The you-know-what hit the fan today when Molly Born of the PG reported
School tries to eliminate 'grinding' from Mt. Lebanon dances. I watched
WTAE news this evening and recognized the reporter I saw this afternoon as I drove past the high school. [Oh the irony of seeing a spelling error under Cissy Bowman's name at the 1:01 mark!]
The day of the homecoming dance Oct. 13, six students were cited for underage drinking, including a 16-year-old so intoxicated that a police officer had to carry her off the dance floor, said Lt. Aaron Lauth of the Mt. Lebanon Police Department.
Paramedics took the girl to St. Clair Hospital, then Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC. Lt. Lauth had no update on her condition.
But the kids have a point, as usual:
The principal's Friday morning announcement wrongly made the grinding issue of chief concern, according to some students.
"I was mad because I think it's stupid that they're focusing on how we dance rather than on the drug and alcohol issues," junior Paulee Manich said.
How many kids were busted the day before graduation last year and walked? If you look on the UJS portal, it took several days before all the kids' names showed up. The story goes that there were so many kids busted that citations had to be mailed days later. I believe school board directors Kubit and Remely were overheard at Commencement talking about the kids who were busted. Yet, those kids walked.
I think the Policy Committee has their work cut out for them. A dancing policy should be implemented and endorsed by Len Goodman. How about enforcing the Alcohol Policy, Tim? Oh yeah, and get rid of the 21 Club, Blaise.
25 comments:
Shut the dances down! Their usefulness has passed and their time has come.
The graduation party included the MTL Lacrosse team.
Sports people seem to cause a lot of problems.
Hey, Principal McFeely, are you going to wait for a drunken kid to injure another in a car accident before you do something about the drinking and drug problems?
Doesn’t a Principal have the authority to suspend kids for 10 days for Policy violations?
Doesn't the Board have the authority to expel kids for drugs?
Your post http://lebocitizens.blogspot.com/2012/07/full-count-pass-bottle.html focuses on the root of the problem.
I think Mr. Kendrick is right---do away with the dances.
It's time Lebo parents take responsibility for what their kids do.
Am I missing something here? If the dances are canceled, doesn't that give kids an opportunity to party more?
Also, one of the comments on the PG site was
"Why not put a video stream of the dance on the School District web site and let the parents decide what's right?"
That is brilliant! Take the two renovation cameras and aim them on the dance floor. Then we can stop worrying about the grinding and start concentrating on the bigger issue here.
Elaine
The PG article was the number one emailed story yesterday according to the PG. We are being mocked once again. Yes Dale, Timmy is very deserving. I am so proud.
Elaine
Unfortunately, the parents ARE the problem. Some of you may remember a few years ago when there was a video of a MTL party posted on youtube, where kids were seen drinking, throwing up, destroying the property of some unsuspecting parents house....the MLPD was able to cite a number of kids based on the video, and the parents of the kids cited didn't turn around and discipline their kids, they turned around and screamed at the police! Argued that their kids couldn't be cited from a youtube video! argued it was a private party! you get the picture. Start with the parents.
Every generation of kids does something that their parents don't like. The Beatles were innapropriate, Elvis dancing was suggestive and innapropriate. Long hair on boys, girls with no bra's, the list goes on and on. It's a blip on the radar. Now that the "adults" have made such a big issue of the dancing, the kids will continue to do it, just to raise the ire of the "establishment".
Another sad aspect to this is that Born decided to cover this. Of all the stories and deviant behavior exhibitied by the school board, she covers this. Why bother? What this tells me is one of a number of things. Born is more interested in fluff or she's just incapable of covering hard stories. Born is afriad of the school board or in their pocket. The PG isn't a serious publicaiton (ok, that's a given). People in general don't care about their tax money being wasted but they care about a 16-year old being wasted. Or finally, it's only fun to cover Lebo when our community is exposed for being just as socially effed up as everywhere else in the world. There is rampant corruption on the SB, both parites acted like Communist thugs during the last election, people are switiching parties for the sole purpose of being elected and the story that gets coverage is a drunk teen and other teens bumping their crotches togther. I'm at a loss.
Welcome, New Readers! You'll find all sorts of goodies on this blog about Mt. Lebanon. I hope you continue to read Lebo Citizens. For all the recordings of our school board meetings and commission meetings, visit www.lebocitizens.com and click on PODCASTS.
Elaine
I'm the anonymous poster that shared my experiences seeing parents drink at kids sporting (baseball) events and was immediately attacked in the very next post. So I'm going to stay anonymous again...sorry about that.
I think the note sends exactly the wrong message to kids. So we have kids that are so wasted that one of them has to be taken to the hospital and then transferred to Children's....but the thing we are going to address is grinding? Seriously?
I think the idea of one of the posters on the PG article had the right idea: random breathalyzer tests. High Schools throughout the country use this tactic pretty successfully. Does it stop drinking by high school kids? No. Does it stop the drinking prior to and at the dance? Yep...or you get busted.
I stand by my original assertion: there is a strong adult alcohol culture in this town and it trickles down to the kids. Why should we be suprised when the kids exhibit the behavior that has been modeled for them by the adults.
No need to apologize for that. It is understandable. I agree with you 100%. The alcohol use is the bigger problem. I totally agree with the kids. It is a shame that dances might be canceled because the rules aren't being enforced by staff. Are they being compensated for this?
Elaine
Maybe instead of an indoor pool we can have a Betty Ford wing.
