Student Discipline: Beussink V. Woodland R-IV School District

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The primary responsibility of student discipline falls on the school officials. Disciplining students helps with keeping order in the school, and the main reason for discipline is to keep the safety of entities of the school. However, discipline can be hard when the issues happen outside school grounds, especially for issues that occur through social media platforms, also known as off-campus speech. Off-campus speech is very tricky to deal with, and as school personnel, we need to make sure we do not take action based on students’ opinions until we know the facts and the law behind our actions.
In the scenario from above, I would suggest that the student has a right and is protected under the freedom of speech, especially if he uses his own …show more content…

Beussink v. Woodland R-IV School district was the first case to decide that students were protected under the freedom of speech when using online social media outside the school. This case is also often cited in other cases related to off-campus speech. In this case, the student used his home computer to post on his website about his principal and other teachers, using vulgar language. The principal found about the vulgar comments through another student. The principal decided to suspend the student for a total of 10 consecutive days, which resulted in the student’s grades dropping drastically, and also asked him to remove his page. The court ruled that since the student had done it from his home computer, and the speech had not caused any disruptions in the school, the student was in no violation. The court ordered the school to allowed the student to get his grades back to where they were prior to his suspension, and he was allowed to put his page back online. In the end, this case has been referred to in many other cases related to off-campus speech. The courts usually state that if a student is not causing any harm or disruptions, they are allowed to express their opinions. This would be different if the speech has threats made against other people or

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