Food fight leads to felony charge (14,15-yr-olds charged, too)

[rec_report]

Food fight leads to felony charge 02 Jun 2007

A colossal food fight broke out Thursday in West Aurora High School's cafeteria — triggering a free-for-all, prompting the Kane County state’s attorney to file felony charges against the instigator and causing school administrators to implement extreme measures.

During the mayhem, an Aurora police officer was injured while chasing the student who allegedly started it all.

<snip>

Demetrius Oglesby, 18, of the 800 block of North View Street, was charged with felony resisting a peace officer and misdemeanor disorderly conduct at 12:30 p.m. Thursday, the Kane County state’s attorney’s office said.

<snip>

Two other juveniles were also charged with misdemeanors after the fight. A 15-year-old was charged with mob action and disorderly conduct, and a 14-year-old was charged with assault, according to Aurora Lt. Brian Olsen.

West Principal John Glimco sent an e-mail to parents Thursday, explaining that "absolutely no food or drink will be allowed in the cafeteria" :eyes: for the remainder of the school year. The food ban, however, comprises just two days — the first was Friday and the last will be Monday because underclassmen will take final exams Tuesday through Friday, and lunch is not served on those days, Glimco said.

<snip>

In response to Glimco’s e-mail, one dad questioned the degree of discipline, asking why students not involved in the incident are being punished. "This is a huge overreaction on your part," the man wrote. "Remember, you work in a high school not a prison."

Polar Bear

[depakid]

1. More proof that America has gone collectively insane

and basically declared war on its youth.

I have a feeling these kids are not going to be as generous as past ones when their elders become infirm. And to some extent, I think:

Why should they?

Not only have their elders squandered their legacy, but they've adopted multiple policies that have treated them like dirt for 2 decades now.

[donco6]

5. Just curious - what would your consequences be for this?

Just wondering.

[MissB]

10. You didn't ask me, but I'm throwing my two cents in anyway. :)

Instead of punishing the whole school by not allowing lunch to be served, they could stagger the times that lunch is served so that a huge group of kids isn't in the cafeteria at any one point in time. Break it up by grade - only freshman classes in the cafeteria from 11:30 to 11:50, etc. Bring in extra adults to monitor the lunchroom for a few days to keep order.

The kids who instigated the fight should be required to clean up the cafeteria from top to bottom for several weeks (or days, or however long the school year is). With supervision, of course.

Banning lunch seems like an over-the-top response to the situation.

[donco6]

14. This would increase food service costs tremendously.

Longer serving times mean longer serving hours for the food service staff. Labor costs would go up quite a large amount. Also, the school's master schedule would have to be reworked to accommodate this change, so it couldn't be immediate.

Extra adults to monitor the lunchroom also increases costs. Most teacher contracts require a duty-free lunch period. If they monitor lunch (and you can actually FIND one that will do it), they get paid extra.

I like the cleaning up the cafeteria thing. The problem there is that you'll NEVER get EVERY kid who was involved - and then you get to deal with parents who call the superintendent, complaining "Why did MY kid have to clean, when so-and-so got out of it? I'm going to the school board!" That gets pretty tiring.

Cutting off food service for two days might have been over-the-top, but the other options are limited.

[MissB]

19. I threw ideas out based on my own kids' school experiences

(not that they're throwing food, mind you!)

Our lunch program isn't run by a food service company. The parent-teacher club runs it and the lunch room is staffed by lots of parent volunteers. There is a teacher/staff member or two each day as well.

Since we have a big variance in age at our school, the lunch times are staggered so that the little Kindergarteners don't feel intimidated by the 8th graders.

[texastoast]

13. I got D-hall

For two weeks. Not nearly as much trouble as there was for having a snowball fight in the locker room (that racked up 3 months' worth).

And I didn't start the fight, but I did help to finish it. Those old squirt ketchup bottles?--serious dead-on aim.:evilgrin:

What is it about being 14-15 and wanting to play with your food? :shrug:

[donco6]

16. And if it had just been THAT, . . .

. . . I could see something simple like in-school detention. But here you had a kid resisting arrest, a cop breaking his foot, near-riot conditions - well, that just can't go by without some serious consequences.

My question would be why the kid was getting arrested. I've seen some overzealous SROs before . . . they're not my favorite employees in general.

[treestar]

15. The consequences should be only for the perpetrators

Not the whole school.

