<p>You missed that poster’s point, fogdog(post 30). I don’t think the benefit of a cheap lawyer would be to convince the school that the punishment(referring to Housing agreement) was illegal and therefore unenforceable. Most all would agee that by agreeing to such terms one is bound by the terms.
The point of a “cheap lawyer” would be to try his best to make it troublesome and costly for the school to collect the money; so troublesome that the school might waive their claim to the money. Paid Attorneys aren’t always there to help present the argument that their client is right. They are always there to argue for the fellow that hired them.
In the example of breaking a housing contract, it isn’t defending the student’s innocence, but rather a legal tactic to try to get out of a debt.</p>
<p>^ don’t like</p>
<p>As in any profession, there is a bad apple lawyer somewhere who will do what you suggest. Sadly, it’s those kind of lawyers that cause the rest to be the butt of jokes and worse.</p>
<p>More importantly, it IS an indirect attack on the consequences of violating the housing contract. Bearing the full consequences–especially when agreed to in advance–is what life is all about and how we all learn.</p>
<p>On a campus where I used to teach, the dorm fire alarms were very sensitive, aerosol sprays (deodorant, hairspray, etc.) and some cleaning products would set it off. It was an old dorm and a perpetual problem, although it usually happened in the morning as the girls were getting ready rather than in the middle of the night.</p>
<p>I agree with all the good advice. I had a fire alarm go off in a hotel I was staying at (fortunately with a group of colleagues). We stood in the hall for 10 mn discussing whether we should get out. Someone finally called downstairs and they told us to leave the building. Down 15 flights of stairs at 2 a.m. Apparently, it was a kitchen fire, but those have been known to spread rapidly. The fire dept. let us back in about 30 mn later.</p>
<p>You’re all missing the point of my “cheap lawyer” comment. What the OP did was certainly criminal - misdemeanor level - but still criminal. In order to be found guilty he will go through due process where-in he will be allowed counsel and allowed to present his case, regardless of how flimsy and then a judgment will be rendered.</p>
<p>The legalese is the SLO regulations allows for none of that. The OP can be present at the hearing. He can have a representative with him at the hearing but that representative is not allowed to speak. The regulations go on to specifically prohibit having an attorney there. And to top it all off, there is no record kept of the proceedings. So we have a closed door hearing where the “defendant” is up against the full weight of the university with no help allowed. At the end of it he can be thrown out of the dorm and told “you owe us money pal”, all with a convenient lack of public record that the university would have to defend. </p>
<p>There are reasonable consequences and excessive ones. The OP should be required to pay for the expense of any fire/safety response. The OP should be required to perform some sort of community service to make up for the disruption and stress he caused. To charge him for a year’s worth of room & board (probably >$15,000) without the opportunity to defend himself with legal help is ludicrous. He set off a fire alarm, he didn’t set the building on fire. If it were my kid I’d rip his head off for his stupidity; if the college kicked him out of the dorms over it and sent me a bill I promise you they wouldn’t be dealing with cheap lawyers. You don’t lose your legal rights just because you’re an idiot.</p>
<p>Actually that school policy is pretty typical of many colleges. Colleges set the policy for their campus community (and in this case for the residence halls) and they set up the consequences for breaking the rules. These are known in advance. If you want to attend or in this case, live in student housing, you agree that you understand the policy and the consequences. It is not a court of law. The college has every right to suspend housing privileges without refund. If you don’t like it, don’t go there. It doesn’t matter what the consequences may or may not be in a court of law. The college sets up their own policy and consequences which are all in view before you sign on the line to attend and abide by those codes of conduct. And in fact, if the kid ONLY gets a consequence from his school and is not reported to police, he gets off easy.</p>
<p>This happens, for instance, if you are found with pot in the dorm…you may get a warning, suspension or kicked out of housing (various consequences exist depending on the structure of the policy) and you don’t get a refund on the housing. They don’t necessarily report you to police though.</p>
<p>Respectfully, vinceh, I didn’t “miss” your point. I simply don’t agree with it and suggest it represents a misunderstanding of what “due process” is required in schools.</p>
<p>Something similar happened at Cal Poly last year. A student hung up some clothes on a sprinkler head. The weight triggered the sprinklers. Apparently, the sprinklers are fed by a reservoir on the roof of the dorm, and there was no way to turn them off; the reservoir had to drain completely. This led to the flooding of several of the apartment rooms and much damage to their contents. The students in the flooded rooms had to move out. I don’t know what the punishment was, if any, for the negligent student.</p>
<p>Total cost for room and board at Cal Poly is around $10,000/year.</p>
<p>And in this case, if the student in question was booted from dorms it wouldn’t be because he’s an idiot. They didn’t do a random i.q. test, and then boot him based on results. It isn’t that he’s dumb or that he’s immature as why he’d be booted(if he were booted). Even though one might argue his behavior was immature, immaturity isn’t contrary to housing policy.
If he is booted over this it is because his ACTIONS were dangerous and contrary to a college policy he agreed to. A person might lose their legal rights if they do idiotic things; or in this case, might lose housing rights if they break a housing contract, as this student has admitted doing.
In Ohio, in a general housing contract, if a tenant breaches a lease contract and is ordered to move, he is still responsible for the bills until a replacement is found.
