How about a criminal assault complaint against Barber and civil suits from the students sprayed? That should shut him up.

Assistant Principle, please!!!!

The guards at the high school I went to used pepper spray before, it's really not that big of a deal, if the students actually posed a threat to themselves or others. The principle should have been slapped on the wrist unless he failed to try other methods first.

//At my high school the problem was that people would form a 5 person+ deep circle around fights, guards used the threat of pepper spray to get thru

lajimi: How about a criminal assault complaint against Barber and civil suits from the students sprayed? That should shut him up.

I taught HS English for years in NJ and LA. In NJ, I taught in an inner-city school and tried to break up a fight ONCE. I got kidney-punched by one of the students watching on the sidelines.

HS fights, especially racially charged ones, are serious business. Suspending and demoting any teacher or administrator for trying to break up a fight as quickly & with as little injury as possible is a douchebag move. What was Barber supposed to do? Risk injury (like I did) or just watch them beat the shiat out of each other?

Nothing wrong with what he did.

racial
GTFO

brigid_fitch: HS fights, especially racially charged ones, are serious business. Suspending and demoting any teacher or administrator for trying to break up a fight as quickly & with as little injury as possible is a douchebag move. What was Barber supposed to do? Risk injury (like I did) or just watch them beat the shiat out of each other?

Wouldn't you expect the school have a policy on what a teacher should do with a fight? I mean, it's likely to be a dumb policy, but you'd expect it to say something.

The good news is that once Obama becomes president this kind of lawsuit will be behind us forever.

opiumpoopy: Wouldn't you expect the school have a policy on what a teacher should do with a fight? I mean, it's likely to be a dumb policy, but you'd expect it to say something.

I taught in 3 schools in 2 states and never came across any policies regarding what a teacher should do during a fight. It was understood that, as an authority figure (yeah, right), we were expected to break them up and it was assumed by the administration the students would listen to us. It rarely worked out that way.

The only policy I ever saw regarding fighting is that all students involved, regardless of who started it, are disciplined equally.

It's not really that difficult to break up a school fight. Unless there are weapons involved or there are more than two people involved.

In any case, when I worked for Katy ISD (Independent School District, a suburb of Houston) we were supposed to call the campus police, then intervene. We never had any problems with that policy, and I'm pretty sure that no matter what color the person was in our district, if we used any sort of weapon on the students like pepper spray, we'd be facing the same punishment.

jasonmicron: The good news is that once Obama becomes president this kind of lawsuit will be behind us forever.

You, sir, are a fine, upstanding example of whitey.

So his entire reasoning why he should win the suit is not that he didn't do anything wrong, its that other teachers have done more stuff wrong and haven't gotten punished? WTF?

He's going to end up losing the suit and the authorities are going to come in and clean house with the rest of the employees at that school.

It says a white coach at Ooltewah High was allowed to refer to students by the N word and said the same coach assaulted a student.

The suit claims another Ooltewah coach slammed a student to the floor.

jasonmicron: The good news is that once Obama becomes president this kind of lawsuit will be behind us forever.

No, the good news is that your mom can take her teeth out.

jasonmicron: The good news is that once Obama becomes president this kind of lawsuit will be behind us forever.

lol, if only.

Joshua Barber, former Brainerd High School assistant principal...

"I thought we could take care of this. Right here. In Brainerd."

I doubt that this was racial in nature, more like an indication of the general wimpishness of school administrators. One thing not covered was whether assistant principals are issued pepper spray or at least permitted to carry it. If the answer to either is yes, are there policy guidelines for its use, and if so, did he violate them?

Lots of unanswered questions here.

jasonmicron: "It's not really that difficult to break up a school fight."

lol are we talking about highschool? or junior high kids?

i dont know what school you went to, maybe there were no athletes or large kids, who knows.

but even back in the day at my predominately white high school, you would be hard pressed to break up a fight between any two upperclassmen.

Misuse of the dumbass tag. Looks more like it needs a hero tag. If we had more principals that didnt put up with stupid crap like fights, and were willing to respond in ways that will make students think twice before doing it again then we wouldnt have such crappy schools and violent youth. Pepper spray to break up a fight seems pretty reasonable. It does no lasting harm but will stop the fight pretty darn quick and will make the kid think twice next time.

The guy should be given an award.

flyf15: So his entire reasoning why he should win the suit is not that he didn't do anything wrong, its that other teachers have done more stuff wrong and haven't gotten punished? WTF?

He's going to end up losing the suit and the authorities are going to come in and clean house with the rest of the employees at that school.

It says a white coach at Ooltewah High was allowed to refer to students by the N word and said the same coach assaulted a student.

