The High School District 214 School Board will tonight consider a proposal to revise the Cocurricular Code. The Code defines standards of conduct that are required of those students who participate in the cocurricular program, and the consequences that accrue to those students who are found to have violated the code. One provision of the code clearly violates the civil rights of students, and I will be at tonight's school board meeting to try to stop that from happening.
Supporters
bring you Rob Sherman Advocacy.
Click here to join them.
Approval of the Cocurricular Code was also on the agenda two weeks ago at the last meeting. However, during the public comment portion of the discussion on that agenda item, I raised concern regarding about a dozen issues which I felt warranted review, improvement and/or change. The members of the Board of Education felt that my concerns merited full and in depth review, so they tabled the item (postponed consideration of whether to approve the revised code) until tonight's meeting, and directed Dr. John C. Hillary, the Associate Superintendent for Education Services and a fine public servant, to meet with me to fully review my suggestions.
John and I met last week, at which time I presented my suggestions and reasons for my proposed changes. Subsequently, John met with the Assistant Principals for Student Activities of the district's high schools to get their feedback on my proposals. Then, John prepared a final draft of wording which the administration is recommending to the School Board for adoption as the revised code. The School Board will consider the proposed revised code at tonight's school board meeting.
The vast majority of my recommendations were incorporated in the new proposed code, and for that, I thank John and the principals. However, there is one very glaring flaw remaining in the code.
The code states that "A code violation is verified if, by the evidence available, it appears more likely than not that a code violation has occurred." That's a terrible standard for sustaining an allegation of a code violation, for many reasons.
This is supposed to be America. What happened to that basic American principle, that basic American value, that no citizen will be punished by the government unless an allegation of citizen misconduct is proven beyond a reasonable doubt? We teach high school students that the difference between our country and places like Afghanistan is that the government, here, respects that basic value.
Do we want to teach our kids that this value applies only when it is convenient for government to apply that standard, or are we going to teach them that the standard applies even when the accused citizens don't have the political clout to fight back?
Do we want to send a message to our kids that what we teach them in class about the American standard of civil rights is mere theory, because the standard is ignored when it is time for the standard to be put into practice by the same people who taught the standard to them in the first place?
What the proposed standard does is establish that a student can be punished based on a rumor. The proposed standard allows the school disciplinarian to merely guess whether a violation has taken place when there isn't sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a violation really did occur. If someone passes along a rumor about a student, do we punish that student simply because an administrator's prejudices tells him that members of a particular group do that sort of thing, so the student is "more likely than not" to have done it, too?
Does the administration use this same standard to punish members of the faculty who are accused of wrongdoing? Can a faculty member be punished based on a rumor, or do you need proof beyond a reasonable doubt?
The Cocurricular Code states that "involvement in cocurricular activities is voluntary and a privilege." However, to some students, it's a lot more than that. For some students, it's their ticket to college and a better life. It really is that important, because excelling in a cocurricular activity will earn some students the scholarship that is the difference between attending college or not going at all. We all know that there are many students who are ridiculed by their fellow students for being high achievers. Do we want high achievers to be held hostage by those who would use a false rumor as a means of sabotage to mess them up in order to stop them from being successful?
The administration has a much too casual view of it's burden of proof before punishing a student for alleged misconduct. Dr. Hillary told me that the school district's lawyers have said that the proposed standard is legal. That may be the case, but that doesn't mean that it is good policy or fair policy. In fact, it is a terrible policy.
I will be at tonight's school board meeting. I will try as hard as I can to persuade the school board to reject the "more likely than not" low standard of proof and replace it with the higher standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt." After all, this is America, and we respect due process. Or do we?
I'll let you know what they say. Meanwhile, if you live in the area and you agree with me, come to the meeting, tonight, and express your support and concern. Otherwise, the Board might say that it's only Rob Sherman who is concerned about it, so it must not be very important.
Rob Sherman P. O. Box
7410
Buffalo Grove, IL 60089-7410
A post office box is used
because
the street address uses a curb mail box,
which is not secure.
Telephone: (847) 870-0700
Fax: (847) 870-1156
E-mail: rob followed by the at symbol followed by robsherman dot com