When good syrups go bad
Students Suspended For Bringing Caffeine Syrup To School
Two students at Monroe High School in the Monroe County School District were suspended for a substance abuse violation. The substance was caffeine.
The high school seniors apparently shared a sampling of SkyRocket High Octane Super Syrup that was purchased online.
“We had two students that were involved, a student who brought it to school and shared it with a friend,” said Ryan McLeod, assistant principal at the high school. “It was not similar to just a Coke or a Pepsi.”
That last part is simply not true. The syrup contains 100 mg of caffeine per ounce and is used to give a caffeine boost to beverages. It is almost identical to Coke or Pepsi syrup. The student brought about an ounce of the syrup to school.
To compare, espresso has 100 mg of caffeine per ounce and a half and a regular cup of brewed coffee has the same in a six ounce cup. A can of Coke has 46 mg and an eight ounce chocolate bar has 48.
School officials said the student was using the substance with the intention to stay up for three nights to play video games.
First, it is absolutely none of the school’s business what the student does at home. If they are genuinely worried about his nighttime gaming habits they have the option to contact his parents to alert them. They do not have the right to suspend him for an action off of school grounds, most definitely not for an action that had not even happen yet.
Second, what is their excuse for suspending the other student?
To reiterate: The school sells caffeine. Caffeine is not a prohibited or controlled substance. The amount of caffeine that this student brought to school was the equivalent of a cup of coffee (which is not prohibited).
I know that we should never attribute to malice what can be ascribed to sheer stupidity but I can’t wrap my mind around the level of stupidity that would be required here so I’m going with malice.
Contact Information:
Shared Leadership Team
(unnamed) Principal
Assistant Principal Hal Heard
Assistant Principal Ryan McLeod
School Board webpage
School Board contact email
School Board contact webpage
Tip credit to Tori in Texas
These people (superintendents, principals) are not doing themselves much good. Here is an article about the growth of homeschooling in black households. One of the reasons mentioned is “zero tolerance.” The woman who runs a homeschooling group says to watch for an explosion of “parent-directed” education within the next five years.
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050315/NEWS0102/503150381/1077/news01
Educationnews.org has a story today on its front page regarding how poorly this nation’s principals and superitendents are trained. Well, the ed schools apparently don’t have much to work with. Do you have to be stupid to be accepted into training to be a principal or superintendent or do you just become stupid after your “training”?
Imagine getting suspended for an ounce of caffine syrup.
I think all of your units were supposed to be milligrams (mg).
Fixed it! Thanks for catching that, Daryl.
I think the answer is clear. To make sure something students never ever get caffeine again we should ban it from schools, and check for it in drug testing. Those who pop positive must attend a mandatory reeducation seminar on the dangers of caffeine. If that doesn’t work, we’ll make it illegal for adults to provide minors with caffeine in any form and then raise the age to 21 at which you can buy a soda. We can probably show that caffeinated drivers are more distractible while driving and start ticketing for that too. Here we go, folks.
Education never has ‘trained’ anybody for anything, it provides an opportunity for indepth study. It does a little filtering so it’s a little better than no training at all, but for the most part it’s the extensive OJT that determines whether people are cut out for the job. I thought the idea was you get rid of people who can’t cut it on the job. Maybe school boards don’t know that.
All I can say is UNBELIEVABLE….In our school system they would have been expelled not just suspended. The paranoia that school officials suffer from is causing complete “stupidity and over reaction”. They won’t stop this kind of teenage behavior or any other kind of teenage behavior by expelling kids from school. That’s the thing, they are not concerned about changing the behavior, they just want it out of their school so they don’t have to deal with it. In the mean time, communities across the country end up with uneducated “drop outs”. Then it is not just a school problem, but a community wide problem. I read an article regarding Bill Gates recently meeting with 48 Governors where he said our high schools are going to be completely obsolete within 10 years. Not only cirriculum wise, but the way the students are actually treated. The “dictatorship style” left the business world 20 years ago, but it has not let up a bit in our high schools. I am only summizing this is what he might have meant, or part of the point he was trying to make.
