STOP THE D.O.E. FROM MONITORING TEENS PRIVATE LIVES

So apparently the government now wants principles and teachers to police their students outside of school. Don’t worry, they won’t be showing up at your home – at first – they want to watch your kids on Facebook and Twitter.

We have a report now from the Department of Education. Officials are, quote, threatening school principals are lawsuits if they fail to monitor and curb students’ lunchtime chats. They’re worried about bullying. And lunchtime chats need to monitored now. So your children need to listened to by the schools so they can understand what your children are saying to each other. Well, that’s good. We will monitor the children, yeah. We will hear what the children are saying. They’re threatening principals with lawsuits if they don’t monitor that, and they’re going a step further.

They now have to listen not only to the lunchtime chats but also anytime, not at school time, anytime the children are on Facebook or Twitter. If there is anything harassing or racist or anything else that the school or the school’s principal is concerned with and doesn’t want to get sued by the federal government, well, the principal needs to call that student in.

According to the story, Facebook is said to be thrilled to be working with White House officials “to foster government oversight of teens’ online activities” as Pat put it.

Facebook won’t work with parents but they’ll work with The White House.

“The DOE has issued new guidelines in a Dear Colleague letter in October. The site sums up that they are saying the federal officials have reinterpreted the civil rights laws that require school principals to curb physical bullying as well as racist and sexist speech that take place within school boundaries. Now it is on or off school grounds,"

“Harassing conduct may take many forms, including verbal acts and name calling, graphic and written statements which may be in the use of cellphones or on the Internet. It does not have to include intent to harm, be directed at a specific target, or involve repeated incidents but creates a hostile environment which can limit a student’s ability to participate in or benefit from the services, activities and opportunities offered by a school,” he continued.

That’s great. So it could be almost anything the school wants it to. That’s awesome,

But that’s not the worst part.

“The DOE is also saying that when the principal reports it, then the bureaucrats will decide whether or not the student, the student and the parents, or the community need to go through some sort of class so the harassment or the sexual harassment or the comments can stop,”

“Let me tell you something. You monitor and you have a principal come to my child and say we saw what you wrote on the Internet at 8:52 from your bedroom last night, don’t you dare come to my kids. You come to me and I will deal with it. Don’t you dare come to my children when they are not in school and tell them jack. Don’t you dare come to me and tell me I need some sort of sensitivity training because my kid did something,”

In short, stop the DOE.