[hackerspaces] Irving Texas student suspended for bringing a circuitry-control clock project to school

[Joshua Pritt]

That's right!  It would have been VERY EASY for the engineering teacher or
other person familiar with electronics to verify what it is.  That quote
from the cops that said something like "it *looks* just like those bombs
you see on TV" should tell you right there what went wrong.  All of this
would have been avoided by a simple check and verify.

On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 10:57 AM, Chris Weiss <cweiss at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 15, 2015 at 11:38 PM Shirley Hicks <shirley at velochicdesign.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Sep 15, 2015, at 11:37 PM, Shirley Hicks <
>> redmtnadmin at redmountainmakers.org> wrote:
>>
>> Hey everyone,
>>
>> Are there any hackers on the list who are also US teachers who would care
>> to comment on how to best word an email lending support to a high school
>> student who has been suspended for three days for bringing a circuit board
>> clock project to school? I think that this is an overreaction by the school
>> leadership and the local police due to their not understanding electronic
>> engineering and general hacking. I don’t want to do a social media pile on;
>> I would rather helpful and educational while pointing out how they’ve got
>> this very, very, wrong. FWIW - I checked a map - Irving is a Dallas suburb.
>>
>>
>> http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dallas-county/headlines/20150915-irving-9th-grader-arrested-after-taking-homemade-clock-to-school.ece
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Independent_School_District
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Shirley Hicks
>> Secretary/Business Admin/Programmer/Maker
>> Red Mountain Makers
>>
>>
> it's very telling that the engineering teacher immediately said "don't
> show it to anyone" recognizing that the school has a problem, and also that
> there's no mention of that teacher stepping in to speak for Ahmed, as would
> be the right thing for a mentor to do, even if after the fact.  Schools
> should not be a place of fear, for students or teachers, and this school
> just announced to the world that it runs on fear.  The English teacher may
> have been diligent, but the principal was flat wrong, step one should have
> been to call in an engineering or electronics teacher and have them
> verify.  I'm not even sure how to comment about the cops, it smells of
> civil right violations and harassment, but IANAL and I don't play one on TV.
>
>
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