOOL THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN A PROB.

Anonymous said...

"As a student of Hanna High School, I can say that the administration"

You actually believe someone is reading that, huh? lol!

rita