by INFORUM
Deacon debater deemed truant
March 31, 2011 at 7:00 pm in INFORUM
Transfers over lost argument
FARGO A top debater at Fargo’s Shanley High School has transferred to Fargo South High School because of the private Catholic school’s disciplinary action against him earlier this year for missing classes to prepare for an upcoming debate. Continue Reading
Yet another PRIVATE matter that needs not be debated.
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We will gladly take a smart, dedicated young man to represent Fargo South…even if you miss a day or two of school here and there.
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That’s what Shanley said when his mother pulled him out of Central Cass a few years ago for a VERY similar issue (conflict with adminstration).
That’s right. The same thing happened a few years ago in Casselton. Does that change anyone’s opinion?
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Is it just me or are the Catholics in the news for some really wacky things lately?
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How is holding someone accountable based off school policy wacky? But yes, the Fargo diocese has issues. Don’t worry, a lot of Catholics are upset to.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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I am not saying he shouldn’t be held accountable. He obviously has the mental capacity to understand there are consequences to actions. The part that bothers me is that the principal said that if the mom had just lied, they wouldn’t be in this boat. Are you kidding me? In my school, the farmers would get excused for the Big Iron Show. The hunters would get excused for opening day. No lies needed. The parents gave the excuses, and that was the end of it. I just can’t stand the idea that lying is encouraged for such a promising young kid. What is that teaching him?
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Definitely Shanley’s loss. So this is how they reward excellence and dedication? SHAME ON THEM. Rules are made to be applied judiciously, not with complete blindness to context! I wish this story would go national.
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I have been in that school, seen the plaques showing the MULTI million dollar contributions from people. I wonder how they feel when they lose the best and brightest to stupid administrative decisions like this one. I commend the young man for his dedication, but do wonder how his former partner feels about losing HIS chance at the big competition? Will he be able to go on, or is he finished too?
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That’s just it. Had this family been in the MULTI-Million club the outcome would have been different. I can about guarantee it.
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Or if the kid wasn’t bullying other students it would have been different.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Sounds like mommy is the problem.
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BINGO!
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Shanley school is simply wrong on this. We have seen athletes given consideration for practice for years. When it now comes to a non athletic extra curricular there is no consideration. Be aware Shanley students while the school pretends to hold high achievers up and support those efforts it seems that when it comes to supporting those efforts it truth they do not.
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no, you’re simply wrong on this. shanley has never excused students from the NEXT DAY OF CLASS because they were “tired from the big game the night before.” Athletes are not given that consideration; no student is.
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Actually, I saw a student excused to go prom dress shopping. The only difference is this girl’s parents lied as to the reason for her being gone (yet all the students and staff knew why she was gone).
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Sure they are, they just lie and say something different. That’s approved policy as far as the administration is concerned.
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My son was on the Debate team as well and he missed more school for debate travel than he did for Football. He did however attend school each day that he was supposed to which is something this kid did not do. Debate team is afforded every opportunity that the football team is afforded and students in both arenas are punised for disobeying the rules the same. His mother should be ashamed of herself for allowing him to disregard the rules like she did.
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Agreed. And mom has done much more than this one incident.
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What a childish thing to do.
The kid skipped class because he stayed up too late and got called on it. He should have taken his hit and moved on. (I can’t imagine that Fargo Public School’s truancy rules or enforcement are any different.)
The real world is going to eat this kid for breakfast. Luckily he has a brain so he may not have to live there.
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They are getting lawyers involved now?
This family has seriously misguided priorities in life.
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We have been on the fence for quite some time now about whether or not to send our kids to Shanley. Between being told what charity is “approved” to donate to and their poor handling of this situation our decision is getting easier.
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So, you think it is ok to excuse kids from school if they stayed up too late the previous night? I don’t know about North Dakota High School rules, but growing up in Minnesota, if we arrived home late or had to stay up late for any extra-curricular, school-endorsed activities, we sure as heck weren’t excused the next day… This wasn’t even a school function. This was a personal thing. The only thing that I see wrong with this is how easily he could have gotten away with it, like if his mom were to say he was absent because of sickness.
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So you want his parent to lie?
