Status Update That Got a Student Expelled
CLICK to SEE the Full Status Update! WARNING: Graphic Language!
In another case of teen stupidity that comes out of Brevard County Florida, a teen is facing expulsion after posting a highly inappropriate “Status Update” on his Facebook page. The teen, a student at Edgewood Senior High School, made threats against his English teacher, Kathy Bowen, in her impending return to the school. Bowen had been on medical leave for an unspecified time period.
According to students at the school, the teen who posted the update is known to be a class clown type. As you might imagine, students are rallying behind him. However, most of us will agree in saying that this prank went a bit too far. Although there has been no official word from the district as to what specific action will be taken against the student, we do know he is currently suspended.
The student was served formal notice of the suspension via Facebook, where it appears that a staff member from the school saw the update and informed him that he shouldn’t bother coming back to school. The official then informed the student that an expulsion letter would be mailed to his house.
Below you will find a transcript of the update posted on Facebook and the accompanying commentary from the student’s Facebook friends.
The Status Update That Got a Student Expelled from School:
I FU$KING HATE SCHOOL AT THAT STUPID BITCH OF A PRINCIPAL. I swear tomorrow im going to slit that fu$king bitch’s throat and laugh while she spews blood. Then I’m going to tie up all the teachers and pour gasoline on them and let them burn in fu$king hell. fu$k you school.
Katrina (school official): Did you know your principal can read this? This is a horrific level of disrespect to our faculty. Death threats are not a joke. Do not even bother coming to school tomorrow. I will be mailing an expulsion letter to your house. You may go to the unified school district office to enroll yourself in another school. The last thing we want to have our students act in your behavior.
Justin: LOLLOLLOLLOLLOL OWNED
Marcus: Oh shat you added the principal?
Abraham: oh my god…
Alex: ok, seriously wtf did you just do david
Marlene: PRINCIPAL OWNAGEEE! no really though seriously? you’re getting expelled or is the principal just joking?
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24 Comments - Add Yours!
Yeah, Hi.
First; This is somewhat rediculous. Why was the principle looking at his status in the first place? I’d investigate into that.
Second; We are naturally all class clowns and make life threats towards even our best friends. Doing which is what is wrong.. This is no conspiracy to commit murder, this is a outburst of hatred that all students have towards the people that.. talks to them like idiots.. because they are.. so it’s an innevitable hatred towards the teacher.
Finally; Facebook is not a government record, its a child OR adult communication tool.
There is no threat, just a rant. Give the kid a break.
James Hooker–are you freakin’ kidding me?
What, only certain people are allowed to look at posts on FB now? With cyber-bullying and school shootings to worry about, if I were a Principal or a teacher, I’d be checking it out too! Duh!
Gee. Give him a break. Right. I suppose you think the Columbine killers should be given a break too?
When someone threatens someone, anyone, there’s going to be consequences. We don’t pat people on the hand and say, “Come on, now, that wasn’t very nice.” He chose to post his threat–and it was a very specific threat, a plan of action written for all to see–in a public space.
The last I heard, FB wasn’t limited to students. It’s a public forum, open to anyone with a computer. Also, he either didn’t restrict his postings, or he invited or accepted this person to be a friend. That was his choice.
Deal with it.
He was a total idiot to write such a threat, and he needs to deal with the consequences. Guess next time he’ll think things through before he does something so stupid.
Only children play the blame game (whine, whine, “It’s their fault for looking!!”, whine, whine). My guess is you’re a teenager with no common sense.
In that case…welcome to the real world.
I agree with KC.
If anyone lacks the common sense to restrain from such poorly thought out comments, they deserve to receive punishment for it. In the case that it *was* just a rant, it’s an incredibly stupid thing to do. A high school student would be perfectly capable of differentiating between a serious threat and a rant, unless this guy is seriously confused.
If he in fact was not serious? This is just downright stupid and immature. At least his expulsion will teach him a lesson, and also one to those rallying behind him.
Besides, even a life threat towards a friend, like you said, James, wouldn’t be advisable if it were as graphic and specific as what this boy posted. If this weren’t merely a Facebook status update, and were actually a blog post somewhere, would you take it more seriously?
Police often check blogs and the like in the case of teenage murders, because often they leave trails of plans, or murderous intent. Take for example the case of the little girl who in Japan, 2004, who slit the throat of a fellow classmate. They were only 11/12 years old.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasebo_slashing
I digress, that was a bit of a tangent…
Facebook is almost completely public, and just as employers use it to check out their potential employees, teachers may also use it as a means to keep tabs on students. I don’t think the school is being harsh at all. Common sense is all you need to know that posting something like that would be considered as a no-go.
