| Society members respond to arena (2/08) | | Print | |
| Written by Cynthia Chau | |
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The administration is requiring members of the Shield and Scroll honor society to complete extra service requirements as punishment for allegedly abusing the school’s self-scheduling system.
Some members allegedly used their inside advantage during arena to assist friends as well as themselves. According to assistant principal Mary Streshly, some members violated the rules by stacking friends’ green sheets on top, while others called friends to tell them what classes were left and still others signed friends up for classes before their rotation. Streshly sourced these allegations to student and teacher witnesses. Although several members disagreed with the administration’s decision to punish all members for infractions only some committed, Shield and Scroll vice president senior Belle Yan said members should endure the consequences together. “As a society, we are treated as a collective unit; we also should act as such,” she said. “This action taken on us by the administration will remind future generations of Shield and Scroll members the honesty and integrity that is required to operate self-scheduling.” However, Yan maintained that “very few of the allegations have truth to them. There are many allegations that now have been rebutted by not only the students themselves, but also, potentially, eyewitnesses and character witnesses,” she said. “Most of the allegations also had no evidence to back them up in the first place. Most members who allegedly did something wrong were not informed that they did something wrong.” Another Shield and Scroll member who asked to remain anonymous said that the problem in arena was due to a lack of training. “We violated rules that weren’t told to us,” she said. “The problem was that we were provided with such minimal training that we didn’t know what rules we violated.” Speaking for the administration, Streshly said she regretted “the lack of training,” but still maintained that the violations diminished the integrity of the society. “We, the administration, take complete responsibility for any information they did not know,” she said. “However, it does not negate the fact that members did take advantage of the freedoms they had within the roles they were given.” Streshly also said members were guilty of “carelessness” and disrespect. “A couple of department chairs had to speak to the kids,” she said. “What concerned me was that I didn’t see as much conscientiousness as I would’ve liked.” Another Shield and Scroll member who asked to remain anonymous agreed with the administration in this respect. “We violated some rules due to mistakes and carelessness,” he said. “We were supposed to double check everything but we didn’t.” Former Shield and Scroll advisor and social studies teacher Jim Spellicy said the problems at this year’s arena reveal that the system needs improvement. “A series of unfortunate events made it clear that the system is flawed,” he said. “Too many opportunities exist for students to ‘beat the system.’” Spellicy said that supervision of Shield and Scroll members should be stricter. “I do feel that teachers and staff should be both signing in students as well as inputting information,” he said. “There are no excuses for what happened.” Another member who asked to remain anonymous said that the members “were short-staffed and uninformed.” Another member who asked to remain anonymous saw the mistakes as unfortunate misunderstandings. Every member “tries to make (self scheduling) the most efficient as possible while maintaining our integrity,” the member said. “As we took those actions, we may have crossed the administration the wrong way. We want to get all the students out faster; we want all students to get all the classes they want and we tried to do that as well as we efficiently, ethically, humanly could.” Initially, members were required to double the number of required service mods to 60, but as a result of a compromise between the Shield and Scroll executive counsel and the administration, the punishment was later reduced to 15 tutoring mods instead, according to a member who asked to remain anonymous. Members cannot use the extra tutoring hours to fulfill requirements for the California Scholarship Federation tutoring program. |
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