Sounds like something right out of a Pink Floyd song. Or a Roald Dahl book.
I suppose thereâs a case against the school for steaming (or tearing) open the childâs mail, but I doubt the unemployed mother has the means to bring suit.
Goodness, youâd think theyâd just confiscate the candy and be done with it.
Dahl would never have been this cruel.
The upside is that the kid will never again have to go to that insufferable camp.
Often with stories like this I think, âThereâs got to be more to this. It canât be as stupid as it sounds.â Itâs really depressing when it turns out that it is as stupid as it sounds. Some details not mentioned in Mr. Doctorowâs summary:
The trip Ms Graves, the girlâs mother, had to make included two ferry crossings.
Ms Graves had to borrow ÂŁ130 from family and friends to cover her travel costs.
The school is defending this because the students sign a âbehaviour charterâ meant to âensure that everyone can have a safe and enjoyable holidayâ.
On that last point, Iâd like to know whether the teachers and other responsible adults sign a similar âcharterâ, and whether unnecessarily violating a studentâs privacy is included in it.
If thereâs any good that comes out of this itâs that the fact that teachers are opening and reading private mail has been revealed.
Iâm not a legal-bod, but doesnât this sound like an article 8 human rights act breach?
" Article 8 of the Convention, which guarantees your right to respect for your privacy, also expressly protects your right to respect for your correspondence, and correspondence can include telecommunications. For this reason the law strictly regulates the circumstances in which your post or telecommunications can be intercepted or monitored. Any interception which is not done in accordance with the law and which cannot be justified as being necessary and proportionate for a legitimate aim is likely to constitute a breach of your human rights."
Eh, I can see some mitigating circumstances here. I went to a lot of camps as a youngâun, and they do have rules.
Holliâs mother urged Ms Graves to reconsider but she refused and said if Holli was not picked up she would have to attend all the planned activities but would not be allowed to join in any of them.It's not like she was going to be turned out onto the street or subjected to corporal punishment or solitary confinement. Of course, without knowing more about the nature of these "planned activities" it's hard to say just how bad this would have been. Mind you, it was the mother who decided such exclusion would be so excruciatingly cruel.
"They had been planning the feast weeks before the trip and Holli was in charge of bringing the chocolate,â she said.Of course it wasn't drugs, but this certainly sounds like something of an organized operation to purposefully undermine authority. Sounds rather unsavory. It makes me wonder a little if the other kids were also punished.
At some point, youâd think someone in the chain of command of the school would say, âWait, this is ridiculous.â That someone didnât makes the whole schoolâs administration culpable for this nonsense.
This is different from other âzero toleranceâ situations where they dismiss a child for, say, a mock weapon where liability issues are involved.
Plus, the opening of letters is just bizarre. Wouldnât all the other parents find this objectionable? Isnât there any blowback for the schoolâs actions?
Is there somewhere we can actually log a complaint with the school to let them or the local authority know how disgusting we find this level of unauthorized mail tampering to be?
Sorry, purposefully undermining authority is unsavory? Are you sure youâre in the right place? Christ, Iâd have given the kid lessons in crypto and stego and told her that if she was going to sneak around, sheâd need better chops than that.
Indeed. As the headline says, it was chocolate 
The Daily Heilâs take on this says the other two girls werenât asked to leave, and she had also been misbehaving. It also says the âno sweetsâ in the room was a hotel policy, not the school.
I will reserve judgement on this until Iâve heard more.
I would certainly like to know if the school really are opening the childrenâs mail. Aside: kids still write letters home on school trips? Whouldathunkit?
Also, Article 16 of the Convention of Rights of the Child:
âNo child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or
correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation.â
I am so freaking glad I grew up in a time and place where I had a bit of a long leash as a youth, and was not trained to be a mindless slave of the Fourth Reich. Being a kid these days sounds like it TOTALLY BUMS.
As pointed out below it seems to violate Convention on the Rights of the Child which the UK has signed and ratified (unlike those three regressive societies in the world that have not). I would say make a complaint to UNICEF - likely to end up without any teeth by way more embarrassing for the school.
wait with the bbs threads below is above for me but below you
Sounds like it could also be an offense under s84 of the Postal Services Act 2000, of interfering with the post. Punishable by a fine, up to six months in the klink, or bothâŚ
Oh sure, itâs all fun and games until the crap hits the fan and some kidâs parent sues the pants off everyone involved for being âirresponsibleâ or turning a blind eye to bullying or something.
Skarkaâs Law: âOn internet messageboards, there is no subject so vile or indefensible that someone wonât post positively/in defense of it.â
Iâm not sure why this is called a camp when itâs clearly a school trip. It makes a little more sense in that context, as my experience with school trips that have overnight stays is that the custodians are generally crapping their pants and praying that nobody comes home with a story. Itâs stressful and not a surprise that theyâre turning into total hardass authoritarians to try to send a message to the rest of the students.
Itâs still totally ridiculous, but at least I can see where it is coming from. I took several school trips back when I was in school and never once did the teachers and parents fail to freak out when it came to the hotel stay.
