Louisiana education officials are moving to block a decision by the Delhi Charter School to ban pregnant students and require pregnancy tests for students suspected of being pregnant. The state-funded school in Delhi, Louisiana implemented its “Student Pregnancy Policy” to remove pregnant girls from school — requiring them to either find another school or study at home.
The measure is obviously unconstitutional and it is astonishing that any school official or lawyer would believe that it was lawful. Yet, School board member Albert Christman is quoted as saying that he was surprised to hear that their policy was possible unlawful.
Not only does it discriminate against female students, it violates Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
Under the rules, a Delhi students suspected of being pregnant will be called into a parent conference and then referred to a doctor of the school’s choice for testing. If the girls refuse, they will be required to study at home or leave the school. The school insists that it is all just part of teaching students to be good citizens: “Delhi Charter School has established an environment whereby the conduct of its students must be in keeping with the school’s goals and objectives relative to character development. The Delhi Charter School curriculum will maintain an environment in which all students will learn and exhibit acceptable character traits that govern language, gestures, physical actions, and written words.” That lesson apparently includes teaching students to accept arbitrary and authoritarian measures.
Delhi was created to take advantage of the state voucher program. 23 percent of Delhi Charter’s students are minority, nearly 5 percent disabled and 53 percent eligible for free or reduced-price meals.
Source: MSNBC
Just take swabs from all the suspects. Then if you don’t get a match take swabs from everybody else.
I’d go for this if and only if each suspectedly-pregnant girl (each “girl of interest” that is) were given, first, an inquiry where she would put down, in writing, the name of each and every male person who should be under suspicion of having suspiciously impregnated said suspectedly-pregnant girl, and if “someone” had tipped off these girls to ALL PUT DOWN THE NAMES OF THE PRINCIPALS, and/or any male school board members, and/or any male school administrators in the County in which said school resides, and…
Elsie DL 1, August 8, 2012 at 2:32 pm
Thank you, Mike, for posting the link. I signed it right away. The attempt at shaming and punishing girls for reason of pregnancy is disgusting. I wonder if the girls attending this school will be forced to wear a burka sometime soon?
=============
The link is closed or I would have signed it too. With regard to finding out who the male side is, try DNA testing.
“Have a really good sex education class that starts in middle school and includes good parenting by high school. That should reduce the number of accidental pregnancies.”
Naahh. Sex education just incites teens to think about sex all the more (if such is possible). Do a little research on the correlation between values-absent sex ed and pregnancy rates.
“… a decision by the Delhi Charter School to ban pregnant students and require pregnancy tests for students suspected of being pregnant.”
How does this discriminate against female students? It applies to male students as well. If any male student is suspected of being pregnant, he can be subjected to a pregnancy test. The school administration did not choose the sex of any of the students. That was done by the father of the student.
itchninBayDog,
“Bobby Jindal. Praise the Lard and pass on the Crisco.”
I know a guy who came from a lard district in NC. They still don’t know how to cook/boil anything. It’s all fried.
LOTTA,
We are all small dogs compared to you. We jump after the little piece of hot dog offered. And don’t see the steak in your pocket.
IE Tell’em what you want them to know, not what they need to know.
A constitiutional privilege betrayed again.
Thanks.
BettyKath,
Thanks.
You caught it. I wonder how many did not. Scary. Lesson for me. It did not work in person, why should it be recognized over a written link?
Randy Newman had a song out thirty years ago on the Good Ol Boys album. It is a lamenting song about flooding and the nature of the geography of this fair state and the focus is on a flood during the Presidency of Coolidge.
“President Coolidge come down on a railroad train
with a little fat man with a notepad in his hand.
Clouds come in from the North and it starts to rain
President says little fat man isnt it a shame
What the river hath done to this poor cracker’s land
Chorus
Louiseeesizna, Loueeeeziana,///
They’re trying to wash us away,
wash us away.”
Randy has another song on that album entitled Rednecks.
That one has a phrase or punch line:
“We’re Rednecks, We’re Rednecks,
We dont know our arse from a hole in the ground…”
Then it gets down to mean stuff.
The Good Lard could come down and steriilize the likes of Bobby Jindal.
That state needs free condoms on every street corner. Kick out the boys who impregnate the girls. Home school everyone.
Solutions abound.
You know, pregnant students are highly prone to dropping out. These guys are just trying to solve that problem… by preempting it.
As for those failing schools getting state money, I’m sure they meet Jindal’s main criterion for school success: not employing unionized teachers.
Bobby Jindal. Praise the Lard and pass on the Crisco.