The suit claims another Ooltewah coach slammed a student to the floor.

If the white coaches were REALLY all hardcore racist skinheads...why the fark where they all coaching an inner city school?
Maybe I'm not in the mindset enough, buy if you really hated black people, why would you voluntarily work in a position that not only exposes you to black people on a daily basis...but exposes you to VIOLENT, TEENAGE black people? I wouldn't voluntarily sign up to work with people that I hate and know could kick my ass. Just not good working conditions.

/
//He called me the N-word!
///Booty dance-uh booty dance

At my highschool we had cops, security guards, and security guard lite administrators who would all break up fights. I personally saw kids tazed by the cops, and maced by the security guards. I saw an administrator get hit in the face trying to break up a fight, and he hit the kid back so hard he broke his nose. There was never an issue made out of this, and it was only a few years ago.

Teachers need to be able to maintain order. I don't think that they all need tazers to keep the kids in line, and I don't think they should be macing kids for backtalking or anything, but mace is probably the safest way to break up a fight for everybody involved. I would rather see a kid washing their eyes out for an hour than taken to the hospital for real injuries.

This is not about disciplining students, it is about the ability to maintain order in the safest way possible.

Zero problem with what he did.

Students these days are better armed than some police departments.

They'll recover from the pepper spray. Trust me.

Are assistant principals always douches? Mine were.

jjorsett: I doubt that this was racial in nature, more like an indication of the general wimpishness of school administrators. One thing not covered was whether assistant principals are issued pepper spray or at least permitted to carry it. If the answer to either is yes, are there policy guidelines for its use, and if so, did he violate them?

Lots of unanswered questions here.

Also this; he either should be in a shiatload of trouble (for having pepper spray he shouldn't have, AND using it) or the school issued/permitted it and basically okayed his use...then biatched him out.
Unless he was just being a prick with it, which I guess is possible.

/Everything in this situation is FUBAR

To all the teachers posting here I salute you cause it is no way I would be babysitting, teaching, and being a parent to someones bad ass kid
/You have my vote for pay raises

HURF DURF WHITEY KEEPS HOLDING ME DOWN

/approve of stopping with pepperspray

My highschool gym teacher (also the football and track coach) had a highly effective method of breaking up a fight.

If you were fighting in the gym or locker room and Coach saw it, a basketball would come hurtling at the wall half an inch from your head at just under lightspeed. It made a hell of a noise, especially in the locker room and it would scare the shiat out of you.

It never failed to bring an abrupt end to a fight. I never heard of him actually hitting anyone with that ball but it was scary as hell to have it coming at you.

jasonmicron

The good news is that once Obama becomes president this kind of lawsuit will be behind us forever.

Is there anything he cant do?

Well, other than make government smaller?

He was in the wrong for using pepper spray, but some of these HS kids are BIG KIDS, so although policy wise he was in the wrong, I can say I may understand the situation he was possibly in.

I bet if more parents put a 500 dollar deposit on the school, the kids would be much more better behaved. Loss or Deduction may be due to your kids being given detention for a significant amount of time, suspension, or expulsion. Bad parents will pay attention more to their kids schooling if it cost them more money. Especially low income families.

the only people who should have pepper spray are people who have been sprayed with it themselves and trained in their usage. the same goes for tasers. pepper spray and tasers are lethal weapons in the wrong hands.

For the last 2 years I was in high school, we had a Vice Principal who could break up fights by Force Choking the offending students.

Seriously, she was the female Darth Vader: ALWAYS in black clothing with really sever make-up and an air of malice that followed her around.

/She finds your lack of faith disturbing.

If he had done nothing and one of the snowflakes got hurt the parents would be suing him

Approves.

Officer White? Obviously another white devil conspiracy.

lajimi: How about a criminal assault complaint against Barber and civil suits from the students sprayed? That should shut him up.

High school kids can be tried as adults in many cases, and they were in the process of violating the law and violently harming one another.

Believe it or not, being a precious snowflake will only get you so far. Freedom doesn't have to include the freedom to attack and pummel each other with our fists.

jasonmicron: The good news is that once Obama becomes president this kind of lawsuit will be behind us forever.

ya right.. he's already done the paperwork to file his discrimination lawsuit. Just waiting for the day after.

/What? You thought he was going to count on actual VOTES to get elected?

Using a non-lethal chemical agent to avoid personal injury while breaking up a high school fight sounds like a pretty good idea to me. I've seen several teachers get beaten down just because they were trying to keep a couple of teenage retards from hurting each other. The kicker is that the kids often claim that the teacher attacked them, and the school will just throw the teacher under the bus rather than face possible legal action.