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Wait- You want the school to have the parent TELL the school that her son is missing a SECOND DAY OF CLASS so he can SLEEP and think the school should accommodate that? This article is wrong, the original story clearly stated he missed one excused day to prep for his tournament, then missed the next day of class as well because his mom said he needed to sleep. There are no bonus points for honesty when it’s still an illegitimate reason to miss school! I could be honest, call the school, and say that my son wants to play videogames all day so I’m gonna have him miss school…. and of course the school wouldn’t excuse that! it doesn’t matter if i “told the truth” about what the reason for missing was when that reason is not excused by school policy
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Exactly! It’s called “the real world”
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Rick, if you object to the Catholic faith then don’t send your kid there.
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@ Zardoz – And of course it automatically means that I “Object to the Catholic faithâ€. Apparently you can’t use the brain that god gave us to think for yourself and be Catholic at the same time… Is that what you are suggesting?
Hot debate. What do you think?
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According to bishop Aquila, if you disagree with one part of something you shouldn’t support it as a whole.
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Touche!
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Rick, I don’t remember you ever posting anything positive about the Catholic Church. So why send your kid there?
Pete, I doubt you have contributed vast amounts of money to the Catholic Church.
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you do know that their “poor handling” is because they are legally bound as an educational organization not to comment to the press on individual students? When the forum only hears one side of the story, that might twist how they view it. wake up, the school isn’t worried about their threats of “lawyers,” as the kid and his mom don’t have a leg to stand on.
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B. Calmer, you are right. I know for a fact that there is NO chance the family would win a lawsuit. However, a suit coming from the school for libel and slander would. As would a suit from the families of kids who were harassed and bullied with vicious comments by this student.
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I doubt you were too serious about Shanley if this is your tipping point…
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Rick, did this decision about this kid really get you off the fence about sending your kids to Shanley or was it writing the check for 5k per kid?? Did your wife buy it?
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Your loss Rick….I’m sure that you’ll be one of the biggest complainers when your kids are sitting in overcrowded classroom.
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Dear Forum: This story wasn’t news the first time you splashed it across the front page, why is it now? Do you have nothing better to do that gin up controversy?
The bottom line is the school had a policy of one missed day for activities and this kid used that. Any other sports team member is held to the same standard, regardless how late the bus gets in.
Go look for some real news.
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Where do I begin with this craziness? Again, the real issue is that Mr. Lende was treated like every other student. Young Mr. Lende should not ask for special treatment because he is a top student and debater…that would be wrong.
There is clearly more to this story than the Lende family wants to admit. There is no student of his caliber who would give up the chance to compete at such a prestigious tournament. It just does not ring true that he is leaving on principle.
His feelings were hurt and he took his marbles and went home.
Shame on his mother for not being a voice reason and calm and setting a good example. No matter how smart young Mr. Lende is, his life will be fraught with difficulties and heartache if he cannot accept the consequences of his actions.
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I agree, but on the other hand, athletes are excused to leave early and miss entire days many times in a school year… I think the same consideration could be given to the non-athletic school sponsored academic programs. This was obviously an intense competition for the boys to put in that much time and effort. Besides, they were up front and honest about why they were staying home and had their parents permission. As a parent, my judgement should be enough to decide whether I think my kids needs a day off or not.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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ohhh boy. Here’s an example: a student gets dismissed early in the day as they are a member of the basketball team and the bus leaves for devils lake in the early afternoon. After the games are finished, the students have to ride back on a bus going only 60mph…devils lake is very far away…the students don’t get back til 1 or 2 am. (If you have a kid in any fargo school who is an athlete, you know that that’s correct.) No one is ever allowed to miss the NEXT day of school because they’re tired! And being honest about not having a policy-approved reason for your kid to stay home doesn’t make your reason good! It means your kid needs to go to school! Every other person in extracurriculars has to show up the next day.
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That’s true, but I still think the parents should have the last word on whether a kid can miss a day or not especially when they are doing well academically. The school should only get involved if a kid is missing too much school and not getting good grades.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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I’m on your bandwagon, Cpetoo. The school should also be flexable for allowing the student to make up the lost time… penalty accepted..
Our entire school year is a 9 month year to give the farm students time off carry their responsability, this should carry over to students who are doing well accademicly.
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This is a good example where a dose of common sense should be used in place of zero tolerance policies. The shoe doesn’t always fit.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Actually I heard he got suspended for being a Master Debater. Thats a sin in the Catholic religion.