I’m a teenager myself, but I think this is beyond stupid. Tolerating immature behaviour like this, even on Facebook, is a pain.
Some people just need to grow the hell up.
Ever hear of freedom of speech? That first amendment right? He was exercising use of that on facebook. Judging by the description given of him and the way students reacted toward the post, it’s highly unlikely that he actually meant to go through with these actions presented. Teenagers post a lot of similar rants of anger on facebook. If he took action that showed that he intended to go through with this that’s another thing. But all he did was post an anger-induced rant on facebook.
i don’t know about american laws, but, in british laws, you are not allowed to be friends with a student on facebook.
KC, THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What an Idiot!!!! Plus In my school, if your friends with a teacher in your school, the teacher will be fired!!! I think it’s illegal 2 say stuff like that
Kev, you obviously take our Freedom of Speech right for granted.
Honestly, KC? For starters, it’s morally wrong for a school official or teacher to befriend a student on Facebook, whether he accepted the friend request or not. Also, the kid is obviously just ranting; blowing off steam. Sure, I can understand a suspension, but expulsion? That’s ridiculous. 90% of your post, KC, was an attack on James Hooker.
“Ever hear of freedom of speech? That first amendment right? He was exercising use of that on facebook.”
While the expulsion is debatable, you clearly don’t understand how rights work in this country. This kid was high school age. If he was under 18, he has no first amendment rights, because anyone under 18 doesn’t actually have any legal rights. (At the very least, the way the law works in this case is that the school was acting in loco parentis, meaning “in the place of parents” and therefore the first amendment doesn’t apply. If there wasn’t such a thing as in loco parentis, parents wouldn’t be able to discipline their kids for dropping curse words.)
Also, Freedom of Speech doesn’t mean you get to say whatever the hell you want. It’s still illegal to shout “fire” in a crowded movie theater if there isn’t one, because it incites a panic and can cause harm and injury. By the same token, you’re simply not allowed to make death threats like that. Freedom of Speech protects your sentiments – the student is allowed to post on facebook all he wants about how much he hates the teacher – but it doesn’t mean that you can express those sentiments in any way you want. Freedom of Speech doesn’t actually mean that you can just say whatever you want whenever you want, and if you thought that the government protected your right to intimidate, harass, and frighten your peers, you have a shallow understanding of what rights even are.
All that aside, this kid was clearly a dumbass. Even if it did fall under the first amendment, what exactly was the point of saying this? Even if he didn’t get expelled, I’m sure that his rapport with the teacher in question certainly wouldn’t have improved…. If that teacher saw it, perhaps he/she would be even more inclined to give this kid a hard time. Anyway, everything aside, this is just a really immature way to go about solving your problems, and you should know better than that by the time you’re high school age. I think fourth and fifth graders would understand that concept. I mean if this kid was indeed 18, which he probably was since he was a senior, he surely should be a bit more mature. We’ve given him the right to vote, for christ’s sake. A kid with this moronic mindset is responsible for the future of the country. What a sad world we live in.
Dylan, why is it morally wrong? Facebook is a networking tool, not a pledge of fealty. Being a “Facebook friend” does not constitute an inappropriate student-teacher relationship. How many facebook friends do you have that you do not talk to every day or week or month? I know I have hundreds. If we’re talking morally or ethically wrong or even ambiguous, let’s start with the foul language in the Facebook post. Then we can move on to the graphic descriptions of violence. If someone was making a threat on your life, you’d want it taken seriously too. Freedom of speech is freedom to express views without government censorship. We can say what we want, yes, but not when it comes at the cost of another’s safety or well-being. Teens get angry at teachers, yea, but life-threats are life-threats – joke or no joke. He simply went too far. It’s not just whether he meant the threat, its the principal that threats of force should not be tolerated.
the school is talking about it being illegal to say that now but its also illegal to become your students friend online
Are you serious right now?
First of all, there’s the whole aspect of how it’s written; it’s such a ridiculous sort of “threat” and it’s just not pragmatic. I’d be more worried if it was like “I’m going to get a gun and shoot all the teachers in the school” etc.
Secondly, it definitely was illegal when I was in high school for teachers to have students be their friends on Facebook. Unless of course things have changed since then.
In any case, this shouldn’t have escalated to the point that it did. Yea, the kid’s an angry idiot, but no, he shouldn’t be expelled. Honestly if every person was expelled for expressing something like that, the majority of the students would be expelled. The only difference is he was stupid enough to make it written.
Suspension, sure; possible guidance counseling or anger management, sure; making him write a letter of apology?, absolutely.
But being expelled is definitely ridiculous given the circumstances.
