Well that's going to make gossip a whole lot more petty and vindictive.

"I hate her. Let's tell the teacher she's pregnant"

Ah, charter schools. This is what the GOP is trying to force on us. Read the specs on the ALEC website about the criteria that they want to allow charter schools to force on students. Bottom line, it's a way to control students and expel them if they don't comply with the Christian Dominionist rules.

I'm told this law has been on the books since 1972! What the hell is wrong with parents in Louisiana? I don't have any daughters, but if I DID I damn sure would not stand for any school telling her she had to take a pregnancy test, and God help them if they tried to kick my child out of school for getting pregnant, especially if the father of her child didn't get sent home too! I just don't know how anyone can accept a school district making life altering decisions for their child, and the decision to require a child already facing an unwanted, early life pregnancy to home school is certainly an attempt to insure their life is even more difficult. And of course, these same nosy jerks would be the first to be outraged if the student opted to terminate the pregnancy so that she can stay in school!

I'm not even a lawyer and I could handle this in court.

Lawnchair: number8: Students at a public school are expected to show respect for themselves and for others in their relationships. Public displays of affection are not permitted at Delhi Charter School and show disdain for good taste.

Yeah, like Satanic_Hamster said, that's standard boilerplate at almost every school, public or private, in the US since about 1985. Sad as all hell, if you ask me, but ubiquitous.

I've never heard of such draconian rules outside of religious schools. My public high school's policy was basically no making out or farking. People hugged and kissed all the time. Making out was overlooked for prom though. I mean... kids aren't even allowed to lean against one another?? That's stupid.

Apos: All in favor of Louisana tag,say aye.



I'll start: AYE!

Nay. I get the feeling, but this is just one story. Florida has several bizarre-as-hell stories all the time, at all levels of politics and society. I can almost see Arizona, but nobody really reaches the sheer level of insanity that Florida exudes.

Since a lot of you suck at reading comprehension:

FTFA: Title IX and its regulations explicitly mandate that schools cannot exclude any student from an education program or activity, "including any class or extracurricular activity, on the basis of such student's pregnancy, childbirth, false pregnancy, termination of pregnancy or recovery therefrom."

If you don't trust the ACLU or TFA, you can also find this in the ed.gov link accompanying this quote in TFA.

Teresaol31: I'm told this law has been on the books since 1972! What the hell is wrong with parents in Louisiana? I don't have any daughters, but if I DID I damn sure would not stand for any school telling her she had to take a pregnancy test, and God help them if they tried to kick my child out of school for getting pregnant, especially if the father of her child didn't get sent home too! I just don't know how anyone can accept a school district making life altering decisions for their child, and the decision to require a child already facing an unwanted, early life pregnancy to home school is certainly an attempt to insure their life is even more difficult. And of course, these same nosy jerks would be the first to be outraged if the student opted to terminate the pregnancy so that she can stay in school!

Think about this too: what if there is no one that can stay home to home school them? I've known several people who home schooled their children, and it is full-time work. It requires a parent that can stay home to do it. What if both parents work or if the girl comes from a single-parent home? What does she do then?

dpzum1: Teresaol31: I'm told this law has been on the books since 1972! What the hell is wrong with parents in Louisiana? I don't have any daughters, but if I DID I damn sure would not stand for any school telling her she had to take a pregnancy test, and God help them if they tried to kick my child out of school for getting pregnant, especially if the father of her child didn't get sent home too! I just don't know how anyone can accept a school district making life altering decisions for their child, and the decision to require a child already facing an unwanted, early life pregnancy to home school is certainly an attempt to insure their life is even more difficult. And of course, these same nosy jerks would be the first to be outraged if the student opted to terminate the pregnancy so that she can stay in school!

Same goes for schools and govt telling me my child is ADD, ADHD when there's no clinical test to prove it, then MAKING them take psychotropic drugs. Define Better.

