Students in Edwardsville, Illinois have been expelled for participating in an on-campus brawl
A dozen students in Edwardsville, Illinois have been expelled from school for participating in an on-campus brawl over who got invited to a party, a fight school officials said was arranged on the social-networking hub MySpace.com. The school board voted unanimously to expel the Edwardsville High School students through the end of the school year. Superintendent Ed Hightower says three are seniors who are also barred from graduation ceremonies in the spring. No one was seriously injured in the fight involving 11 girls and one boy. Two groups had been squabbling for a month about who had been invited to the party, and administrators had been working with them and their parents to avoid a conflict, according to the superintendent. Seven students agreed in writing earlier in the month to stop "disrespecting" each other, keep to themselves, and report problems to adults. They were told they faced police involvement or "exclusion" if they broke the pact. However, two days later they posted MySpace messages finalizing plans to fight the next day. "There were numerous interventions, numerous opportunities for these students to resolve their differences, but they chose to fight instead," says Mr. Hightower. While MySpace employees search for ways to eliminate their site being used for such purposes, MySpace's chief security officer, Hemanshu Nigam, points out that the web provider is distributing a guide for school administrators and "letting them know that anything that can happen on a school playground also can happen online."
Salt Lake Tribune
By Jim Suhr (Associated Press)
[Full story]
[Editor’s Note: Information on other school issues involving social networking is available starting with the link below to the item in last week’s Legal Clips. The Official School Administrator’s Guide to understanding MySpace and resolving Social Networking Issues has been disseminated to 55,000 principals and 15,000 superintendents and is available to school administrators from MySpace.com or to COSA members at the link below. Members are asked to respect NSBA’s understanding with MySpace that the guide will be made available only to school administrators and school attorneys.]
[NSBA School Law pages on MySpace legal issues]
[MySpace administrator’s guide]