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You spelled a word wrong.
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Cpeteoo: You seem to assume that the non-athletes don’t get excused absences for their activities – they certainly do. The point is that if the student is required to be in school – althete or not – they need to be in school. He was not; he violated their rules; he was disciplined accordingly. Until you can list specific examples of student athletes being excused, say, becuase they were tired after the big game the night before, you don’t have a leg to stand on in this athlete vs non-athlete argument. Now some have asserted that if the parents had lied then there would have been no issue. That very well may be true – unless they got caught in the lie. So lieing isn’t the answer. They chose honesty, and despite the kudos they desrve for their honesty, there are consequences for violating the rules. Running to the Forum to whine to the community about your choice in High Schools shows very little character – not over something as petty as this.
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No money and yet she is hiring a lawyer? Seriously?
Yes, student-athletes get early leave or entire days off for GAMES that require hours of travel, but never after late nights of PRACTICE (or games for that matter.)
And please, leave religion out of this. Any public school would never deem this an excused absence.
I commend the young man for his dedication to his debate team, but he shouldn’t have assumed special treatment. This is like missing school because of a late night shooting free throws before the state championship.
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What dedication? He quit. Welcome to life, you will not always win the debate and get your way..
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47 likes…. bigotry much? was there this response when lutheran pastors were arrested for drunk driving? I think not.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Whoa talk about attention you-know-whats.
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If he runs every time he doesn’t get his own way, he is going to have a long, long road ahead of him! Not to mention all of the bridges he is going to burn running from school to school everytime something doesn’t go his way.
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“He has decided he does not want to represent Shanley,†Nancy Lende said Thursday. “He’s not willing to compromise his principles.â€
–What principles? He got nailed for doing something he wasn’t supposed to do and his answer was running away. I think this boy and his mommy did Shanley a favor.
“It’s very sad,†she said. This was Teagan’s purpose in life, to compete.â€
–No, his purpose in life is to get an education as a 16 year old. His extra-curricular activities are supposed to enhance the education experience, not hinder it.
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The scary thing is that those comments are true. Those are the principles they stand on and his whole purpose in life is to win. Scary.
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He will be running as a Democrat, after he gets old enough, for the Wisconsin State Senate. Run Teagan Run.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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@Anti-Sheeple BEST COMMENT EVER. Master Debater. LMAO.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Playing the “million dollar club” card and the “Athletes are Treated Differently” card has been done numerous times above. Usually after someone states the facts that the poster doesn’t like.
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His parents are part of a pretty well-off group. The school enforced the rules and the teenager and his parents decided to throw a fit to gain a few minutes in the spotlight, bottom line. Does he think he’s the first kid to get detention for missing school? Grow up parents and grow up Fargo Forum for posting such a petty article.
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The Forum should check the history of this individual. They would probably find out that there is more to the story than some poor innocent kid. Come on Forum get all the information out there if you’re going to run a story like this.
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From the inside:
There were at least 2 other incidents besides the truancy one, which was not accurately reported by the Forum. It wasn’t his 1st day missed that was punished, it was more than one. If you people only knew the true story about this situation, you would be much less critical of the school. I am still not a big fan of the school, but they got this one right. They are better off without him. Many kids and staff will no longer be harassed.
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Hey truth, shouldn’t this kid be going to Davies?
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The truth is, TD, is he is underchallenged at Shanley, and should probably be homeschooled so he can progress at his own pace. If his parents had understood his special needs, he would probably be going to college right now.
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My statements are not insinuations. They are the facts. The facts that the story left out.
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Did you also include the facts that the student had issues because the schools he was attending didn’t meet his needs, and he moved hoping to find one that could? He is not skipping classes because he is studying too hard, he is skipping classes because he already knows the materials and thinks its a waste of time to attend.
He CHOSES to spend his time studying materials that challenge him… which translates to his huge success in debate. Please include that with the “Facts” you seek to stigmatize him with.
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I’m not aware that it’s common practice for students that are in school sponsored competition to automatically take a day off to prepare. If the crybaby wants special treatment let him go somewhere else, which he did. Will he get special treatment at Fargo South? Good riddence.
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Sounds like he is a very smart kid that needs to work on his time management. Most kids and a lot of adults try to cram ten pounds of crap in the five pound sack.