While school may not have a test for ADD or ADHD, there are behaviorial characteristics such as the inability to remain seated, take turns, easily distracted or preoccupied, or often acts out for attention. While younger kids may engage in any number of these behaviors to a point, they are usually corrected by other kids or teachers warnings. A child who repeatedly engaged (despite warnings) in these behaviors may become a major disruption and distraction to the rest of the class. This is why a teacher may refer your child to a specialist who can diagnose and perscribe whatever wonder drugs are needed to help your child reengage with the rest of the world. Not all perscriptions are depressants. Some medications actually stimulate the child so that he will fit better into a stimulating envrionment. Teachers (nor the government) are not there to perscribe medication- they only make referrals so that your child can get help if help is needed. Don't worry about your kid turning into a zombie either way. Kids eventually find mechanisms to deal with these conditions.

If your child does engage in most of the activities mentioned but you know for sure it's not ADD or ADHD, you have a couple of options; check with a specialist to see if there are any other underlying issues causing him be disruptive. Work with your child- teach them at home what behaviors are appropriate and which are not. Work closely with the teachers to verify or chart progress. If no progress is being made, you might seek the first option again. Progression is acceptable, continuing disruptive behavior will do nothing for your child's education or for the kids' around him.

Good luck

shamanwest: Teresaol31: I'm told this law has been on the books since 1972! What the hell is wrong with parents in Louisiana? I don't have any daughters, but if I DID I damn sure would not stand for any school telling her she had to take a pregnancy test, and God help them if they tried to kick my child out of school for getting pregnant, especially if the father of her child didn't get sent home too! I just don't know how anyone can accept a school district making life altering decisions for their child, and the decision to require a child already facing an unwanted, early life pregnancy to home school is certainly an attempt to insure their life is even more difficult. And of course, these same nosy jerks would be the first to be outraged if the student opted to terminate the pregnancy so that she can stay in school!

Think about this too: what if there is no one that can stay home to home school them? I've known several people who home schooled their children, and it is full-time work. It requires a parent that can stay home to do it. What if both parents work or if the girl comes from a single-parent home? What does she do then?

They do exactly what they intended, created another permanent dependent on state assistance, which will feed the child to the barest subsistence, and then cut programs for higher education and health care for the mother, so that they can further degrade her. After all, these people can't live without somebody to be the scapegoat for society's ills. What better way to insure that they have someone to preach to about boot straps, than to insure that a young lady who gets pregnant in high school has no chance of getting her diploma, much less a college degree!

Kiwimann: Not sure how much ground ACLU will have to stand on. Although I completely agree with the ACLU's opinion on this, ACLU lost a similar lawsuit for a charter school that was refusing to accomodate a student with a physical disability.

There's basically a ginormous loophole that allows charterschools to discriminate like this if they make the argument that they can't accomodate or don't staff for disabilities (this school in LA could say that they don't have a trained nurse on staff for example).

You don't need trained staff to deal with girls who refuse to test, for one.

Also don't need any form of training to handle someone who is, say, 4 months pregnant.

FTA: those who are pregnant or refuse to take the test are kicked out

serial_crusher: The policy's complete disregard for Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education programs and activities, is astonishing

How does it violate Title IX? They'd presumably kick out a pregnant male student as well, right?

From TFA, Title IX doesn't allow the exclusion of students "on the basis of such student's pregnancy, childbirth, false pregnancy, termination of pregnancy or recovery therefrom." Male or female.

Endive Wombat: So the girls who are pregnant have to leave school, but the boys that knocked them up just keep truckin' along? OOOOOOOOKKKKKK....makes total sense!

Gotta teach boys early that they have no skin in the get-a-girl-pregnant-unexpectedly game. Unless she wants an abortion. Then he has to stand up and say no, cause that's the good Christian thing to do.

/snark

Out of curiosity, does the article mention anything about what the boys who get these girls pregnant think of this, or is it just focused on the girls?

