Willows student's expulsion for gun possession draws national attention

[toopers]

Source: The Sacramento Bee

Folks in the rural community of Willows remember the days, not long ago, when teenagers would go duck hunting on autumn mornings and then park their pickup trucks on the Willows High School campus with shotguns displayed in racks.

That's why many residents were upset when school officials in November expelled 16-year-old Gary Tudesko for parking his pickup on a street next to campus with shotguns in the back seat after a morning hunting waterfowl.

On Tuesday, the Glenn County Board of Education will hear an appeal in Tudesko's case, with local supporters and out-of-town activists expected to attend.

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/2469453.html

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This will be interesting since the student's pickup was parked on public property and not school property.

[Warpy]

1. Some zero tolerance martinet has completely overstepped his authority

Had the kid toted the gun onto school property, he might have a case. However, a long gun locked in a vehicle off school property should never have been an issue.

He's got no case here. He needs to be disciplined and shown where the line is.

The kid needs to be reinstated and given help to make up the month he missed.

Zero tolerance means zero brains in too many of these cases.

[T Wolf]

3. Some/many school districts have rules that define "under school authority" as including

travel between home and school. Under this definition (however correct/wrong) it could be against the rules.

Many schools use the definition to cover (and theoretically control) other activities (drinking on the way to school, doing drugs at lunch, etc.).

Argue that definition and not whether the kid should be disciplined.

[LiberalFighter]

7. The definition needs to be argued for sure.

Schools should not have control prior to a student stepping on school property. That should also include school buses as school property.

Now I would accept the school having control uninterrupted until the student leaves school property or steps off the bus.

As for drinking on the way to school. That should not be the criteria. Rather, are they intoxicated while on school grounds. That should be the cause for dismissal. The same for drugs. And at the same time they need to call in law enforcement.

As for firearms... not on school property not under jurisdiction of schools. Firearms are not ingested as a drug.

[TheMadMonk]

10. One reason schools seek to control the off campus act, rather than...

...the on campus outcome regarding intoxication is that students/their lawyers have successfully argued that the school is liable for injuries sustained while enroute to and from school. In fact it is pretty much an article of law that schools stand in loco parentis the world over during the journey to and from school.

If they don't forbid a potentially injurous off campus activity, it may well be possible to argue that by failing to do so, the school in fact condoned the activity and as such was culpably liable for any injury that resulted.


As for the kid with the guns, I'd have hoped that getting expelled would be the least of his troubles. Exposed/visible guns, in an unattended vehicle, in a public place, would in any right thinking society, be considered a fairly serious crime and one that should lose him the right to possess those firearms for a considerable period of time on top of more immediate penalties.


Sorry, but while I, as a general rule, oppose ZT, in this case I believe the school did the right thing here. The moment he started towards the school he legally became their responsibility, and equally those guns (and anything that potentially might have been done with them) became their liability.

[No Elephants]

2. Oh, jeebus. A gun thread. Can't wait until the usual suspects come out of the woodwork to yelp.

[Igel]

6. Both sides'll be out soon enough, if the thread is still visible.

Those citing the constitution and those citing perceived need. Civil liberties versus pragmatic or not-so-pragmatic restrictions on liberties.

Those who are urban and insist that everybody is urban and those who are rural and insist everybody's rural. Those who cite cultural issues and those who cite economic issues.

Those who are absolutist with liberties they like and feel could affect them and those who are absolutist in not caring about liberties that they don't like or don't feel could affect them (except perhaps negatively) or absolutist in banning such things because they're afraid.

We'll have the same squirrelly stats and claims squashed by the same kinds of research or publications.

I'll get in early. My favorite piece of research that's relevant to this was one that looked at similar neighborhoods in Vancouver, BC and across the border. They controlled for "ethnicity" and noted that both communities had approximately the same number of native born (fairly high); for education; for income. It looked at not gun crimes but at knife crimes. It found a much higher rate of knife-related crimes--robberies, stabbings, murders--in the US than right across the border. Stabbings resulted more often in murders, even though stabbings were also more frequent in the US.

[Rebubula]

4. I support gun rights

However, read the 2nd part of this story. The kid has had several brushes with trouble and had been in trouble for disrupting a showing of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' (one of the best stories ever) by repeatedly using the N word - ALSO - he was in trouble for calling a Teacher's Assistant a 'stupid Mexican'

Though I disagree with zero tolerance and support the private right to bear arms - the kid seems like a little douche.

[Trillo]

9. Look also at his grades(!)

Perhaps the school is doing the kid a favor, since the school is failing to serve him or his talents, which superficially appears to be eye-hand coordination and use of tools (even the firearm is a {hunting} tool). This expulsion could be doing him a favor if it gets him into a K-12 public trade school, if there is such a thing right around the corner. If not, then he can be treated to more of the fail-"douche" routine while futilely studying abstractions and failing standardized tests.

[alp227]

12. Yeah...he deserves choice, like the rest of us.

I do believe that students should be allowed to choose between traditional, trade, and magnet schools.

I'm reading the article, and it seems that he's also a little bit racist and bratty. Who knows what can happen when you arm this kid? (At least he hasn't shot any humans yet...phew!)

He did park on public property, albeit some near campus. Does he really give up his Fourth Amendment rights that way?

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

5. I think this is really about private property rights.

The kid parks his car OFF school property.
Unless the contents of his vehicle are illegal what power can the school possibly have to punish the kid?

[LiberalFighter]

8. IMO they have exceeded their authority.

[lazarus]

11. I'm a gun control advocate

and I think the school went way over the line here.