I know this case is a college not a regular rental property, and it’s not Ohio, but I suspect housing rules are very similar in many states. maybe if I were kicked out of the college housing I might argue the college should try to mitigate its damages by offering my unit to others.</p>
<p>I think it would be difficult for even a skilled atty to successfully argue the student should not be hels liable for the consequences he agreed to.</p>
<p>“If you want to attend or in this case, live in student housing, you agree that you understand the policy and the consequences. It is not a court of law. The college has every right to suspend housing privileges without refund. If you don’t like it, don’t go there.”</p>
<p>cause a college education is a commercial product, and caveat emptor. Fine, but then dont go on about your community, dont ask for donations, etc, etc. </p>
<p>I am not speaking to the specific issue of fire alarms. Your comment reminded me of when I was in college. There were disputes over Univ disciplinary policy that when back to the ‘days of rage’ of 1969. This was over 8 years later, but there were still issues with student who had been expelled, the conditions for readmission, etc, etc. The undergraduate college had 3 joint student-admin-faculty committees - one was the committee on student rights and responsbilities (I think I remember the name rightly). The student bodies that were to elect reps, had boycotted the comm for years, based, IIRC, on a belief that procedures were not fair. Though IIRC the boycott began to fray by 1980 or so. At that time students, at least the more activist students, did not accept that the college was a selling them a retail product on a contractual basis. they took the universitys proclaimed status as a community seriously, and attempted to engage in democratic politics on that basis - including the right to challenge disciplinary procedures that violated the very norms the admin advocated in their “other” lives in politics and society. </p>
<p>Again, I am not defending anyone who endangered fire safety. I am just wondering about the shift in models of what an institution of higher education is. Who owns it, who runs it. Not that long ago student protests got the president of Gallaudet College dismissed, and to some extent (IIRC) alterered fundamentally Gallaudets view of its own mission. </p>
<p>I realize state universities are different - they are simply public property. Private for profit u’s are of course very close to a caveat emptor model. But private nonprofits univs in this country have historically NOT been like that - while nominally owned by a self perpetuating (or alumni selected) bd of trustees, such boards have recognized a need to answer to multiple constituencies, including Faculty Senates, and even, sometimes, to organized student opinion.</p>
<p>We had a problem in my hs because kids were pulling the fire alarm so often. The hs turned them off… for about 2 hours, until the fire dept heard about it. They eventually replaced them with alarms that spray dye on your hands when you pull them. If you pull them legitimately, you are a hero with dye on your hands to prove that you raised the alarm. If you pull them as a prank… The false alarms stopped immediately.</p>
<p>BBD…I’m all for students advocating to change policy!!! I’m not saying to accept everything and I’m all for trying to change policy (my older D was effective in getting a school policy changed at her high school and went through a two year process to achieve it and presented it to the School Board who adopted her new policy). But until you can effect change, you have to abide by school policy, such as a housing agreement which outlines policies for dorm living and consequences if one chooses to break those policies. I see nothing wrong with the general process in running a school. But I’m all for the school community effecting change in policies that need revision.</p>
<p>By the way, many colleges have student panels (from the college community) who sit for disciplinary hearings and so it isn’t always just those who run the college who enforce codes of conduct.</p>
<p>In case you don’t think fellow students get annoyed, check this clip from a recent FB page from a student at a top 20 school:</p>
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<p>I think the OP probably has read this before signing housing contract at SLO:</p>
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<p><a href=“http://stennerglen.com/Lease10-11.pdf[/url]”>诸城杜盎科技股份有限公司;
<p>^ Stenner Glen isn’t on-campus, university-owned housing. It’s a privately-owned apartment complex.</p>
<p>Here are the campus housing policies: </p>
<p>[University</a> Housing - Cal Poly](<a href=“http://www.housing.calpoly.edu/uh_policies.cfm]University”>http://www.housing.calpoly.edu/uh_policies.cfm)</p>
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<p>coolweather:
You may wish to refer to my post #27 where the appropriate links and excerpts were provided.</p>
<p>Thanks vballmom and soozievt. I found it.</p>
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<p><a href=“http://www.calpoly.edu/~housingservices/docs/pcv_apartment_guide.pdf[/url]”>http://www.calpoly.edu/~housingservices/docs/pcv_apartment_guide.pdf</a></p>
<p>The University regulation is similar to the one from Stenner Glenn. I wonder the OP has any chance to have a lesser penalty (I mean no criminal penalties).</p>
<p>I have no problem with any fire alarm puller being thrown out of the dorm and losing all that money that mom and dad paid for Room and Board that semester. What I object to as a parent is having to pay Room and Board on the NEXT semester’s bill that the university sends if it is no longer supplying a dorm residence and board for my kid. I think that was vinceh’s point.</p>
<p>OP: No matter what the penalty ends up being, it won’t be nearly as bad as it might have been. No one died as a result of your actions. Think about what the rest of your life would have been like if you’d had to carry that burden. Really really think about that. And be grateful.</p>
<p>As for how you should behave: Make no excuses whatsoever. Do not breathe a hint of self-justification. Take complete responsibility and apologize sincerely. And learn the lesson: Rules usually have a very good reason behind them, no matter how silly they may seem to you.</p>
<p>Follow up:
For those of you who gave great advice to this kid, here’s a post from early yesterday morning updating you on his latest move. Sounds like Cal Poly didn’t boot him out, but he definitely went into a tailspin. I’m a little sympathetic but obviously we’ve got some growing up to do here.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/uc-transfers/1042451-first-quarter-freshmen-cal-poly-slo-failing-transfer-cc-top-uc-needs-help.html#post1065982784[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/uc-transfers/1042451-first-quarter-freshmen-cal-poly-slo-failing-transfer-cc-top-uc-needs-help.html#post1065982784</a></p>
<p>Wow! You can get into Cal Poly with a 3.4 GPA!</p>