An Oak Forest family is mulling legal options after their son was suspended from Oak Forest High School last week for posting critical comments about a teacher on his Facebook page.
Justin Bird, a sophomore, received a five-day, out-of-school suspension for critical comments he made about a teacher on the social networking Web site.
Justin and his mother, Donna Bird, said the comments were posted on his own time, using his own computer and in his own home. They question whether the school has the authority to go so far beyond school boundaries to hand down such a punishment and are considering filing a lawsuit.
Bird said her son and the teacher had been clashing since the beginning of the school year. Even during parent-teacher conferences in November, she said, the teacher admitted to trying to “get a rise” out of Justin on several occasions but would stop. However, it began again, she said, and during one encounter the teacher called Justin “stupid” in front of his classmates.
On Feb. 9, Justin created a Facebook fan page for “anyone who has had a bad experience or plain dislikes” the teacher. The page also referred to the teacher in a derogatory way.
Justin said the page was up on Facebook for five days and attracted about 50 fans. But he said nobody posted comments about the teacher on the page.
Fearing a reprimand from school officials, he took it down Feb. 14. The next day, he was called into Dean Lillie Holman’s office and notified of his suspension.
Justin “is a high honors student, and I don’t want this affecting his record,” Bird said. “I could see if he did it at school on school time.”
Phone and e-mail messages to the teacher seeking comment were not returned.
Bremen Community High School District 228 Supt. Bill Kendall said a sophomore was disciplined for making critical comments about a teacher on Facebook, but he would not name Justin as the student.
He said if the student completes a program that deals with anger management and making better choices, he can have three of the five suspension days removed from his disciplinary record.
An outside consultant is being brought in to work with the student, but the family has to pay $25 for the four 1 1 / 2 -hour sessions, Kendall said.
Kendall admitted the district is wading into unfamiliar territory with such a disciplinary case. Justin’s family argues there is no place in the student handbook that deals with such occurrences.
Kendall said it is possible the district would remove the suspension from the student’s record if administrators found there were substantial similarities to an ongoing court case in Florida.
Last week a federal judge ruled that Katherine Evans could sue her former high school principal to have a suspension expunged from her record. She was suspended in 2007 from Pembroke Pines Charter High School after she created a Facebook page to criticize one of her teachers.
Kendall said an initial comparison of the cases indicates they are not similar.
American Civil Liberties Union spokesman Ed Yohnka said the organization has seen a growing trend of school officials trying to extend the scope of their authority into students’ homes. Often, officials base such punishment on the vague principle of “causing a disruption to school activities,” he said.
“Absent of some kind of threat, it’s not clear what authority a school district has to punish a student using his own resources, in his own home and on his own time,” he said. “The notion of controlling people or engaging in control outside of the school grounds and into the home is one of those claims we all should look at very closely before it’s something we just accept.”
Justin still will have an opportunity to make up all his work for the time he is suspended but will have to do so during a Saturday detention.
Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services