I have one more year of Public education to survive with my youngest son and I can’t wait until it is over. I hope we both survive it.
I’ll bet they do end up raising the age to get caffeine to 21. Everyone’s so paranoid about teens doing anything wrong nowadays.
I’ve read articles which claim that within the next five years, most students will be going on-line for their education — and that can be done from home.
Public schools as we know them are on their way out. Savvier school districts are smart enough to realize that many kids just don’t want to be there, so they offer on-line education to students in the form of charter schools. They figure that even if the student is out of the classroom, if they choose not to really “homeschool” they can still get state aid for that student.
“Shared Leadership”
I worked in China for 5 years, including June 1989, just a few days after Tianamin Square. The Communist Chinese use “shared leadersip” and comittees extensively …. so no one can be blamed. I think that is what is going on here.
Dave K
I brought a bottle of caffinated water into my workplace many years ago. It was called Crank-2-O or something like that. It was kind of a joke thing. The guys in the computer build room made coffee with it.
go figure.
CED: I hope you only forgot to close with /sarcasm.
=:-}
“We can probably show that caffeinated drivers are more distractible while driving and start ticketing for that too. Here we go, folks.” - CED
If I can prove that it’s the opposite for me, can I still have my caffeine? Pleeeeeease?
Actually the exact quote is; �Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity� -Nick Diamos
But in any form it is an excellent summary of what occurs daily in the government schools. There is nothing “public” about them anymore. Try to go into one or express your opinion. Pay your taxes, send your children and shut the hell up!
I guess overweight children are next. Suspended for abusing fast food or some other nonsense. I am so glad that my kids attend an international school overseas that still believes in discipline at the school.
Those were my two friends! We thought the administration was insane! I mean, if you knew these guys, they are actually the type to do something crazy and alarming just for the kicks, but this is just plain old stupidity on behalf of…well, I won’t name any names. But parents, PLEASE stick up for us! They’re not listening to anyone under the age of about 22. And apparently, in my experience, anyway, shouting does not usually work in replacement of speaking, so we students are running out of options. Don’t even get me started on the near-banning of an article advertisment of a school club called the “Gay-Straight Alliance Club.”
Thanks!
Yup, this was me.
I would like to clear something things up though,
everything about
this says were we’re trying to stay up for three nights straight playing
video games. First, the staying up all night was with another friend
(dosen’t go to our school) and we stayed up till maybe 6AM a few times
in a row. We slept that morning.
The friend that was suspended, (Lets call him Zee) started pouring the stuff
into his water, and some kid decided it wouldn’t hurt any harm to say “DUDE, ARE
YOU SPIKING YOUR WATER!!??” The A.P. was called in, and Zee tried to explaine
what this stuff was commonly used for. He said “This is the kinda stuff a
computer geek might drink to try and stay up for like 3 nights straight playing
video games, or something.” Of course “staying up for 3 nights straight” was an
over-exauguration, but I guess the schools admins took too literally and freaked
out.
Oh yeah, plus, they originally wanted to expel me! They wanted to call me a
distributer, but they were kind of cool, and just punished me as having
possesion of an illegal substance to the school. But most of the A.P.’s and
“importaint” people, wanted me expeled!
I love this site so so so much
Cool site!!
Like a counter-point? Here it is:
The best defense of these professionals and their decision is a good, close look at the above comments. Riddled with logical, grammatical and structural errors, these comments don’t appear to originate from ANYone who should criticize others for possessing ‘zero intelligence’ or for their ’stupidity.’
The real problem in public education: People like you with a false sense of entitlement and some feeling that, because the schools are taxpayer funded, every whim of every ‘concerned parent’ and every need of every fringe learner should be catered to–regardless of objective standards or the ‘greater good’ or an eye for logistics and limited resources.
These administrators did the right thing. And, you know what? If they had ignored this discovery and this student had gone on to exhibit ANY kind of aggressive behavior later, you’d all be criticizing them for not keeping the schools safe and removing the mood altering substances.
Get a clue.