Teens Closing Schools

Saturday night Jane had a big sleep over in the Hotel Intercontinental (fancy place). One of her classmates is having her 13th birthday party Saturday and her mom is renting several suites at the hotel. The kids will see the Krewe of Barkus Sunday in the French Quarter near the hotel. It is the all dog parade. The dogs are dressed in costumes and ride floats. they even toss Mardi Gras throws to the spectators. Haha Even I am not nutty enough to dress a dog for a parade. Some good news for Jane. When we had our annual eye exam and glasses appointment last week. The ophthalmologist said that Jane's eyes are now strong enough that she no longer needs to wear glasses. Not wearing glasses is good news, given the braces and acne problems Jane has now, It is hard for a 13 year old to deal with those cosmetic issues all at once.
Teenagers here are getting naughtily savvy about using the Internet to shut down their schools. In what may be a growing trend, some kids who just don't feel like going to school are posting messages on the Internet that their school is closed or that some incident of violence will happen the next day. Haha It sure is a technological advancement to the old way of telephoning a bomb threat for the school the day of the big test. No bomb....no test...a victory for the test impaired kid who called in the phony threat.
Two recent examples of this teen induced school closing are typical of what could be a problem for the schools. the first was a local one, at nearby Covington High School (about 30 minutes from my home). Last friday some kids decided they would rather sleep late than go into school. So they posted a notice of a big fight that was to happen at Covington High on Friday. The result? Only one half of the kids showed up for school (not good because if a student misses more than 10 days without a doctor's note he or she will fail for the year and repeat the grade) when the kids informed their parents of the "trouble" that would happen to them if they attended that day.
Police checked the rumors and found them baseless. Covington High is a good school with little fighting among the students (Ok....some see to want to fight their way out of attending class). But text messages and E mails between students ands the school ignited the rumors and left parents fearful of sending their kids to school.
The second example, which also happened Friday, is more devious, even criminal. It took place in Trenton, Ohio. Two teenage girls posted a fake announcement on their school district's web site that said the school was closed because of cold weather and possible heavy snowfall.
There was no hacking into the web site (somehow they just obtained the password from somewhere), no snow, and no knowledge by the district Superintendent of that announcement until he read it while posting a genuine notice to parents. But the web site (the official source of school info for parents to read) posting confused a number of parents and persuaded the to keep their kids home Friday. But the two girls (ages 16 and 17) who posted the info were caught by police after tracking down ID numbers form the computers that accessed the system the day the message was posted. It led ot the homes of the girls and to their arrest for juvenile delinquency and records tampering.
Yep...you probably guessed it. Also as "punishment" the girls also face what they wanted all along- expulsion from school. Well, given their devious natures and success at deception I suppose the two ladies will soon have a career in politics.