Here’s the story.
In this years Karns High School yearbook, every Senior gets to say anything they like and it is approved and printed in the annual. A Senior (according to my sources, a female) wrote something like Mr. Davis I never liked you or something to that effect. It was published in the annual because of course, students do have free speech.
The yearbook are printed and began to be distributed and Mr. Davis catches the message. He gets very upset, has the yearbook staff take up the yearbook and apply a Sharpie marker to the offensive remark. Thus resulting in destruction of personal property. If this happened and I have no reason to believe that it didn’t, it should not have happened.
Now, every kid at Karns High School that purchased a yearbook has a mark in their book. Because the “adult” could not live with a difference of opinion from a student.
This is a photo of Mr. Davis and I a few years ago, when he was Principal at Cedar Bluff Middle and I served as a School Board Member. The photo can be found on my website, located, here.
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Mr. Hornback,
I believe the term should be “defaced personal property” or prehaps “vandalized personal property” not destruction of personal property. The year books weren’t destroyed, you can still read them (albit, not the offensive comment), handle them, trade them, write in them, mark in them and so on and all the stuff that higfh school kids normally do with them.
I’m not sure what I think about the actual comment and whether it should have been approved or not. However, once they were printed, I have to agree it might have been less trouble to simply let it slide rather than go all black magic marker crazy.
Have you read Catch-22? The part where Yossairin is recovering in the hospital and as an officer he’s assigned the duty of censoring the enlisted men’s mail? It’s pretty funny 🙂
This situation reminded me of that.
SteveMule
The actual term destruction may be as SteveMule has it defined. Brian’s Blog sticks by the idea of destruction as it was not a decision by the students,it was either taken from them and marked it up without their consent or it was marked up before they received it thus destructing their property.
Brian of Brian’s Blog is a parent of a high school student, He or the Brian’s Blog student had to purchase their high school yearbook in November 2005, thus it is HORNBACK property and for someone to take personal property and mark in the final product without the owners permission is wrong and just plain irresponsible.
If it were such an issue, Karns High School should have shipped them back and had them re-printed without the comment. Mr. Davis should have sent a note home explaining why the yearbooks were delayed. Because the parents and students did not purchase a yearbook with a sharpie mark.
This is a very disturbing thing. Even more disturbing is that knowing Mr Davis as I do, I am not surprised at all at this. He is well-known for his ham-fisted approach to most matters involving student behavior and discipline. He and my son had run-ins at both Cedar Bluff and Karns. I am very grateful that we no longer have to deal with the man.
The civil rights of school children are being abrogated all over the country. Just recently, a boy was suspended for organizing an anti-illegal immigration rally for after school hours. This is at a school that allowed hundreds of students to leave during the day to march in protest of stronger immigration laws.
The inmates are surely running the asylum …