Doesn't matter. They are screwed, pregnant or not, as they are still in Louisiana.

FTA: Under school policy, those who are pregnant or refuse to take the test are kicked out and forced to undergo home schooling


Homeschool or be incarcerated in a system like that thar down in Lousyanna?

Tough choice.

/I'd fake a false-positive

Teresaol31: I'm told this law has been on the books since 1972! What the hell is wrong with parents in Louisiana? I don't have any daughters, but if I DID I damn sure would not stand for any school telling her she had to take a pregnancy test, and God help them if they tried to kick my child out of school for getting pregnant, especially if the father of her child didn't get sent home too! I just don't know how anyone can accept a school district making life altering decisions for their child, and the decision to require a child already facing an unwanted, early life pregnancy to home school is certainly an attempt to insure their life is even more difficult. And of course, these same nosy jerks would be the first to be outraged if the student opted to terminate the pregnancy so that she can stay in school!

Happened to a very smart (except for the lack of contraception use) girl I knew in high school in Louisiana. The douche that got her pregnant got to stay at the school and she was sent home.

-It was explained that because she was pregnant and we were a boarding school, the school couldn't take the liability of the pregnant student on campus. That plus they didn't want it "glamorized".

Really stupid actually, the guy continued being a douche while he was there, and only complete and utter douches hung out with him after that.

-No girl would go near him (which was at least a *little* satisfying).

On a plus note, the girl eventually went on to college, albeit a crappy university near her parents. -Kinda sad because she could have gone on to a much better school.

Saw the same thing happen to another girl I knew (very smart) in college with another douche (this one was a rather large douche). -Neither ended up married to the guy and neither got any support whatsoever from the guy.

That being said... Seriously girls... I know even *I* have had sex with girls that I shouldn't have... we *all* get horny and make bad decisions... but shouldn't you (as a gender) be a little more careful? You have more to lose than a douche in that situation, especially in high school and college. -He'll probably still be living at home with his mom and dad when he's 40, and still getting high/drunk. Is that really who you want for a baby's daddy?

-quit letting douches breed.

And what happens to the boys that knocked them up?
crickets

I stopped reading at "Louisiana."

pedrop357: Satanic_Hamster: Uhhh.. I hate to break it to you, but non-PDA rules are pretty common.

Hand holding was pretty well tolerated at every school I attended or heard of. I understand banning kissing and maybe sitting in laps, but not holding hands and hugs. That's surprisingly prudish and not all out of place in a religious school, but not a public one.

You did not go to school in the South I see. Hand holding was not ok, and would get you a detention if the wrong people saw you. And this wasn't in days of yore. I graduated in 1997.

This article reminds me of a class mate of mine who became pregnant during the Eighties. The father was our high school English teacher. I wonder how this school would handle that situation?

Ed Grubermann: Jixa: Family story as told to me by my mom:

When my grandmother was 17, she "got in trouble with a married man" and "was removed from polite society" to live with her aunt in the country for the summer. When she came back to school the next year, she had lost a little weight and her married older sister had adopted a beautiful baby girl. My grandmother's reputation was intact, her barren older sister had the child she wanted, and everybody was happy. That's why my mother's cousin is actually her sister and why it sucked to be a woman in the 1940's.

Maybe if these kids were taught how babby is formed and how not to make babby in the first place (not the abstinence only crap) this wouldn't even be an issue.

My grandmother got married two months before the end of her senior year and had to hide the fact from everyone so they wouldn't kick her out of school. Evidently people in the 1940's were insane.

My mother was pregnant with me and had to hide both her marriage and her pregnancy in order to finish high school. That was in the late Sixties. Yes, we do live in the South.

Maybe David Vitter can supply some diapers for these LA Abstinence Only educated mothers-to-be.

Endive Wombat: So the girls who are pregnant have to leave school, but the boys that knocked them up just keep truckin' along? OOOOOOOOKKKKKK....makes total sense!

