Seniors caught with pot will graduate
Five students cited for having residual amounts of marijuana in their cars after police conducted a search at Waupaca High School will not be allowed to attend commencement, but they will graduate. On May 3, Waupaca police officers, assisted by a canine, performed a sweep of vehicles at the high school parking lot. The search uncovered small amounts of marijuana and drug paraphernalia in the vehicles of six students. Five of those students are seniors, and one is a junior. "No students were expelled," District Administrator David Poeschl said. "The six students are finishing the year in the education assistance program." Poeschl said the seniors will not be allowed on campus, while the junior will have limited access for the rest of this year and next year. Poeschl said the school district entered voluntary agreements with the parents of the students involved rather than holding an expulsion hearing. "The voluntary agreement allows the school district to place conditions on their return, such as community service and drug and alcohol assessment," Poeschl said. "This benefits the students because it allows them to graduate. They also perform community service and get a drug and alcohol assessment so that they know what they’re dealing with." Poeschl said that students who are part of a voluntary agreement are required to continue their studies either through the education assistance program or through a virtual school. Many of them take classes at the high school, but they arrive after classes have started and leave early in order to limit their contact with other students. Poeschl said the Waupaca School District prefers to use the voluntary agreement rather than expulsion. "It’s the only way we can place conditions on their return to school. If they are expelled for a period of time, we can’t place conditions," Poeschl said. He noted that several students have been allowed to return early. "Some kids are very successful in turning their lives around and the principals have petitioned for their early return," Poeschl said. One of the exceptions to the district’s efforts to avoid expulsion involved the 16-year-old girl who brought a gun to school. She has been expelled, and her case is currently being adjudicated in juvenile court.
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29 Comments for "Seniors caught with pot will graduate"
We can all breath a sigh of relief...now that this residual marijuana crime scourge is over.
Still waiting for Poeschl to explain why school officials waited 15 hours to call the police about an armed student.
lastpercentile May 17, 2012 11:39 AM
independenthinker May 18, 2012 12:09 PM
I suspect at least a few of these students could have fought the citations and the school board's actions, if they had not been set-up a month before graduation. The board says, "take the deal, or get expelled". Some deal.
The lesson they learned is: as adults, their rights will be better protected, than they were as teenagers on school grounds.
And, when a wackjob shows up at their adult workplace, somebody will call the police right away - unless their workplace is a Waupaca school.
lastpercentile May 18, 2012 12:48 PM
I suggest you review the facts in the gun at school case. First, school is dismissed at 3:09. While waiting for the bus, the girl with the gun, Student A, opened her bag and showed the gun to student B. At some point later, student B told student C about the gun. Student C told his/her parent/guardian about this when he/she arrived home. At 3:48pm this parent/guardian called and spoke with the HS principal. The principal immediately contacted the Police School Liaison Officer. The PSLO went to the girl's home (where she lived with one parent) it was discovered she was spending the night in another town with the other parent. The parent at the residence showed a gun matching the description to the PSLO. The principal and PSLO then developed a plan to accost the girl the next morning as she entered the building, with one immobilizing her, and the other taking possession of any bags she had. The girl did not come to school the next morning, and later that day was taken into custody by the Waupaca PD. Just how much more proactive do you think the authorities in question could have been?
trh13 May 18, 2012 5:36 PM
[i] "According to Waupaca School District Administrator Dave Poeschl, a high school student notified administrators that the girl had brought a gun to school at about [b]3:30 p.m. Tuesday.[/b] She had already left the school by that time.
Police were contacted about the incident at approximately [b]6:18 a.m. Wednesday[/b], according to Waupaca Police Chief Tim Goke."[/i]
Your description of events does not agree with the facts reported above.
[quote]The PSLO went to the girl's home (where she lived with one parent) it was discovered she was spending the night in another town with the other parent.[/quote]
They don't have police in the other town?
[quote]The principal and PSLO then developed a plan to accost the girl the next morning as she entered the building, with one immobilizing her, and the other taking possession of any bags she had.[/quote]
(Assuming your information is correct) For "planning" to endanger the entire school, both the PSLO and the principal should be fired - immediately.
Poeschl and Goke need to get their facts straight, and both of them need to explain the delay in locking down the school.
lastpercentile May 18, 2012 6:58 PM
trh13 May 20, 2012 10:38 AM
So, it is becoming increasingly clear that the PSLO was notified that an unbalanced teenager had brought a handgun onto school grounds, and then the PSLO conducted his/her own investigation and acted alone - without notifying a superior at the police department until the next morning.
