Bases Loaded
Opportunity Village
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a student-edited newspaper Sheldon High School
shstalisman@gmail.com
2455 willakenzie Rd., Eugene, Or 97401 vol. 49
Issue 1
October 4, 2013
Privacy: is it a right or a privilege? A school district in California hired a company to view student social media in an attempt to stop negative behavior and bullying Kennedy Potts co-editor-in-chief
A Los Angeles school district recently hired a company to monitor its students’ social networking, and strong opinions are forming about the topic. The Los Angeles Times reported that the Glendale Unified School District paid a company named Geo Listening $40,500 to track the public activity of its students’ social networking sites for the year. If the company were to find evidence of bullying, suicide threats, substance abuse, or other actions that violated district policy, they were to report it to district officials. This situation has sparked some controversy. It has posed many questions about students’ privacy rights and how far their school should be able to go in order to monitor their safety outside of school. Opponents compare their actions to government stalking while the school claims it is simply taking measures to protect its students. The district could possibly be challenged over violations of the students’ first and fourth amendment rights for practicing unreasonable searches and seizures and violating freedom of speech. Some Sheldon students are opponents of the Glendale school’s actions, like senior Ashley Kim. Kim said, “It would be weird for schools to look at kid’s Facebook accounts.” She thinks that monitoring students’ social networking is a huge breach of privacy. Even though the program is meant to promote the safety of the students, most are unhappy with the idea. Students consider it an invasion of privacy in a place where they are supposed to be able to
share thoughts and feelings with their friends without worrying about their school viewing the posts. The district has yet to punish any student based on his/her social media post; however, it is not out of the question if an action warrants penalty. Sheldon senior Jordan Laughlin was asked if she thought schools should be able to discipline students for what they post online. In response she said, “I don’t think they should be able to do anything about things they find on the [students’] pages. It’s an outside of school activity.” Not all students are against the school’s tactics, though. Sheldon senior Ian Adair thinks that there is not necessarily anything wrong with what the school is doing because “it’s your responsibility to only post things you’re okay with others being able to see. It’s the internet.” It is true that if students’ pages are set to being “public,” they wave their fourth amendment right because they do not have an expectation of privacy. English teacher Ms. Tierney shared her mixed opinion about the issue. “On one hand I think that it’s important to have personal privacy. However, at the same time, I understand that everything I post on a social network is out there for anyone else to see, and I am also responsible for what I choose to post.” The program has reportedly had success so far. With the assistance of Geo Listening, the school has helped multiple
“It’s your responsibility to only post things you’re okay with others being able to see.” - senior Ian Adair
photo by Holly Ford
teens who were dealing with depression and were speaking out about their suicidal thoughts online. The district decided to hire Geo Listening after experiencing two suicides within the last two years. These suicides occurred during a time when California reduced mental health services in schools. Some support the monitoring because they think it will provide necessary assistance to kids who need help and are too afraid to ask for it, or don’t know who to talk to. While student safety is of great importance, Glendale School District’s decision to monitor its pupils presents an important question of exactly what rights a student has in regards to school, and just where the line between helping and hurting is.
New schedule, grading system have flaws The New schedule and grading system have everyone scrambling Holly Ford co-editor-in-chief The new trimester schedule is one of the many new initiatives that has turned Sheldon upside down. With an extra period, students have more classes to study for, and less time to do it with a longer school day. Classes are shorter as well, giving teachers less time to prep, more students to teach, and more work to grade in less time. Proficiency grading is supposed to help teachers with their workload and free up more time for students, but it hasn’t turned out that way in the slightest. English teacher Ms. Tierney said, “Proficiency grading should make my job easier, and it could if my class sizes didn’t go up.” The grading process isn’t that easy either. In past years teachers would use Easy Grade Pro, a simple grading software, to accumulate students’ grades. This year, however, they are forced to use Synergy: a new grading program that not only shows a student’s grades from middle school, but also takes much more time for a teacher to submit assignments. When a teacher tries to add an assignment to a class, she/he has to answer many mandatory questions that categorize the work given to
the students. Once in a category there are even more questions about the assignment, meant to standardize the scoring. With teachers having more classes to teach, they have more work to do as well. Originally, Tierney only had one College Now Writing class. Even with just having it one period a day, Tierney accumulated 300 pages worth of senior papers to grade at the end of the term. Tierney said, “Now I have sixty students which is 600 pages of final papers to grade. It’s increased quite a bit.” Most students aren’t too keen on the new schedule. Senior Nick Hetrick said, “With the earlier start time, traffic driving to school is outrageous. Last year it took me five minutes to drive to school, and this year it takes me 1520. And it’s even worse after school!” For IHS it’s different as well. Senior Solan Megerssa said, “For every 30 days, we have 20 days of one particular class.” Megerssa later added, “It’s harder because we have less in-class time to get assignments done.” However, Megerssa likes proficiency grading more because homework isn’t required. Also, IHS no longer has a zero period because there are five classes in a day. Many students enjoy this because they now get to sleep in later in the morning. The goal of proficiency grading is to eliminate the subjective grading and rely on concrete criteria. This is meant to make students learn how to be self sufficient in the classroom, and develop a good and steady learning
rate personally suited to them. Proficiency based grading better prepares a student for life out of high school as well, giving them deadlines they need to meet and letting them do the work to get there. Only time will tell whether or not these new initiatives will help or harm student learning.
photo by Kennedy Potts
Most students know the door to the scheduling office well since almost all students have or will have to make changes to their schedules this year.