Yup, because it's about demonizing premarital/non-reproductive sex. Kicking out the girls scares other girls into not having sex. (Or at least that's the idea. It doesn't work very well.)

Kiwimann: Not sure how much ground ACLU will have to stand on. Although I completely agree with the ACLU's opinion on this, ACLU lost a similar lawsuit for a charter school that was refusing to accomodate a student with a physical disability.

There's basically a ginormous loophole that allows charterschools to discriminate like this if they make the argument that they can't accomodate or don't staff for disabilities (this school in LA could say that they don't have a trained nurse on staff for example).

Yup. That's one of the big reasons charter schools give more value--they don't have to deal with the special ed budget that eats up half of what the school district spends.

Last Man on Earth: That's just the rules as written. In practice, they aren't enforced so as to be all that much different from when you were in school. They just phrase the actual code more restrictively so as to head off unforeseen loopholes allow selective enforcement.

FTFY.

It's not so much about plugging loopholes as it is about having a defensible excuse to get rid of the people they wanted to get rid of anyway.

Jixa: Family story as told to me by my mom:

When my grandmother was 17, she "got in trouble with a married man" and "was removed from polite society" to live with her aunt in the country for the summer. When she came back to school the next year, she had lost a little weight and her married older sister had adopted a beautiful baby girl. My grandmother's reputation was intact, her barren older sister had the child she wanted, and everybody was happy. That's why my mother's cousin is actually her sister and why it sucked to be a woman in the 1940's.

Maybe if these kids were taught how babby is formed and how not to make babby in the first place (not the abstinence only crap) this wouldn't even be an issue.

Aint havin' that! That's the kinda fornicatin' dem evil libruls want kids doin'!

xl5150: If they do, it's not like they're going on to college.

There are plenty who do go on to college. Assuming that they won't, is actually a far bigger factor than their having children.

Family story as told to me by my mom:

When my grandmother was 17, she "got in trouble with a married man" and "was removed from polite society" to live with her aunt in the country for the summer. When she came back to school the next year, she had lost a little weight and her married older sister had adopted a beautiful baby girl. My grandmother's reputation was intact, her barren older sister had the child she wanted, and everybody was happy. That's why my mother's cousin is actually her sister and why it sucked to be a woman in the 1940's.

Maybe if these kids were taught how babby is formed and how not to make babby in the first place (not the abstinence only crap) this wouldn't even be an issue.

Mr. Eugenides: I notice that it's a charter school. Since all of ths students are there by choice the school may have a small leg to stand on as long as the policy was known to the families before they entered the school.

It's still illegal. You don't get to opt-out of anti-discrimination laws.

shamanwest: Teresaol31: I'm told this law has been on the books since 1972! What the hell is wrong with parents in Louisiana? I don't have any daughters, but if I DID I damn sure would not stand for any school telling her she had to take a pregnancy test, and God help them if they tried to kick my child out of school for getting pregnant, especially if the father of her child didn't get sent home too! I just don't know how anyone can accept a school district making life altering decisions for their child, and the decision to require a child already facing an unwanted, early life pregnancy to home school is certainly an attempt to insure their life is even more difficult. And of course, these same nosy jerks would be the first to be outraged if the student opted to terminate the pregnancy so that she can stay in school!

Think about this too: what if there is no one that can stay home to home school them? I've known several people who home schooled their children, and it is full-time work. It requires a parent that can stay home to do it. What if both parents work or if the girl comes from a single-parent home? What does she do then?

In addition, not every adult is competent enough in the various high school subject--math and advanced sciences come to mind--to successively homeschool. Especially most adults in Louisiana...

Huggermugger: Ah, charter schools. This is what the GOP is trying to force on us. Read the specs on the ALEC website about the criteria that they want to allow charter schools to force on students. Bottom line, it's a way to control students and expel them if they don't comply with the Christian Dominionist rules.

