Cybercivility email from Joshua Starr

[Anonymous]

What I find offputting is that cyberbullying among students doesn't seem to have gotten Starr's attention, but when criticism is directed at him he suddenly makes it a priority for all parents and students. It just reinforces my sense that he wants to be treated like Dear Leader and surrounds himself with sycophants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I find offputting is that cyberbullying among students doesn't seem to have gotten Starr's attention, but when criticism is directed at him he suddenly makes it a priority for all parents and students. It just reinforces my sense that he wants to be treated like Dear Leader and surrounds himself with sycophants.

This is a good point. If a student gets threatened online will the school track them down? I am not sure. In some ways schools are very aggressive about pop tarts turning into guns and twittering the superintendent, but what happens when it is bigger kids and not directed at MCPS employees?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

don't you mean . . .
Here comes another DCUM parent. Anything good the students do is about hardworking parents. Any problems or issues is all about those awful teachers and administrators that just don't get it.



My kid, btw, is not a snowflake. I don't fool myself into thinking my kid is perfect. But you, on the other hand, want to blame your absent parenting on the schools.

Go one with your bad self, PP! I can't wait to see how you'll be handling your 30 yo child who can't seem to hold down a job b/c he's always being picked on by his boss.

[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.

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.

Agree.

Dealing with bullying is all about focusing on the victim as a victim only. There is no "he should have known," which puts some responsibility on the victim. In cases of true bullying, the bully is the offender and there is no excuse. Their behavior is NEVER acceptable under any circumstance, and the victim has no responsibility for it.

In this instance, with Starr being cyberbullied, the email should be all about him. Maybe he should have addressed the issue sooner, but he did nothing to deserve those tweets.

[Anonymous]

My niece and nephew are recent HS graduates--their twitter and Facebook feeds are awash with kids calling each other "nigga" (or "nikka" or "niqqa" or... any other form you can think of). Most of the kids are white or Hispanic, not black. Makes me sad, and it's still inappropriate and offensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Now they call it "affluenza syndrome".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I find offputting is that cyberbullying among students doesn't seem to have gotten Starr's attention, but when criticism is directed at him he suddenly makes it a priority for all parents and students. It just reinforces my sense that he wants to be treated like Dear Leader and surrounds himself with sycophants.

I think his point is that if students are willing to tweet this crap to someone who is clearly an authority figure, what other crap must they be tweeting when no authority figure is looking?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1

I don't care what you think of him or his policies. It is not okay for your kid to be tweeting threats towards him and/or his family. Ever.

[Anonymous]

I thought Starr's letter was well-written and I agree with him 100%. And from a friend's experience, I can say that at least some schools do monitor the online postings of students if they have been involved in bullying others at school, and notify parents if their child is threatened online.

[Anonymous]

Don't you guys think as a parent you are responsible for monitoring what your kid does on social media?

[Anonymous]

He got trolled

[Anonymous]

I haven't heard anyone on this thread defend students who send inappropriate texts. Everyone agrees that kids should not do this.

The problem many posters have with this message is that he focused on himself when there is a much larger cyber bullying problem within MCPS. He doesn't take the time to do anything about this. He doesn't take the time to inform parents about the sex offenders that were caught in MCPS. Its just a continued pattern of constantly being focused on promoting himself and not doing work to actually run MCPS.

Its also bothersome that his PR team spends time posting stuff on this board and giving themselves fake posts in praise. Their time could be much better spent.

[Anonymous]

Paranoid much PP? He wrote an email responding to a specific incident - if you are aware of some other large-scale twitter threat-fest against a student or teacher, please publicize it. Or please enlighten us all about whatever cyberbullying issue that Starr has swept under the rug.

Otherwise you're just annoyed that a random county government bureaucrat whom you apparently dislike is getting a few (mild) words of support on anonymous website. What a sad individual you must be. And no, I don't work for MCPS, and I suspect none of the other PPs do either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven't heard anyone on this thread defend students who send inappropriate texts. Everyone agrees that kids should not do this.

The problem many posters have with this message is that he focused on himself when there is a much larger cyber bullying problem within MCPS. He doesn't take the time to do anything about this. He doesn't take the time to inform parents about the sex offenders that were caught in MCPS. Its just a continued pattern of constantly being focused on promoting himself and not doing work to actually run MCPS.

Its also bothersome that his PR team spends time posting stuff on this board and giving themselves fake posts in praise. Their time could be much better spent.

Disdainful of Dr. Starr? Check.

MCPS PR staff posting on this board conspiracy theory? Check.

Nasty tone? Nope.

Why Janis, you've toned it down. Sorry hon, we can still see you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven't heard anyone on this thread defend students who send inappropriate texts. Everyone agrees that kids should not do this.

The problem many posters have with this message is that he focused on himself when there is a much larger cyber bullying problem within MCPS. He doesn't take the time to do anything about this. He doesn't take the time to inform parents about the sex offenders that were caught in MCPS. Its just a continued pattern of constantly being focused on promoting himself and not doing work to actually run MCPS.

Its also bothersome that his PR team spends time posting stuff on this board and giving themselves fake posts in praise. Their time could be much better spent.

Listen, enabling parent

I've said this before, and I'll say it again - but in a different way: WHO'S the parent?

Q: Do you think the school system creates bullies?
A: No, we just enroll them and THEN have to transform them into decent human beings. And we're not always successful b/c once the kid leaves for the day, it's back to the same old dysfunctional family interactions.

Q: Is the school system the ONLY venue where molesters can take advantage of kids?
A: No, the Catholic church comes to mind, as do other religious institutions. And let's not forget the Boy Scouts, an organization that also preaches that gays are bad, bad people! (But that's another story.) Let's see. There's foster care, too. and group homes . . . I could go on and on.

Either you take control of your children AND PARENT - or accept the possibility that your children could find themselves in some trouble.

I am so disgusted by how lazy some of you are. God help you, as these are the kids who will be taking care of you when you crap yourselves in your adult diapers.

lazy
lazy
lazy