<p>How does everyone think about this school?</p>
<p>A good school among the GLADCHEMMS. Just found out they shut down facebook on campus. Not sure how I feel about that. FB is how I keep in touch w/friends from abroad.</p>
<p>I love Choate! Its one of my favorites!</p>
<p>Is facebook always blocked? or only during study hall and after lights out? I heard andover is very free. You can dress however you want, no study hall, and best of all no lights out. Choate has a complicated dress code, like colar shirts and no jeans.</p>
<p>Choate does have a dress code that is a little complicated, especially for the boys. Recently added a no hoodie policy. However, dress code is still a lot more relaxed than some schools - like Deerfield. Not sure how it compares to Andover.</p>
<p>Yes, Choate has recently banned facebook after an incident involving approx. 1/2 dozen girls. My understanding, based on third hand information is that they were using facebook to make snarky comments about other classmates, particularly a couple of other girls. They were doing this privately, but someone managed to break into one of their accounts, downloaded these exchanges, copied them and e-mailed them to a bunch of students. Created a mini-scandal.</p>
<p>Yes, Choate FB is banned at all times forever. I heard St. Paul`s NH has a lot of freedom.</p>
<p>We were told at Parents Weekend that Facebook will be back at some point soon this year, but probably not during evening study hours. One reason is that international parents communicate with their children this way. The students at a panel discussion all agreed that they were getting much more work done now that they don’t feel the need to check Facebook in between paragraphs. Also, according to my student who saw the thing, the most scandalous things the girls wrote were about themselves! If the students learn that “everything on the internet is public and permanent” they will have a lifetime lesson from this incident.</p>
<p>Who was disciplined, the person who broke into the accounts and then emailed them, or the girls who were having the private correspondence?</p>
<p>This is troubling.</p>
<p>There are mean, nasty people in the world. But the real bully here is the person who emailed a potentially very hurtful conversation that a group of people thought was private. Whether the girls were being horrid or not is not really the point. Someone gained unauthorized access to an account and forwarded hurtful information. Isn’t this illegal??? </p>
<p>BTW: I think a school is completely within its boundaries to discipline students for being horrible people and a negative influence on their community.</p>
<p>Neatoburrito- according to the newspapers, the school has hired an internet crime agency to find the hacker. The girls, as I understand it, were expelled or suspended for breaking the computer use agreement and the honor code, both of which have a lot of language about “respect for others.” The disciplinary process seemed to take a long time, but apparently was very thoughtfully investigated and carried out. In general, I think that the students are anxious to put this behind them. This must have been a small subset of girls because my kids did not even know them.</p>
<p>I was just told this week by faculty that FB will not be back this yr. Baystate, I hope you`re right.:D</p>
<p>Maddog- I’m just reporting what the Form Deans said at Parents Weekend at two different forums. They would not commit to any time frame though. I thought they were pretty open and honest with the parents about the whole issue.</p>
<p>I thought that their actions would fall under honor code or acceptable use violations. I’m glad Choate is enforcing it.</p>
<p>I think that Chaote has erred here. It has ban Facebook because someone used it to spread insults and slanders. Well, Facebook is not the problem; the students who generated and/or shared the slander are the problems. </p>
<p>There seems to be something in the American (New England?) mind that thinks if we ban an object used to destroy, we ban the destuction. (“If we could just get rid of guns, we wouldn’t have murders.” “If we just prohibit alcohol, we won’t have drinking.”) Too bad life is not so simple. </p>
<p>By banning Facebook, Choate has not rid itself of “cyberbullying”. Bullying, cyber or otherwise, will be with us forever. Try to help, correct and/or punish the bully; do not banish the object used for bullying. Such prohibtions just make those in authority look silly, if not stupid or worse.</p>
<p>It seems like a knee jerk reaction to ban FB.</p>
<p>Another Choate parent here. Didn’t attend forum on this during parents weekend, so my info. is from my kid. </p>
<p>At this point Choate doesn’t know who was responsible for hacking into private facebook accounts. One rumor floating around is that the hacker is not even a current Choate student. But that is just a rumor, since they still don’t know who did it.</p>
<p>I think either one or two girls were expelled, based on the content of their posts. The remaining girls - I think there were approx. 6-7 in all, were suspended.</p>
<p>There seems to be some feeling, at least among my son and his friends, that the dividing line between suspension and expulsion was somewhat arbitrary and subjective.</p>
<p>If there is any good that’s come out of this, it is that the school has been trying to make this a learning experience for the students, both about the seriousness of bullying and the dangers of social networking. It has also caused them to think about the role social networking sites play in the world of its students and the amount of unproductive time (at least from the school’s perspective) that some students devote to Facebook.</p>
<p>BTW - I agree with Baystater that the actual content of these posts was, for the most part, seems to have been pretty mild and consisted of the kind of snarky comments that are not exactly unheard of among teenage girls.</p>
<p>When a BS “suspends” a student rather than “expels” them, I always thought they were giving the student the opportunity to withdraw so the offense would not appear on their record. My understanding was that 2 of the girls were the “ringleaders” and made the most offensive comments, and so they were expelled. The remaining students were “suspended” beacuse their conduct didn’t rise to the level of expulsion. Clearly, it would be very difficult for these girls to re-establish themselves in the Choate community. They are also Seniors, so after being suspended for the “remainder of the term”, what would the point be of coming back?? Anyone in your class who might be willing to “forgive and forget” would be graduating in a few months anyway.</p>
<p>I don’t understand how the girls were being bulllies. My understanding is that it was a clique of girls being catty about some other girls, but only among themselves. Were they harrassing these girls they were talking about in any way? Were they making public accusations or slandering them? I honestly don’t understand what is and is not bullying today.</p>
<p>Well, obviously we don’t know all of the facts of the case. As a parent, I’m satisfied with the thoughtful way that the school handled the part that we know about. We have no idea what the prior records or subsequent actions were on the part of the girls who were disciplined. These are all great schools. It seems unfair to speculate on personnel matters or discipline cases at the schools unless we have all of the facts in front of us- which we never will, because of confidentiality regulations.</p>
<p>Although it has “made the rounds”, I never saw the “print out” of the FB pages. I did hear from a reliable source that it was pretty “vicious stuff”. I also understand that the demeanor of some of these girls towards others on campus was not all that different. A student wrote in the “reply section” under an article about this incident in a CT. paper, that if he had not know the names of the 6 girls, he could have easily guessed the name of every single one of them after learning of the specific offense. I think that speaks volumes.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with the girls being disciplined for being what I consider toxic behaviour. There just isn’t room for that sort of thing in any community.</p>
<p>I just don’t have a firm grasp of what bullying is anymore. Actually, I don’t think anyone really does anymore. It’s almost as if being offensive and being a bully is the same. I just don’t know. I always thought there was a difference, but maybe I’m wrong.</p>