District Superintendent Claims 14-Year-Old Student Bullied Her By Using Her Photo In A Criminal Justice Class ProjectFirst of all, it should be stressed that this happened in TEXAS and as we all know TEXAS (along with ARIZONA and a few other states) is famous for crazy over-reactions like this.
A 14-year-old Texas student was suspended last week after she created a diorama of a courtroom using pictures of school board members to represent various people in her project, including a prosecutor and "fake" defendant. The assignment, which was due Oct. 20, was to create a miniaturized 3D courtroom setting, she told KGBT-TV. She decided to use photos of school district personnel and elected board members, which she printed out from the Santa Maria Independent School District’s website.
I can see why someone might be offended, but the proper way to handle this type of situation is to anticipate it. Simply make a rule that the full names and pictures of people who work at or attend the school cannot be used in school assignments. If someone breaks this rule, then the proper response is to require the student to redo the assignment and mark it down one grade if it gets turned in after the regular deadline (no extended deadline for the redo). But no, that's not how this situation was handled. The superintendent herself decided that she'd been bullied as a result of her face being used on the body of the defendant in the scene. Additionally,
Chavez also claims Tovar's project caused a "disruption," which is a really lame way to shift blame to the victim. (Meaning the actual victim -- Lucero Tovar -- and not the fake victim who's supposed to be acting like an adult.) There would have been no disruption if school personnel hadn't somehow arrived at the conclusion that Tovar's use of district personnel photos was a form of bullying.
School officials like to use the "disruption" excuse whenever they don't have a real reason for complaining about something.
Maria Chavez may not have liked her face being pasted to an orange jumpsuited body, but the proper response for someone in her position would have been to tell the teacher or administrator that brought it to her attention to find something productive to do with their time. Instead, she chose to be the victim in a situation that clearly wasn't crying out for anyone to fill that role. To become the victim, she had to turn a 14-year-old student into someone capable of intimidating the top of the district's organization chart. Now, because she chose to fully inhabit the victim role, she's exposed herself as someone incapable of filling the role of district superintendent and unworthy of the trust inherent to the position.
LINK:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141101/10033929017/district-superintendent-claims-14-year-old-student-bullied-her-using-her-photo-criminal-justice-class-project.shtml