Apparently, the PSLO doesn't understand what "liaison" means. Because it doesn't mean "Independent Police Authority".
The PSLO should have locked down the campus at 3:49pm - regardless of any report of the gunman's departure.
[quote] And why should a police officer be fired for making plans to apprehend a suspect?[/quote]
Here's the plan, as I understand it:
1] Don't notify the Waupaca police dept about a gunman on the high school campus
2] Don't notify the police in the town where the gunman was spending the night
3] Wait for the gunman to return to the school
4] Don't notify students; allow them to roam around campus, while an armed suspect is arrested in their midst
5] Don't arrange for backup officers
6] Don't stop the gunman's vehicle, wait for the gunman to get to the most crowded choke point on campus - the front door
7] Enlist the help of (an idiot) civilian to apprehend a potentially armed and dangerous suspect
8] Confront, subdue, and arrest the potentially armed and dangerous suspect
9] Finally, call your PD supervisor and describe your ingenious approach to an ARMED STUDENT ON CAMPUS report
How I would have handled the ARMED STUDENT ON CAMPUS report? I would have activated the ARMED-STUDENT-ON-CAMPUS [i]PLAN[/i], which was probably written up at a cost of $10,000. This way, a more knowledgeable police supervisor would have taken over, and made better decisions about the welfare and safety of ALL of the students and staff - including the wackjob with a gun.
lastpercentile May 20, 2012 11:31 AM
The bottom line is that the student with the gun was apprehended, no one was hurt, and students and parents were made aware of the situation in less than 24 hours. Maybe in your fantasy world this is less than optimal, but real boats rock.
trh13 May 20, 2012 4:34 PM
What happened is that a city of Waupaca official accepted a very expensive "gift" from a contractor who holds a $500,000 contract with the city, and whose contract performance is overseen by this same city official.
The fact that she is 16 (or female) is irrelevant under the law.
Of course, why a 16 year old was appointed to such a position - is open for additional criticism. And her blatant violation of the city's ethics code only confirms it.
[quote]The bottom line is that the student with the gun was apprehended, no one was hurt, and students and parents were made aware of the situation in less than 24 hours.[/quote]
All of this is true only because THIS student didn't have the wherewithal to pull the trigger.
Replace this student with a more desperate, angrier, perhaps male student; and it ends with 14 dead students and 3 dead teachers, 22 wounded students, and a 10-hour standoff that ends with the suicide of the shooter.
...because nobody locked down the school at the first report of a gun on campus...because nobody involved an LE leader above the rank of "sworn hall monitor"...because nobody contacted the police where the would-be shooter was holed up for the night...because nobody warned students or parents that a potentially armed student was returning to the school in the morning...and because the hall monitor decided that the principal was all the help s/he needed to disarm a student - assuming the student would show up at the front door.
Do parents think this was handled properly? The armed student was allowed to remain free of custody, and the "plan" was to allow her to return to the school campus - to the front door, no less - where 1 officer and the principal would confront her as other students milled around, unaware?
What does the school's crisis response plan say? Was it followed? Does it exist?
lastpercentile May 20, 2012 7:54 PM
It's commonly used for used for heroin, but sometimes for Canibas, cocaine, ect...so I wouldn't say never.
independenthinker May 21, 2012 8:12 AM
Or, if you live in Wisconsin, large parts of the population behave as though Eisenhower is still president - so you might have heard somebody ask, "is he smoking dope?" much more recently.
But in the rest of the world, "dope" is heroin. Not commonly, but always.
In fact, if your kid is calling marijuana "dope" - you can be sure that s/he has never been within 50ft of weed.
So if you want your comments about marijuana to be taken seriously - don't refer to it as "dope". Oh, too late.
lastpercentile May 21, 2012 10:36 AM
sure looks like most of the world considers "dope" as one of the street terms for marijuana, or pot. Check out the following
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dope
www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dope
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dope
Of course there are multiple definitions for dope, and one happens to be
"A stupid person" :D
Dan
DanJohn May 21, 2012 11:53 AM
And, there is more to the world than a Google search. A (very) few of us have actually seen much of the world and can speak from experience.
lastpercentile May 21, 2012 12:21 PM
DanJohn May 21, 2012 1:25 PM
[quote] [b]others[/b] that have seen the world and can speak from experience[/quote]
I'm guessing you've been to Chicago once, and didn't like it.
lastpercentile May 21, 2012 2:18 PM