707, sorry for jumping all over your sarcasm. I recognized it as such but was so put off by the idea that I had to say so even if you didn’t mean it. As you say, some jerk in LA is probably heading that way but you beat him to it. He’s serious, you’re not.
My money is on the ACLU and (as Mespo points out) the federal courts.
Also, this is a minor story and probably ginned up in the media as a diversion from what should be the BIG story in Louisiana. (Check the story to find out what’s in the textbooks.)
“14 Wacky “Facts” Kids Will Learn in Louisiana’s Voucher Schools
—By Deanna Pan
Tue Aug. 7, 2012 3:00 AM
Thanks to a new law privatizing public education in Louisiana, Bible-based curriculum can now indoctrinate young, pliant minds with the good news of the Lord—all on the state taxpayers’ dime.
Under Gov. Bobby Jindal’s voucher program, considered the most sweeping in the country, Louisiana is poised to spend tens of millions of dollars to help poor and middle-class students from the state’s notoriously terrible public schools receive a private education. While the governor’s plan sounds great in the glittery parlance of the state’s PR machine, the program is rife with accountability problems that actually haven’t been solved by the new standards the Louisiana Department of Education adopted two weeks ago.
For one, of the 119 (mostly Christian) participating schools, Zack Kopplin, a gutsy college sophomore who’s taken to Change.org to stonewall the program, has identified at least 19 that teach or champion creationist nonscience and will rake in nearly $4 million in public funding from the initial round of voucher designations.
Read about Bobby Jindal’s exorcism problem.Many of these schools, Kopplin notes, rely on Pensacola-based A Beka Book curriculum or Bob Jones University Press textbooks to teach their pupils Bible-based “facts,” such as the existence of Nessie the Loch Ness Monster and all sorts of pseudoscience…”
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/07/photos-evangelical-curricula-louisiana-tax-dollars
***************
The money’s funny and the accountability for failing schools is funny too, it seems to favor small religion-based schools:
“Louisiana sets rules for landmark school voucher program
By Stephanie Simon | Reuters – Mon, Jul 23, 2012
State money will continue to flow to scores of private and religious schools participating in Louisiana’s new voucher program even if their students fail basic reading and math tests, according to new guidelines released by the state on Monday.
The voucher program, the most sweeping in the nation, is the linchpin of Louisiana’s bold push to reshape public education. The state plans to shift tens of millions of dollars from public schools to pay not only private schools but also private businesses and private tutors to educate children across the state. …”
http://news.yahoo.com/louisiana-sets-rules-landmark-school-voucher-program-002512991.html
La. charter school changing pregnancy policyhttp://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/48580088/ns/today-today_health/?ocid=twitter
How insane is this when no tests are required prior to drilling when no man has drilled before:
(Hot Month). Obama personally made sure that the Drilling permits went through without an environmental impact statement.
The government can rape the Earth but young girls are castigated for getting pregnant.
Eerie.
BettyKath,
Guess I must put up warning tests: HERE FOLLOWS SARCASM, IRONY AND DIVERSE EXAGGERATIONS.
Not making fun of you nor anyone by saying this. I will go over to Warning tests hereafter. Thanks for making my mistaken assumption clear to me.
Your altenative is the “right” way to go, of course.
But in this world, which the current school example shows exists, my “suggestion” seems to be more likely of the two alternatives to become reality. Witness all other examples of integrity cranking in´our society.
Coming from a generation of the “pre-pill” era, I can not understand that there are involuntary pregnancies today. That of courxe excludes the group who wish to achieve that status for private reasons. We indulged, but avoided pregnancy.
PS I thought my last two sentences made my true position clear, in contrast to the drqconian “big brother” measures suggested at the beginning.
Please develop further your excellent viewpoints.
707, no, no, no to the blood tests. Have a really good sex education class that starts in middle school and includes good parenting by high school. That should reduce the number of accidental pregnancies.
If a girl gets pregnant, provide her with whatever support she needs to complete her education. Criminney, even when I was in high school back the middle ages when a girl was pregnant, it was a bit of a scandal, but she stayed in school. Boys should be encouraged to take responsibility but that’s the parents’ responsibility, not the school’s.
Forced pregnancy tests? Forced blood tests? Isn’t that a rather blatant invasion of privacy?
So i guess this is just the antithesis of being busted “for smilin’ on a cloudy day” (G. Dead):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/aug/08/olympics-spectator-parkinsons-arrest-smiling
Olympics spectator with Parkinson’s wants ‘exoneration’ after arrest
Mark Worsfold, 54, says he was handcuffed by Surrey police officers ‘for not smiling’ while watching men’s cycling road race