Ok first of all, sad as it is, your rights aren’t gaurnteed to you until you are 18, otherwise kids and teenagers alike would be rampant and chaotic. It doesn’t matter that he said this on facebook, if he had said it anywhere else he should have gotten the same punishment. This is not something that sounds like a joke and if it were meant to be one he should have dignified it as such. He is obviously very ignorant, don’t put shit online that you wouldn’t want others to see. One other point. I personally see no problem with being friends with your teachers online, i’m close with a lot of my teachers, there’s nothing wrong with that, and if he hated the teachers so damn much in the first place he shouldn’t have made tht post, especially knowing that he had the teahers as friends.
Same with Australian laws, it’s illegal, or if not illegal, considered highly wrong to be friends with students or others that you give care to in a professional manner.
I think FB is for friends to communicate with friends.. not for teachers to monitor their students outside of school. I think punishment for actions outside of school goes past their paid job.
If this was posted in school, then I get suspension.. but come on, I think it needs to be taken in context as others have said.. it’s written in “1m s0 c0o1 sp34k” for one, and even the friends comments suggest it’s meant as a joke.
@ Scott, I’m not American (I’m an aussie, but I wish we had the bill of rights sometimes) but I get what you are saying.. but consider this, to say you hate someone literally means you want them dead. How is imagining how they die different to wanting them dead? Same ending.
This is for police to deal with if something has been done illegally in your country.. not for the school to deal with. But I think they’re are bigger in the world than a stupid comment that some idiot posted on his FB.
ok first off who cares who’s friends with who my best friends mom was a teacher was it wrong that everyday her mom took me home or that i would spend the nite w them no ALL THAT MATTERS HERE is he was wrong its not funny to say what he said he should of been arressted for saying that no one belived the other kids and look what happaned lives were taken so anyone on here that even says oh they should of not been friends is wrong maybe being friends saved lives
When you first join Facebook, if you actually read the Terms of Service, at the bottom I think, Facebook does say that it does share your information with the government. Everything a student says on Facebook, is saved. If a problem is brought up about a specific student, or several students, the school has the right to monitor their Facebook Updates and Profile.
In my school, a fight was started over Facebook, which led to a fist fight. A student was expelled, when the school found evidence on their Facebook. Some people came to the school and explained the school’s right to check Facebook updates.
It’s not wrong for the schools to check a student’s Facebook profile. They only check it when a problem is brought to their attention…
First of all. i belive a student and teacher are not allowed to be freinds on facebook.
second of all. its the internet. you can not belive everything you read. how do you know he really meant it?
HOW DO you even know it was that david. someone could of hacked his account and posted that so he would get in trouble with like his parents or something.
Basicly. you can not belive everything you read on the internet. because you don’t know who is typing it.
don’t you guys have something to do other than argue over some angry kid? if schools were honestly this concerned over how students feel about their teachers, im sure that kids wouldnt rant like that. you should expel about 60% of my school then.
Tiara.
What the hell? You don’t get your rights until you’re 18 because kids and teenagers can’t handel it? That they would all be irresponsible with the freedom that they legally have until they reached a certain age? What are you smoking. This isn’t a question of age. So i suppose when you were a teenager you were horribly irresponsible and abused everything that was given to you. Because that’s just what teenagers do, isn’t it? So, all of you people who are saying, ‘He’s a stupid teenager, this is expected of him’ Does that mean that it was expected of you when you were a teenager? People really need to get a grip on reality. Why not, insted of saying ‘He made a mistake because he’s a teenager,’ say something more like ‘He made a mistake because he’s a PERSON.’ I do not deny that what this boy did was horribly wring and deserved punishment. But you people are being redicelous. You are the ones that need to grow up, if you really think that teenagers can’t handle things adults handle.
and KC.
A teenager with no common sense? So common sense just flys right into your head when you turn 18 and are legally an adult. You people make me sick. Grow up.
Init illegal for teachers or whatever to add their pupils? o_O
I, for one, think that everyone should just drop it. It doesn’t matter anyway. Maybe the boy made a mistake? Maybe the teacher over-reacted? It’s honestly none of our business. We all have nosey minds for “News.” It’s really just even more drama waiting to happen. Lets all just drop the whole thing, because it has nothing to do with us.
Abuse of power.
Sorry teach the kid probably left his facebook open or one of his friends has the password. People are always writing goofy things under the guise of other people on facebook.
I would be investigating into who actually wrote the post. And also the fact that the kid has the principal on ‘friends’ list???
I almost couldn’t believe this until I find its from the States…sorry but your powers of deduction aren’t really that great in good old USA….remember that 911 Commission Report…