Cybercivility email from Joshua Starr

[Anonymous]

Is it racist to call a white guy nigga if you are black?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I am American, and I wonder the same thing. Why assume it was racially offensive. It's disrespectful to address adults as Dawg (or Nigga), but it's not racially offensive.

It's not racially offensive? Really? Really?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apparently, yes. I am surprised as well. Kudos to Starr for calling them out.

+1000

+1

I can't believe that kids would directly send tweets threatening his family?? That is insane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would have taken it a step further and made sure that I tried to contact each parent individually, that sent out one of those tweets.

I'm not sure how much some parents would even care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apparently, yes. I am surprised as well. Kudos to Starr for calling them out.

+1000

+1

I can't believe that kids would directly send tweets threatening his family?? That is insane.

They know not a damned thing will be done so why not. Wait until a real decision has to be made. There will be an avalanche of tweets directed to Starr. He is not even the person who makes the decision.

[Anonymous]

Huge mistake not to anticipate this BEFORE willingly putting himself out there. Now we sound the alarm and start a task force. How about he start with ensuring that digital civility extends beyond protecting the royal office. Many students have been victimized by cyber bullying. The letter focused on him, not about the larger issue at hand, and the cyber bullying that continues on a daily basis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Huge mistake not to anticipate this BEFORE willingly putting himself out there. Now we sound the alarm and start a task force. How about he start with ensuring that digital civility extends beyond protecting the royal office. Many students have been victimized by cyber bullying. The letter focused on him, not about the larger issue at hand, and the cyber bullying that continues on a daily basis.

Stop playing the victim, hon.

The school system does indeed address it in the best way possible - especially at the high school level. But it starts in elementary school.

However, it's YOUR job as a parent to do the bulk of the work. So if your little Suzie Q is on her cell or online for hours and you're not vigilant, is it the system's fault if she's bullied?

I can't believe how so many of you refuse to be parents. Is it just TOO hard for you to handle? so hard, in fact, that you expect US to do it for you?

Signed,
a parent (first) and teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Huge mistake not to anticipate this BEFORE willingly putting himself out there. Now we sound the alarm and start a task force. How about he start with ensuring that digital civility extends beyond protecting the royal office. Many students have been victimized by cyber bullying. The letter focused on him, not about the larger issue at hand, and the cyber bullying that continues on a daily basis.

That is ridiculous. I'm not a big fan of Starr by any means, but you seem to be saying that he put himself out there and so deserved these threats?

No. There is NO EXCUSE for a bunch of high school kids threatening anyone's family. He has three kids. That is out of line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Huge mistake not to anticipate this BEFORE willingly putting himself out there. Now we sound the alarm and start a task force. How about he start with ensuring that digital civility extends beyond protecting the royal office. Many students have been victimized by cyber bullying. The letter focused on him, not about the larger issue at hand, and the cyber bullying that continues on a daily basis.

Stop playing the victim, hon.

The school system does indeed address it in the best way possible - especially at the high school level. But it starts in elementary school.

However, it's YOUR job as a parent to do the bulk of the work. So if your little Suzie Q is on her cell or online for hours and you're not vigilant, is it the system's fault if she's bullied?

I can't believe how so many of you refuse to be parents. Is it just TOO hard for you to handle? so hard, in fact, that you expect US to do it for you?

Signed,
a parent (first) and teacher

Those types of parents will never get it; too busy having a finger-pointing response from "snowflake syndrome."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Huge mistake not to anticipate this BEFORE willingly putting himself out there. Now we sound the alarm and start a task force. How about he start with ensuring that digital civility extends beyond protecting the royal office. Many students have been victimized by cyber bullying. The letter focused on him, not about the larger issue at hand, and the cyber bullying that continues on a daily basis.

Stop playing the victim, hon.

The school system does indeed address it in the best way possible - especially at the high school level. But it starts in elementary school.

However, it's YOUR job as a parent to do the bulk of the work. So if your little Suzie Q is on her cell or online for hours and you're not vigilant, is it the system's fault if she's bullied?

I can't believe how so many of you refuse to be parents. Is it just TOO hard for you to handle? so hard, in fact, that you expect US to do it for you?

Signed,
a parent (first) and teacher

Those types of parents will never get it; too busy having a finger-pointing response from "snowflake syndrome."

Here come the MCPS snowflake posters. Anything good the students do is all about hardworking teachers and administrators. Any problem or issue is all about those awful parents that just don't get it.

[Anonymous]

I think parents need to teach their children better. Kids should know that social media does not make them anonymous and they cannot get away with this sort of behavior.

I agree Starr wrote a great email. I don't agree with many of his policies but he was spot on on how he handled this.

NOW - CAN SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN THIS TO ME -

Is it racist to call a white guy nigga if you are black?

How are young black students using the term "nigga"?

Enlighten me. I am neither black, American, related to Starr or working for MCPS.

[Anonymous]

I think it's a great email, but I'm not surprised that this thread - as with every thread with even the most tangential relationship to MoCo schools - produces some Starr hate. I don't understand it at all, and one of my kids is in grade 4 at an MCPS school now, which means I've seen (and heard) all the issues with Curriculum 2.0 from the get go. Maybe some of the 2.0/MCPS/Starr haters here should use this as an opportunity to step back and consider a bit more cybercivility themselves.

Either way, though, I hope that the parents of the kids who were tweeting this nonsense get their hands on their kids' phones & computers. Kids have to understand that this stuff will follow them, especially at the early points in their career. I'm hiring an assistant now, and most of the resumes are kids pretty fresh out of undergrad or grad school. I've searched every one of the finalists on Twitter and other social media. And knocked off a few names because of stupid things they blogged or tweeted.

[Anonymous]

Not a fan of Starr, but I hope as parents we can all agree that threats etc are totally not ok. I trust his response if it addresses posts he was the target of. He's got a tough job. He makes not perfect decisions, but at the end of the day we're all just people and parents and regular folks who want to feel safe.

[Anonymous]

NBC Washington reported this incident. They said nearly all the students who sent inappropriate tweets to Starr were identified and the principals are talking to them. I hope these kids (and their parents) learned a hard lesson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not a fan of Starr, but I hope as parents we can all agree that threats etc are totally not ok. I trust his response if it addresses posts he was the target of. He's got a tough job. He makes not perfect decisions, but at the end of the day we're all just people and parents and regular folks who want to feel safe.

Agree. He has three young kids. Completely disrespectful and out of line.