Teens protest disciplinary action at Cape Cod high school

[Intrepidation]

HARWICH, Mass. -- Teens at a local high school staged a sit-in that ended with two arrests.

"Respect. That's all we're trying to get out of it," said Ana Nocchi, a senior at Cape Cod Technical High School.

Some believe the new dean at Cape Cod Regional Technical High School is too strict.

Students staged the sit in after they were served only cheese sandwiches at lunch because they failed to clean up the day before.

"They closed the doors and we couldn't leave the lunch room and she was standing up on stage calling us pigs and immature little kids and nasty," Nocchi said.

A Facebook group organized the sit-in. Approximately 200 students gathered in school's main hallway with the principal's permission, but when it came time to go back to class, some students refused and started yelling and swearing.

Ten Harwich police officers were called in to restore order.

"There were major concerns on our part, of there were 200 to 300 kids there, all assembled in the main hall of the school. We were very concerned of it could've turn real bad, real quick," said Sgt. Kevin Considine, of the Harwich Police Department.

When one girl told officers that she would have to be arrested, police obliged. She was charged with disturbing school assembly and disturbing the peace. An 18-year-old who punched a window was also arrested and charged with vandalism and disorderly conduct.

"No pushing and shoving, just vulgarity and rally a refusal to cooperate with teachers and administrators," said Principal William Terranova, Cape Cod Tech.

Terranova, the former dean, said he stands by the new dean indicating disciplinarily measures have not changed in the school. The principal said that students often try to take advantage as a new dean takes over.

Security will be increased after the weekend.

(Copyright © 2009 Sunbeam Television Corp. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO130141/

[ShadowDog]

HARWICH, Mass. -- Teens at a local high school staged a sit-in that ended with two arrests.

"Respect. That's all we're trying to get out of it," said Ana Nocchi, a senior at Cape Cod Technical High School.

Some believe the new dean at Cape Cod Regional Technical High School is too strict.

Students staged the sit in after they were served only cheese sandwiches at lunch because they failed to clean up the day before.

"They closed the doors and we couldn't leave the lunch room and she was standing up on stage calling us pigs and immature little kids and nasty," Nocchi said.

A Facebook group organized the sit-in. Approximately 200 students gathered in school's main hallway with the principal's permission, but when it came time to go back to class, some students refused and started yelling and swearing.

Ten Harwich police officers were called in to restore order.

"There were major concerns on our part, of there were 200 to 300 kids there, all assembled in the main hall of the school. We were very concerned of it could've turn real bad, real quick," said Sgt. Kevin Considine, of the Harwich Police Department.

When one girl told officers that she would have to be arrested, police obliged. She was charged with disturbing school assembly and disturbing the peace. An 18-year-old who punched a window was also arrested and charged with vandalism and disorderly conduct.

"No pushing and shoving, just vulgarity and rally a refusal to cooperate with teachers and administrators," said Principal William Terranova, Cape Cod Tech.

Terranova, the former dean, said he stands by the new dean indicating disciplinarily measures have not changed in the school. The principal said that students often try to take advantage as a new dean takes over.

Security will be increased after the weekend.

(Copyright © 2009 Sunbeam Television Corp. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO130141/

As far as I can tell, if you act like 10 year olds, prepare to be treated like 10 year olds. I have two nieces, once graduated and the other about to. Their friends on Facebook provide so many examples of a generation of self-entitlement and lack of respect. While it's always said about the next wave of people to lead our communities and countries that we're all going to suffer worse with each passing decade, I think it's actually going to be quite true. The kids of some of the baby-boomers have made lousy parents.

[Justin Bimmer]

When their tuition gets raised 35% with more raises soon almost guaranteed, then they would have a reason to protest. Somebody being strict at a, what appears to be a "magnet" or a school of choice, is not a valid reason to protest.

[pow]

When their tuition gets raised 35% with more raises soon almost guaranteed, then they would have a reason to protest. Somebody being strict at a, what appears to be a "magnet" or a school of choice, is not a valid reason to protest.

+1

They should save their energies and strategies for those kinds of problems...

[ShadowDog]

When their tuition gets raised 35% with more raises soon almost guaranteed, then they would have a reason to protest. Somebody being strict at a, what appears to be a "magnet" or a school of choice, is not a valid reason to protest.

+1

They should save their energies and strategies for those kinds of problems...

Few teens in highschool can see past the next few months, never mind the years in which they will be educated in college and university institutions. The most important things in their lives are image, toys and maybe their grades.

[Camino LS6]

I guess I just see this differently than you guys do.

If you treat them like little kids, that's how they will act.

Schools have become minimum security houses of detention since I went to high school. In my opinion, it has only lowered the maturity level of the inmates...err students.

[loki]

i would mostly agree Camino. only cause you're generalizing too much.

while the students were slightly proactive (sit-ins), sounds like the "management" of the school needed to discipline the kids that were truly messy and leave the responsible ones out of it. ...if you treat them like a mob, you'll likely end up with one.

