[Jack.Kerr]

Here are some additional facts.

To the extent that this is accurately reported, I don't feel any sympathy at all toward the student, nor do I think the accommodation is reasonable or appropriate.

I do feel sympathy toward the teachers, whose authority and ability to manage a classroom gets undermined by irresponsible, spineless, nutless administrators more concerned with keeping self-entitled parents off their own backs than with the undertaking of effecitvely educating children.

Student broke phone policy
Posted on: Thursday, April 17, 2008, 2:13 AM
By Jon Schroeder
Killeen Daily Herald

Sophomore Brandon Hill, suspended for taking a call from Iraq, is back in classes at Copperas Cove High School.

On April 3, he received a two-day, out-of school suspension after he received a call on his cell phone from his father, a soldier serving in Iraq. But Brandon had already received a three-day, in-school suspension earlier that day after replying to a text message sent by a friend, his mother said.

The same day, Brandon's mother, Patricia Hill, sent an instant message to her husband, Master Sgt. Morris Hill of the Operational Test Command, stationed in Iraq, saying that his son needed to talk to him. Morris Hill called his son, ultimately resulting in Brandon's second suspension of the day when he took the call in class.

When Patricia Hill came to the school to pick up her son, she asked to see Assistant Principal Richard Fletcher, whom she said had met with her husband before his deployment and had agreed to allow the soldier's phone calls. When Fletcher wasn't available, she called the school district superintendent's office, then the military children's advocate on Fort Hood, who directed her to CCHS Principal Dr. Carol Saxenian.

Then, after hearing that Saxenian would get back to her, the same day of the offense, Patricia Hill called KXXV Channel 25, which reported the second suspension April 4. Information about the first suspension Brandon received was not included either in media reports or in a press release put out Monday by the Copperas Cove Independent School District. Citing confidentiality laws, school administrators said they cannot talk about specific incidents.

Saxenian met with Patricia Hill on Friday, after the suspensions were served, and sent e-mail messages to Brandon's and his brother's teachers directing their teachers to allow future calls. No formal complaint was filed.

In a Fox News broadcast, Patricia Hill thanked Saxenian for resolving the matter, but in an interview on Tuesday, she said she's still hoping for the incident to be expunged from Brandon's student records, which school administrators assured her will happen at the beginning of the next school year.

Patricia Hill said she is now trying to get similar policies changed. She's already tried to contact political figures to spread her message.

"If anyone in this country can give me a guarantee that my husband will be here tomorrow, later on today or a week from now, I will make sure my husband never contacts our children at school again."