The nice thing is that if you don't like it, you can not attend that evil charter school. You can keep your kids in the crappy schools that were so bad that someone had to come up with a charter school. Or, you could start up your own charter school that actually provides a good education as well as being free of the things you don.t like.

OtherLittleGuy: So, if a school doesn't take one dime of Federal funding, they can say "Fark you" to Title IX?

In this case you can throw all that out and still make an argument on civil liberties grounds. Given the ACLU is using this particular argument it's safe to say they've done their work and actually found reason to use it.

Teresaol31: I'm told this law has been on the books since 1972! What the hell is wrong with parents in Louisiana? I don't have any daughters, but if I DID I damn sure would not stand for any school telling her she had to take a pregnancy test, and God help them if they tried to kick my child out of school for getting pregnant, especially if the father of her child didn't get sent home too! I just don't know how anyone can accept a school district making life altering decisions for their child, and the decision to require a child already facing an unwanted, early life pregnancy to home school is certainly an attempt to insure their life is even more difficult. And of course, these same nosy jerks would be the first to be outraged if the student opted to terminate the pregnancy so that she can stay in school!

If you don't like it, send your daughter to another school. Maybe she can go to the public one all the whores attend.

Atharaenea: Lawnchair: number8: Students at a public school are expected to show respect for themselves and for others in their relationships. Public displays of affection are not permitted at Delhi Charter School and show disdain for good taste.

Yeah, like Satanic_Hamster said, that's standard boilerplate at almost every school, public or private, in the US since about 1985. Sad as all hell, if you ask me, but ubiquitous.

I've never heard of such draconian rules outside of religious schools. My public high school's policy was basically no making out or farking. People hugged and kissed all the time. Making out was overlooked for prom though. I mean... kids aren't even allowed to lean against one another?? That's stupid.

That's just the rules as written. In practice, they aren't enforced so as to be all that much different from when you were in school. They just phrase the actual code more restrictively so as to head off unforeseen loopholes.

Excellent use of the semi-colon, subby.

Bravo.

Kept waiting to see that this was a catholic school.

Unfarkingbelievable that it was a public school. Sad and disgusting.

I would also like to point out yet again that we up here in Arkansas appreciate Louisiana. They keep us from taking direct hits from hurricanes AND they keep us from being the ultimate armpit of the nation.

DjangoStonereaver: I had to pick up some stuff for my mom at her local Dollar Store, and at the checkout counter they had 1-shot
drug test kits (for marijuana).

For $1 apiece.

WTF?

The amount of false negatives and positives must be astronomical.

shamanwest: What if both parents work or if the girl comes from a single-parent home? What does she do then?

Presumably she gets bounced out of the charter school and into the "regular" public school, where pregnancy is commonplace.

So when we kick out Texas and Arizona, can we force them to take Louisiana with them?

Also seen when looking through the student policy manual:

The school uses corproal punishment

Any "teacher, director, administrator or school security guard" can search a student (pat down) or their locker or car if they say they have a reasonable suspicion that they have some kind of contraband. This includes "nitrate based inhalants". (So... no going to school after going to the supermarket and purchasing Redi Whip?)

Male students are not allowed to have earrings or any other piercings. Female student can have one piercing in each ear, that's it. Men can't have hair below the shirt collar.

Heh; that was the rule throughout my years in junior and high school in TN. As soon as the girl starting "showing" her pregnancy, she was barred from attending public school and a home school tutor was assigned to her. Once she gave birth, she could then attend public school again.

Two girls from my graduating class took advantage of that rule, in fact. One of them was my stepsister. A third girl did so well at home with a private tutor that she ended up graduating a year early, with my class instead of the one behind us.

/don't know if TN still has that rule
//probably does

Schools should be supporting pregnant and parenting teens that face numerous barriers to completing their education, not illegally excluding them from school.

No. Schools should be discouraging teen pregnancy and not by shaming them into taking a pregnancy test.