Who says there are no politics in cheerleading??

File this under the One-More-Reason-Not-To-Have-A-Facebook-Account folder.

The TechDirt blog I read brought an article to my attention that stated with the following sentence:

A Mississippi high school student is suing her school district after a teacher logged into the student's social networking account and distributed information that embarrassed her and led to her removal from the team.

Pause.

WHAT?

This just raises so many questions I almost don't know where to start. I'll just touch on two things.

First, why would a teacher believe (s)he has the power to demand but then actually follow through with that belief to actually demand a password to a personal Facebook account? If Facebook is blocked on the school's network, then the kids can't get to it using school property and thus, the kids only access it using personal equipment (computer at home, cell phone, etc). So whatever the kids are doing on Facebook cannot be in violation of any school rule because it's outside of school. So the teacher has no juristiction over activities on Facebook and in my not so humble opinion, abused his/her position of authority.

Second, why didn't the school's administration, upon reading personal messages, read the ISSUES in the emails not the WORDS in the emails?? Bullying is a big issue in middle and high school age kids. Tackle that problem, and the rest resolves itself. So as a parent, I would want the school's administration to support someone who stands up to a bully using words (not fists or any other violent method!), not punish the person because she used inappropriate language. Inappropriate language is a fact of life and as long as it's not on campus, then who cares??

Oh wait, that's because there are politics in cheerleading. Surprise!! There's a reason why there is a stereotype that there are politics in cheerleading, and this just proves that stereotype yet again!!

This article also underscores the firm belief that Steve and I have, as parents, that we need to teach our kids not only about physical security/safety (don't talk to strangers, etc), but also electronic security. Don't give your password out. The Internet immortalizes anything you post. Etc.

I wish I could say my parents had it easy raising us, but they just faced different challenges.