I can understand how this guy would be angry about the way he was treated for using common sense in a hazardous situation, but throwing the race card and filing a yet another pointless lawsuit certainly isn't going to help the situation.

ChaoticLimbs: lajimi: How about a criminal assault complaint against Barber and civil suits from the students sprayed? That should shut him up.

High school kids can be tried as adults in many cases, and they were in the process of violating the law and violently harming one another.

Believe it or not, being a precious snowflake will only get you so far. Freedom doesn't have to include the freedom to attack and pummel each other with our fists.

When I was in school it was standard procedure that you were getting arrested if you got in a fight at school. That made fights rare, but when they happened they were usually hard fights because both of the people knew they were gonna go to jail, and nobody wants to lose a fight in front of the whole school.

ExperianScaresCthulhu: the only people who should have pepper spray are people who have been sprayed with it themselves and trained in their usage. the same goes for tasers. pepper spray and tasers are lethal weapons in the wrong hands.

I have been sprayed by pepper spray twice. It sucked. However, pepper spray or tasers are not lethal. Don't believe everything you read on the internet.

flyf15: So his entire reasoning why he should win the suit is not that he didn't do anything wrong, its that other teachers have done more stuff wrong and haven't gotten punished? WTF?

Right, so they're singling him out for punishment on the basis of his race. In other words, it's a race discrimination suit.

And, well, he could well be right. It could also be, if it is like my high school was, the other coach who did much worse gets away with shiat because he's popular with the parents. Not a race thing, but still bad. Either all administrators use pepper spray or no one does. And no one uses the N word.

I guess pepper spray was going too far. Next time he should just open a hose on them like you do when dogs fight.

Skyfrog: Are assistant principals always douches? Mine were.

Mine were, too. Every one of them. It's as if they feel the need to play 'bad cop'.

So the bullies just need to build up a resistance to pepper spray? Mace tends to be much more expensive.

Barakku: If the white coaches were REALLY all hardcore racist skinheads...why the fark where they all coaching an inner city school?
Maybe I'm not in the mindset enough, buy if you really hated black people, why would you voluntarily work in a position that not only exposes you to black people on a daily basis...but exposes you to VIOLENT, TEENAGE black people? I wouldn't voluntarily sign up to work with people that I hate and know could kick my ass. Just not good working conditions.

Exactly. If they were racist, why would they be in a job where they work to enable black kids to provide a future for themselves? Wouldn't they be burning down the school instead?

Senor Awesome: Barakku: If the white coaches were REALLY all hardcore racist skinheads...why the fark where they all coaching an inner city school?
Maybe I'm not in the mindset enough, buy if you really hated black people, why would you voluntarily work in a position that not only exposes you to black people on a daily basis...but exposes you to VIOLENT, TEENAGE black people? I wouldn't voluntarily sign up to work with people that I hate and know could kick my ass. Just not good working conditions.

Exactly. If they were racist, why would they be in a job where they work to enable black kids to provide a future for themselves? Wouldn't they be burning down the school instead?

Maybe they are in charge of 4H, pushing them to consider a future in agriculture, perhaps growing cotton?

I certainly have more sympathy for the assistant principal than I do the kids.

kidsizedcoffin: Senor Awesome: Barakku: If the white coaches were REALLY all hardcore racist skinheads...why the fark where they all coaching an inner city school?
Maybe I'm not in the mindset enough, buy if you really hated black people, why would you voluntarily work in a position that not only exposes you to black people on a daily basis...but exposes you to VIOLENT, TEENAGE black people? I wouldn't voluntarily sign up to work with people that I hate and know could kick my ass. Just not good working conditions.

Exactly. If they were racist, why would they be in a job where they work to enable black kids to provide a future for themselves? Wouldn't they be burning down the school instead?

Maybe they are in charge of 4H, pushing them to consider a future in agriculture, perhaps growing cotton?

The world needs ditch-diggers too, son.

This guy should have been given a medal. Kids getting into fights is unacceptable. Pepper spray is a reasonable measure to deter kids from attacking one another.

Why are we giving all the power to kids?

Hero tag for the asst principal.

brigid_fitch: The only policy I ever saw regarding fighting is that all students involved, regardless of who started it, are disciplined equally.

We had that policy too. It was ranked up there between "Corky" and "Terry Shavo" in the level of goddamned retardedness.

Our administration would punish kids who got their ass jumped in the hallway and beat to hell. Unprovoked, not even able to swing back, just laying there bleeding. And they'd suspend him for fighting. Christ, I knew at least one boy who couldn't even identify the kids who beat the snot out of him- but he was still suspended for it.

Unfortunately, this was before school shootings were cool.