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I disagree, Chins. This student is under challenged at Shanley, or he wouldn’t be leaving it. The problem is, he will probably be underchallenged at South, or any other school Fargo has to offer. At least at Shanley, he will have more class options, and more AP classes.
If he felt he wasn’t keeping up with his classes, he wouldn’t have been taking extra days off. Nerds are kinda like that, they tend to be rather anal about their school. Shanley simply isn’t meeting his needs.
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“At least at Shanley, he will have more class options, and more AP classes.”
Oops, sorry, ment “at least at South…..”
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I am not sure of the individuals total and true story, but I do know that as a parent, its MY bottom line as to how my child is educated, not a beaurocratical institution. I take my children out of school on a regular basis for misc reasons, some of them far less valid than this one… the only difference is I lie about it to avoid this hassle.
My children are 4.0 students, and thus have earned the right to lead their own education. If they excel in one area, one that will lead to a highly successful carreer path such as this student has, I will support them in the success of it… be it in sports, music, drama, or political/legal such as this student obviously excels in.
I agree this parent’s priorities are apparently screwed up, what is obvious this student should do is go the home schooling route, graduate early and attend an ivy league school. He apparently easily qualifies for scholarships. Dragging this student from school to school, and subjecting him to frivolous lawsuits is only going to detract him from what his objectives should be.
As an aside, my daughter in in N High speech, and she has talked about this student, and his stellar performances; long before this became an issue. The school should be rewarding and encouraging a prodigy, not punishing him. That extra day of school should have included a trip to an ivy league school, or a day at the state congress.
When I was in Minnesota debate.. many years ago, not only did I miss out on almost every friday of school for this activity, but our tournaments took us to the finest colleges in the state. North Dakota isn’t doing this, and its to the detriment of those students who, as a whole are the top 10% of the class in academics. We as a group had the highest grades, and the most success in school. Missing a few classes for this purpose built us into stronger adults, not detracted from our education.
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I notice, after reading all the posts, that there are no actual comments to justify the negative votes.
I suspect that all of you who saw negative are the same ones who cite lack of personal responsibility and parental involvement as the reasons why students do poorly, its not the schools fault, we don’t have to pay any more when the students are the ones failing. .
Well, here is an example of a student who takes FULL responsibility, even to be honest instead of lying when taking a day off. He has a parent who not only has been active in raising her child and assuring he had the best education possible, even moving him to schools that should have met his needs….. yet you seek to punish them for doing exactly what you tell them to do. Taking responsibility and acting with honesty and integrity.
I am sure most of you would say attending a school is just like a job, and should be treated like one by the students. Well, a real job gives vacation time, yet schools don’t. If your job denies you vacation… or sick time when requested you would be outraged. This is no different.
This student is probably one of the hardest working students in the school, and deserved to have some vacation time… time of HIS choosing, not of the schools. His parent supported him, gave him permission. That should be the end of story.
We can’t forget that the BOTTOM LINE is the student and his education, and the parents RIGHT to participate in said education.; not the schools authority. There was nothing disruptive, or negative to the childs education happening, only a power play by a bureaucratic institution that SHOULD respect the parents wishes over their own rules.
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This story kind of reminds me of how I was in high school. I was smarter than everyone else, didn’t have to study or put any effort into anything, thought that the rules didn’t apply to me, and was an arrogant jerk.
Getting out into the larger world changed most of those over time. Give this kid a chance to get out on his own, hopefully struggle through some things, find a hobby that helps take the edge off & he’ll be fine.
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I was in this peer group in high school too, Magic. In order to compete in an activity that required memorizing speeches up to 10 min long, we had to free up our time. Sometimes we had to memorize up to a new speech every 3rd week.
It was standard to do all the readings for our classes within the first 2 weeks of the semester so all we had to do was review before the tests. We also did ALL the groundwork of assignments the day assigned, if not before. More often than not, the classes only covered the information within the textbooks… sometimes literally reading the material out loud during class; lazy teachers did nothing else. Yes, I can say often I didn’t do homework, but truthfully I did it all up front, and it became easy to do the extra credit.
In THIS instance, I see a student who exhausted himself and needed one day off to implode, and he KNEW there would be nothing of substance to miss in his classes… except for the chance to read out loud so the teacher didn’t have to.
He knew what his responsibilities were, and met them in advance. As an employer, I would value this quality.
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