Mock the administration all you want - without any policy, if they had ventured to toss a guy out of the dance for "grinding" a girl that didn't want it (verging on assault, in my opinion), the student and parents can object to the high heavens. It isn't the mild grinding that is the issue - it is the entitled few who feel they can have the girl on all fours with a guy behind her gyrating to his "heart's" content.
And, the students at the graduation party came forward voluntarily and completed the required service and counseling, some having to go out of town to do so, just to be able to walk. That is the policy for first offenses.
The students have to go through a gauntlet of administration at the entrance who look for intoxication. The students are now choosing to binge drink in the parking lot to circumvent the rules and then, hopefully, realizing the stupidity of that decision when they end up in the hospital...
No question about it; alcohol and drugs are more of an issue than dirty dancing. Of course, the mixture of alcohol and youth has always been a problem. As Plato, that famous ancient Greek expositor of good advice, once wrote, "Boys should abstain from all use of wine until their eighteenth year, for it is wrong to add fire to fire." Add to these issues clueless parents, and those lawyer-parents whose children can do no wrong, and one could start a "problems rating scale" of 1 to 10.
But as I see it, the biggest problem is a district that has no principles that it is willing to enforce. And I mean principles, not principals! Talk is cheap, but action requires courage and self-confidence; attributes that are lacking in the MLSD.
My son, a MLHS graduate and a college junior summed it up very succinctly. He said none of his classmates went on to become strippers but a whole bunch of them are heroin addicts. If the administration won't address this issue, then the board should step in...if they have time between their fundraising meetings and arguing about turf. President Posti, the community deserves a position on this from the board.
I didn't want to share this but since Mr. McFeely brought up the inappropriate dancing I thought now would be the right time. Did you know that girls will wear sliding shorts under their dress so that groping hands aren’t put where they don’t belong? The district needs to have clearly spelled out rules and consequences and then enforce them so that the kind of student you want at a school dance will come. They will come with confidence that they won’t have to deal with drugs, alcohol or being groped by someone who did use drugs or alcohol and then made some bad decisions.
I believe that there are certain administrators who would love nothing more than to be able to enforce the rules as we read them and be able to clean house, especially at the high school level. Who here doesn't understand that the powers that be tie the hands of the ones who really see what's going on. Shame on you Dr.S., SB Members. Wake up before it's too late...one of your children may be the next one with an addiction problem. And don't ever say "Not my child" because you never know... Anonymous 7:29, your child is right on with this! I've heard it from my own.
Who would enjoy wearing athletic sliding shorts under her dance dress to prevent groping hands from being put where they don't belong?
Seriously guys, learn to behave like a gentleman, or stay home from the school dance, or face a 10 day suspension from school that shows on your college transcript.
How can any of you seriously expect the school board to be responsible for addressing drugs and alcohol? First, they don't have any authority whatsoever outside the confines of school property. Second, given the low intellect and complete lack of honesty on the part of any of the board members, are you really saying you'd want them making decisions about your kids lives? Maybe if more reports about the truth in this community were made public it would shame enough parents to be proactive. But dirty dancing isn't the root. Also its not just boys who are promiscuous so stop portraying every girl as a victim. You can have all the dumb horny teenage boys in the world but if there's no female willing to let them gyrate with her then its just a room full of horny teenage boys.
I think we can all agree that the "grinding" taking the headline is the real shame when it should be the alcohol abuse that should be the headline. What irks me is that the "breathalyzer" mentions make me think of the TSA BS that everyone has to go through at the airport.
When kids drink it's pretty obvious from their behavior (especially if they're binging before the dance). For the administrators/chaperones/authorities who are overseeing the dances to say "we didn't notice before" is complete and utter BS. Everyone is calling for the parents to be held accountable, and yes, they have a strong part in this. Discipline does start at the home. But you know as well as I do there's always some MIA parents who are too busy/don't care so that isn't going to stop everything. I think the overseers of the dance should start using some common sense and deal with the issues when they see them. Because when you start treating everyone as guilty until proven innocent, what message are you sending?
Everyone is so quick to throw civil liberties to the wind at the sign of a crisis. Everyone wants more "laws" and "regulations" when there are already enough laws and regulations in place. The problem is with the enforcement of those in place laws and regulations. If we start down the path of breathalyzers at all dances, how long is it before there are pat downs? How long is it before a pat down goes too far (like they have been with the TSA)? How long is it before we can't trust everyone and everyone is a criminal?
I think that the "grinding" is perhaps a symptom of the larger problem of alcohol and drug abuse. If you are drunk or high, you have fewer inhibitions. We all know that. As I see it, It's not the dancing of ALL of the kids that is the problem, but like everything some kids take it too far -- by being on all fours, hiking up their skirts to their waist, etc. And to 8:42s comment on "sliding shorts", the boys are also wearing compression shorts, and I'll just let everyone come to their own conclusion as to why. There is no easy answer but it is sad that many kids don't go to dances because they just are so uncomfortable with the behavior of their classmates, or if they do go they feel like they have to conform. As to the breathalyzer, maybe a good idea but it doesn't address anything other than alcohol, not marijuana or other drugs. There are no easy answers, but if the grinding makes parents wake up and start talking about all of the issues, then good.
New attire for boys and girls at high school dances
http://www.underarmour.com/shop/us/en/search?q=compression+shorts
http://www.underarmour.com/shop/us/en/womens-ua-changeup-softball-slider-shorts/pcid1222072-001
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