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PROVIDENCE, R.I., March 25 (UPI) -- A Providence high school principal who suspended a student for posting a picture of her smoking on his Web site has apologized to the student body. Eliazar Velasquez, 17, caught Elaine Almagno lighting up on the grounds of Central High School, a violation both of Rhode Island state law and school district policy, the Providence Journal reported. She ordered him to remove the photograph from his Web site and suspended him when he refused. On Tuesday, the sophomore was offered reinstatement but only if he complied with the removal order. On Wednesday, Superintendent of Schools Melody Johnson went public, saying that Almagno, "a veteran administrator with a 25-year unblemished record," had made a mistake. Johnson said that she ordered Central High officials to remove the suspension from Velasquez's record and that Almagno had apologized over the intercom for smoking on school grounds. Velasquez told the newspaper that, when he returned to school, the vice principal advised him to find some better way of expressing disagreements [...] |
In my community, it is illegal for anyone to smoke on school grounds. I don't know if it is a city ordinance or a state law. I think it is a state law because I know it isn't just my city with this law.
So, since it is illegal, they shouldn't be allowed to do it.
As far as whether or not it should be illegal, I have mixed feelings. The problem is that smoking is legal. So, I don't believe you should be restricted from doing it just because you are on school grounds. As long as it is done outside in an area designated for teachers to smoke, I see no real problem with it.
The idea that they shouldn't do it because then students will want to do it, doesn't wash with me.
I believe there is a real problem with kids smoking at a young age, and agree with rules that prevent teachers from smoking on school grounds. I think that as authoritative figures in school, teachers and administrators should set an example while on school property. As for it being illegal, that is another story. Setting rules of etiquette is very different from making an activity illegal.
I agree that if there are going to be rules against students smoking on school grounds, then teachers and administrators should not be doing it either.
However, what I see as being the real story here is the fact that the school suspended the student - not for posting dangerous or obscene materials, but for exposing the criminal conduct of the principal. Now, they are telling him that he was completely wrong in doing so, and must find a "better way of expressing disagreements."
I wonder if the objection was simply that a picture was posted without permission. We are all assuming it is because the principal didn't want his behavior exposed. Perhaps, he didn't want his picture out on the internet for all the world to see. This could be a matter of privacy.
I personally believe that people get too worked up over cigarets. I only would have a problem with the administrator if he was smoking indoors as the second hand smoke is harmful and above all stinky. But outdoors? I say let the poor man smoke; working with small children is enough to drive anyone to smoking, but I digress... Children see the hipacritical nature of adults nearly every day, they realize that the double standard exists, between children and adults and I don't think seeing their teachers smoking is going to harm them in any way. If anything, rebellious students (I.e. the ones likely to smoke) won't want to be anything like their teachers and therefore less likely to smoke. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Unferth