[A Horse With No Name]

i would mostly agree Camino. only cause you're generalizing too much.

while the students were slightly proactive (sit-ins), sounds like the "management" of the school needed to discipline the kids that were truly messy and leave the responsible ones out of it. ...if you treat them like a mob, you'll likely end up with one.

Damn, we agree on something!

+1

Chris

[balthazar]

I remember the walk-out we staged in 8th grade, where a goodly portion of the student body went out onto the 'island' inside the semi-circular drive to protest the layoffs of a few teachers. It was peaceful & police were not necc. I watched bemused from the windows of Social Studies, already knowing that public sentiment seldom (if ever) changes much.

[Drew Dowdell]

punishing the entire group because of the actions of a few is neither fair nor a good lesson to teach.

[loki]

Damn, we agree on something!

+1

Chris

i'm sure we'd agree on alot more.... maybe those subjects just haven't come up yet.

oh, and don't flatter yourself. lol

usually people think that highschool ...should be a place for more freedom... academically and personally, and then lots more in college (not without responsibility). going through middle school we never had uniforms, my class was the last one to not have them, they started in the lower grades. 1st year HS, pretty lax dresscode, just nothing too revealing, then 2nd year "semi formal", is what i'd call it, took effect. i think 2 years after i graduated polo shirts were the only allowed shirts. and sometime around then, many more security cameras went up. I went to Catholic H.S. and nothing like this story happened when i was there. But more and more schools are seemingly becoming "containers for the rowdy" where peoples rights are violated by the teachers, schools' bureaucracy, and other classmates, leaving the good teachers less affective and the students that want to learn at a disadvantage.

picked up a book from the local pirac, ahem, library called Insult to Intelligence, written back in 1986 by Frank Smith, haven't gotten into it just yet, but hope to have time to get through it. looked potentially very interesting.

[ShadowDog]

punishing the entire group because of the actions of a few is neither fair nor a good lesson to teach.

Just how 'few' or 'many' the offending messy teens were would be the question to first ask?

[Drew Dowdell]

Absolutely, but the article stated that all were locked in the lunch room and served cheese sandwiches while the dean got up on the stage and verbally berated all of them

[Camino LS6]

Absolutely, but the article stated that all were locked in the lunch room and served cheese sandwiches while the dean got up on the stage and verbally berated all of them

Exactly.

The administrator acted like a petulant child and, in my opinion, created the disturbance that followed.

Childish idiots run schools under the guise of being "disciplinarians".

Been true forever.

[Intrepidation]

Absolutely, but the article stated that all were locked in the lunch room and served cheese sandwiches while the dean got up on the stage and verbally berated all of them

Right, that's my problem with this whole thing. Well and this part:

"There were major concerns on our part, of there were 200 to 300 kids there, all assembled in the main hall of the school. We were very concerned of it could've turn real bad, real quick," said Sgt. Kevin Considine, of the Harwich Police Department.

"No pushing and shoving, just vulgarity and rally a refusal to cooperate with teachers and administrators," said Principal William Terranova, Cape Cod Tech.

[loki]

Childish idiots run schools under the guise of being "disciplinarians".

Been true forever.

reminds me instantly of "another brick in the wall"....

[Camino LS6]

"when they go home at night, their fat and psychopathic wives would thrash them within inches of their lives..."

I was in High school when The Wall was released...

Edited November 22, 2009 by Camino LS6

[loki]

"when they go home at night, their fat and psychopathic wives would thrash them within inches of their lives..."

I was in High school when The Wall was released...

can't tell if you're just stating fact or being proud or something else. lol

[Camino LS6]

Stating fact, and hinting at the implications...

The Wall was beyond huge upon release, you have no idea.

Now imagine being a student (or a teacher) at a High School at that time.

[mustang84]

If you guys think kids are getting bad now, wait another generation or two. My mom is a teacher and each year the kids have had more behavioral issues. Over a third of her class is on medication of some sort, and 4 out of the 18 have ADHD. The problem is that there are too many irresponsible parents who don't take the time to raise their kids or are too busy abusing drugs and alcohol to care about their child's development. I've seen it with some of my former high school friends who got pregnant young and leave the kid with a babysitter or friend all the time so they can go out and get stoned and $h!faced, instead of being a parent. And the ones who seem to be having the most kids are the ones who do the least to raise them. The self-entitlement and irresponsibility is only going to get worse unless society finds a way to reverse the problem.

[loki]

the book i brought up... started reading it and it seems like it's going to be quite fascinating. 2nd chapter so far has been talking about how children and adults seem to learn, ..it's from '83 and the author is talking about how "teaching" has become just programming and not real learning. this technique is called test and drill... teachers that have tried it and found it pretty worthless have called it test and kill. it got bumped up to #1 read for my book reading.