Thursday, February 28, 2008

Wrong Answer

I just heard this on the ABC Evening News and it made me yell at the television.

It seems that today at the Readington Middle School in Whitehouse Township, which is in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, a group of students paid for their lunch with pennies.

The principal then gave the students 2 days of detention.

Are you kidding me?

He/she said that it was demeaning to the cafeteria staff to have to count the pennies.

Well... first of all, someone buy that principal a sense of humor(preferably with pennies). Second of all, anyone who works with children ( I mean anyone who is good at it) knows one should never overreact. And thirdly, (and here's the biggie)who is going to alert the Federal Reserve and give them the news that pennies are "demeaning"?

Pennies are legal tender of The United States of America. Legal. So no, sorry bub, not demeaning. I guess that was the beauty of the prank (if that is what it was). Legal. United States of America. Children. Are you getting my point?

The only question you should be asking is "Did they count correctly?"

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

i am in the school and to get back kids are doing a boycott of the school food tomorrow. the school found out about the boycott and sent emails to parents about it, but there is no doubt in my mind that it will be a huge success.

Anonymous said...

dammmm right i'm in that school tooo
some students are even wearing Got Pennies? shirts. hehe

Anonymous said...

Yea I go to this school to. && trust me they did more than that. They made the kids give them their cellphone and then searched through it for text messages to see if they could find out who started it.

Anonymous said...

i am in the school too and legally, they have to accept the money because prank or no prank, money is money and it was wrong to give everyone detentions<

Anonymous said...

While seemingly it may appear as a harmless prank on the surface we need to understand the WHOLE story. When 30 or so (yes 30) children (6-8th graders) coordinate the penny paying prank at the same time and same place one can imagine the disruption and negative impact it can cause.

Cafeteria staff would have needed to count over 400 pennies for each student (this amounts to around 16000 pennies total) Yes a lot of pennies indeed!

All this while the children responsible laughed and enjoyed themselves during the spectacle. Meanwhile the vast majority of students just trying to pay for their lunch as normal has to wait in long lines, some fearing they would not even have time to eat because of this “particle joke” and limited time for their lunch period schedules.

Now if school administrators did not intervene and make it clear that this coordinated/disrespectful conduct was not appropriate, one can image the chaos that would have ensued and undoubtedly continued to other pranks and disruptions on an even larger scale possibly.

As a parent I (and I would image many others) would have been very disappointed at my child if they were a part of this wide scale action. This was clearly a disrespectful and intentionally planned prank. At this age group the children should clearly know better.

It should be our responsibility as parents to teach and enforce respectful attitudes towards others. I applauded the school administration for also enforcing these common values and imposing consequences to those that choose to be disrupting and disrespectful.

BTW: Children have no “legal right” to be rude and disrupting???

Anonymous said...

lmao! this was the funniest thing ever happened in our town and at RMS! I must say being one of the 8th graders in that prank was fucking fun as hell!

Anonymous said...

Dear Anonymous:

Of course children are disrupting - it's their job. And the rude offenders here seem to me to be the adults - taking cell phones!

Are you kidding me?

These children were brilliant. Unfortunately, there was no one working at the school who was as intelligent or quick-thinking as those students.(How about putting each "payment" in a baggie, labeling it with a name in case more $ was owed, sealing it, and counting it later.)

But, you completely missed the point. It is not disrespectful in and of itself to pay for anything with legal US currency. Now if the kids called the cafeteria workers names while they counted - THAT would be rude and disrespectful.

But most adults (and yes that includes educators) don't understand how to deal with middle school and high school age kids. Thinking outside the box is as important as anything else they will learn in school. So is good humor, patience, and loyalty.

It sounds like these are lessons the adults of Whitehouse Township need to learn.

And to the previous anonymous - You can still make your point with better language.

Just Me

Anonymous said...

hahahaha shitttt im in RMS and that was fucking halrious. Pennies are my neww favorite type of money. =]