Collective punishment is unjust. It is for the lazy. It makes you responsible for the behavior of others, something you ultimately cannot control. It teaches a bad lesson about personal responsibility, especially to the perpetrators, who see at least subliminally that the rest of the school is being punished too, presumably for not controlling them.

[donco6]

17. While I agree . . .

. . . the problem is, you'll never find out who all the perpetrators were. Oh, you'll get some of them, but you'll miss some, too. And then you'll get to deal with the parent phone calls all goddam day, complaining, "Why is my Johnny having to clean up the lunchroom when Eric isn't?" I can see why a frustrated principal would reach for this inappropriate weapon.

[depakid]

20. How about the rule of reason

suspensions for the instigators and for those who got way out of hand.

Prosecuting kids for this sort of thing has gotten out of control all across the country.

Guess we have Nancy Reagan and her followers in both parties to than for that....

[donco6]

23. You did see that the kid was prosecuted for . . .

. . . resisting arrest, not the food fight?

But about that - here's the deal. Many schools have been forced by local law enforcement agencies to have what are called "School Resource Officers." It's basically a way for local police depts to expand their force by using public K-12 funds to pay for extra staff. (Schools fork over at least half of this officer's salary, but he reports to the police chief.)

SROs are stationed in schools part of the day. In my experience, they often don't draw any line between the fact that they're dealing with kids versus adults. I swear that in the last 10 incidents of kids being arrested for various things, it's the SRO that went overboard.

So, I don't know what let to the kid being arrested. It's not clear in the article. It could have been for a legitimate assault during the food fight (it happens), or because the cop was mad that he broke his foot chasing the kid. It's all too fuzzy.

[MissB]

24. I had an interesting experience recently.

I sat on a committee to hire a new school administrator and was part of the interview process. Many of the candidates made a point to stress their amazing discipline programs at their schools. I came away from the experience thinking that so many schools across the country must either have serious discipline issues or adminstrators are getting a wee bit heavy handed. I'm thinking it is the latter.

[donco6]

25. If you saw the parent pressure they were under . . .

. . . you'd know why. I would say the number one reason for parent calls to the ad. bldg. is because of a parent being upset about lack of discipline at a school. And it could be anything from kids wearing hats to kids smoking pot.

[MissB]

27. I'm sure.

:)

We have a small school and a lot of involved parents, so while discipline problems aren't completely nonexistant, they're clearly more prevalent in other districts.

In many of the administrators' view, it seemed that embarrassing or humiliating the kids was the intention of their discipline policies. Some even used those words to describe why their policies were so "amazing".

I love our current administrator. I chat with that particular person quite frequently (my volunteer duties put me in that person's path a lot) and I get that it is a complex job that requires some serious acrobatic skills.

[donco6]

29. Yes - that does happen.

i.e., administrators who want to humiliate the kids. Ugh. And it is a lazy way out.

Good administrators are really, really hard to find. You're lucky.

[gollygee]

2. Kids go nuts this time of the year - right before school gets out

They have slushies at school for lunch? Schools shouldn't be feeding their kids garbage like that.

So long as they're not charged as adults or anything stupid like that, I don't have a problem with them having a legal penalty for that. Not jail but some community service maybe or something. That was basically a riot. Kids that age are old enough to be held accountable for that kind of behavior.

And I'm sure I'll get flamed for feeling that way.

[donco6]

6. Slushies - the article says an outside vendor provides . . .

lunch services for the school. Could be Marriott Sodexho - they're one of the largest anyway. Or it could be a private fast food comp. like Taco Bell even. We have a high school here in Northglenn that does that. The parents wanted it. What're ya gonna do?

[rec_report]

22. School 'food' vendors - lol. Too bad they don't actually provide *food.*

They sell overpriced carcinogens, and charge a fortune for the garbage.
There are exceptions - I am speaking in general terms.
Polar Bear

[rec_report]

9. Yes, punishment should follow for the students who actually *started* the food fight,

but not felony charges, etc. I believe that the punishment should be (approximately) twenty hours of community service, but NO permanent blot on the kids' records. That's a bit much for a 'food fight.'
Polar bear

[donco6]

18. The felony charge was for resisting arrest.

Not for the food fight. But it doesn't say why he was being arrested. It's possible he did something during the fight that amounted to assault. It happens.

[RL3AO]

3. I thought schools had to offer lunch by law?

[donco6]

4. No they don't.

There is no law requiring schools to serve food or provide transportation. Unless you're under court-ordered busing.

[MissB]

11. I suppose if they receive federal funding for their food program, then yes.

But otherwise, no.

[Jim__]

7. No food or drink will be allowed in the cafeteria.

I suppose that makes sense. Somehow.

[MissB]

12. Illogical consequences

which provide absolutely no lesson. Sigh.

[donco6]

21. What's illogical?

Actually, I don't think the problem with this consequence is that it's illogical. They don't know how to behave around food, therefore we'll have them bring their own. I find that eminently logical.

There are other problems with the consequence, primarily the blanket aspect, that are troubling.

[MissB]

26. Yeah, it'd make sense to remove the food option for the kids that

clearly instigated or helped the fight along (and I agree with your other postings that it is likely very difficult to identify every single perpetrator).

It reminds me of how a school dealt with some vandalism in a boys bathroom. Instead of trying to find the kid(s) responsible, the administrator closed the bathroom down and made all the boys use a port-a-potty.

Just plain lazy on the administrator's part and overly punative to kids who were following the rules. That's what struck me as illogical - penalizing the kids who were doing nothing wrong.

[donco6]

28. Yes.

The bathroom thing is so true. That's a tough one. Really it comes down to building enough character in your kids that you don't have to do this sort of thing. But that's really hard to do in high schools of 2,000. That's one reason we broke ours down to no more than 400. And I'm happy to say we didn't have any end-of-school-year incidents this year. Thank God.

[Solo_in_MD]

32. Wonder what he is going to do to support kids with ADA agreements that require them to be allowed

to eat and drink at school (think diabetics and other glycemic disorders)

[donco6]

36. Actually, the school doesn't have to feed anyone.

Even if they're on the Child Nutrition Program.

[Solo_in_MD]

37. But IAPs are a binding agreement between the parents and the school backed by Federal Law

My daughter has a blood sugar problem. She is allowed to carry food bars and water with her at all times and consume whenever she needs to. She also carries a glucometer with lancets (very sharp pointy things). She can use any of those (food/water/meter) whenever she needed to.

During her stay here in MD, the school adopted a no water bottle policy since some kids were spiking their with vodka. One of the educrats stopped her in the hall since her water bottle was in plain sight. She attempted to explain and show him the paperwork which she carried with her. He would have none of it and threatened her with detention for talking back to him.

Before COB I was in to see the principal, reminded him of the law, that the school district was already in hot water for failure to standby agreements and other ADA related issues, and directed him to get his bubba back in the box. I also required that the teacher apologize to my daughter for the harassment. The was some seesawing after that, including a threat of reprisal by the educrat, but in the end they backed down. IIRC that particular educrat was not offered a contract the following year.

Lesson: Never give an educrat a break or a chance to breathe. The schools are infested with them, but making an example of one of them puts the fear into them and they behave for a little while.

[donco6]

40. Hate to say it, but that's different.

Water bottles, inhalers, epi pens, glucose for diabetics - yes, that's all part of any health related plan for individual students, which any decent administrator would know (sorry about yours). But that doesn't mean the district can't shut down the food service program and/or yank all the machines out of the building.

[Solo_in_MD]

41. Agreed, but dollars to doughnuts, some kid will get busted under that new regime

Note the educrat was a teacher, not administration.

[formerrepuke]

8. My grandfather was a H.S janitor; these kids should've made to clean

up the mess they made, possibly in place of the charges, and the 18 year-old should have had his diploma withheld until its all cleaned up. Damn, if I'd done something like that- I'd have been ripped a new one.

[Jed Dilligan]

30. Demetrius Oglesby

Best... name... ever.

[KamaAina]

34. Couldn't find any pix, but I'm thinking...

...he's probably African American.

White kids don't get charged with felony food-fighting.

[Jed Dilligan]

35. I'll be sure to PM you

if I ever meet a white Demetrius...

[AtomicKitten]

31. maybe they just weren't doing it right

the proper announcement:


the proper refreshments:


and voila:

[KamaAina]

33. "Senior Kate Hunger was passing by the cafeteria..."

...when the free-for-all began.

"All of a sudden I heard a dull roar and everything started," said Hunger, who continued up the stairs to class. "I didn’t want to get involved, but I heard it described as students were like caged animals and then it was like a bomb went off.

You just can't make this stuff up...

[proud patriot]

38. Whatever happened to making them clean up the mess

and serve food at a homeless shelter as punishment ?

[Rex]

39. High School, prison, as long as they can ignore real problems

and just treat the surface problems with minimal care then you betcha there is no difference.

I feel bad for the cop, a broken foot hurts. The charges are ridiculous, of course.