Random Notes

Yes, we are alive. We encountered various problems while trying to produce issue 4 which resulted in the delay of publication and distribution. Most of our staff was arrested in the covert Plano police Operation Rockfest, so we had to use some of our political contacts to get them out of jail. That's why we're late, you see. Now on to more relevant news.

On Friday, March 6, two students at Clark High School were placed in in-school suspension for six days for distributing scrape. After apparently finding no wrong-doing on the parts of these individuals, a befuddled administration quietly released them after the first day of imprisonment.

This is a blatant violation of several laws, Supreme Court rulings, school policies, and the first amendment.

When a student is caught fighting, they are placed in ISS for three days. Does this mean that handing out pieces of paper is twice as bad as bringing physical violence upon someone?

The school feels threatened by our publication, though they have no reason to. If they cannot accept a bit of constructive criticism, then they obviously don't give a damn about our education or well-being. Add this to the fact that they are violating our rights, and we have a potentially dangerous situation on our hands.

The fact is, we are allowed to publish scrape. It has been guaranteed to us by the Constitution, the Supreme Court, even PISD itself (go look in your handbook).

If necessary, legal action will be taken against the school. We are within our rights, and they have exited their realm of jurisdiction.

So, be warned, simply by reading this article, you risk being suspended from your school. Is this justice? Absolutely not. We urge you all to fight against the administration's paranoid actions. We are here to help you protect your rights. Don't let this tremendous violation go unnoticed. If left unanswered, it can only result in the further revocation of guaranteed rights.

OK, it's time to bring you up to speed on some current events here at Clark.

Last week, a student was imprisoned, beaten, and publicly humiliated for distributing "unapproved" material. The student seemed a bit surprised. After all, he had only written his name on a piece of paper and handed it to a friend. But a PISD spokesperson said "We have decided to crack down on rebellious students committing these kinds of terroristic acts. All material to be distributed by students must be approved by the principal of the school." Does this mean that a student has to get his homework approved by the principal before he turns it in? For that matter, must a teacher have a reading assignment approved by the principal before giving it to students? This seems a bit unnecessary to me.

The student is still in the hospital, suffering from concussions and several broken bones. Says the PISD spokesperson, "We hope that we have made an example out of this juvenile delinquent.

Earlier this month, students went through the familiar process of yet another fire drill. At least they thought they did.

It turns out that it was no drill. In the office, some administrators were burning copies of the constitution (as they normally do to begin each day) when the fire unexpectedly grew out of control. Eventually, firefighters extinguished the flames and reminded the employees to practice fire safety when burning government documents.

And finally, undercover police quickly apprehended a young criminal at Clark High School last week. As an extension of the highly-publicized Operation Rockfest, police assumed the guises of high school students in order to capture students who might possibly posses independent thoughts.

Says Police Chief Glascock, "The situation was clearly getting out of hand. I mean, you have these punks running around, thinking things, some of them even writing them down. We just can't deal with this kind of chaos. We are sending a strong message to those thinking about thinking: don't do it."

When asked what the cause of the problem was, Chief Glascock replied, "Oh, it's clearly the parents' fault. In Plano, children are held to a higher standard, which means there is more stress on them. When their parents aren't home to help them, kids will turn to other things to help their pain, sometimes they use drugs, but more importantly, frightening numbers of kids out there are thinking. The parents need to do something." There you have it.

By the way, the preceding stories were satirical and not intended to be interpreted as actual news. Don't be stupid.

From the Mailbag

received information today about your underground newspaper and visited your web site. please keep us informed as to you progress or lack of progress. we are interested as we too seek freedom. be not discouraged when you are opposed and singled out as trouble makers. that is part of the price. few have the courage to stand. we salute you.

for freedom,

archie huel lowe

president, republic of texas

Who Killed Cougar Pride?

Every year, the people who run our school are thoughtful enough to print up informative literature for us to read, regarding the rules of glorious Clark High School. Yes, that's right, I'm talking about those lovely Cougar Coordinators.

Inside these fine books, you will find exciting material regarding the rules of behavior at Clark High School. These are summed up by a code of ethics that our school likes to call "Cougar Pride". According to them, Cougar Pride is a cooperative attitude and positive degree of effort that must be exhibited in order for learning to occur.

Here at scrape, we find it extremely ironic that our school has done nothing but disregard these rules. And if these rules are broken, learning will not occur. So, our administrators have created an environment in which we may can not learn in. Way to go, guys!

Let's go through these rules step by step and look at the hypocrisy exhibited by our administration. Here's why they have violated every single virtue of Cougar Pride, whereas we have upheld them all.

1. Courtesy - By suspending two people distributing scrape, the school has resorted to standoffish tactics of student relations. If they were courteous, they would have chosen to discuss the matter of our publication (and why we have violated no rules), but instead they have decided to blindly punish innocent people. This is quite rude.

How have we exhibited courtesy? Instead of reacting violently to the sad state of affairs that is Clark High School, we put our complaints in writing, as a form of constructive criticism. We assumed that the school administration would be mature enough to discuss these matters reasonably, but we were apparently wrong.

2. Honesty - Honesty is simply telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. You can call scrape many things, but dishonest is not one of them.

By attempting to silence our publication, the school has attempted to hide the truth. This is dishonesty at its most basic form. It is also dishonest to ignore the laws of your country and the rules of the school, which they have paid absolutely no attention to.

3. Human Worth and Dignity - According to the informative booklet (page 17), every human possesses worth and dignity and therefore deserves respect from anyone else. We have shown respect for the administration. It would be within our rights to use profanity in scrape, yet we have not. We have not even singled out any members of the administration by name, which would also most definitely be within our rights. We have simply offered criticism, which is one the most sincere forms of respect.

However, in their attempts to shut us down, they have trampled upon our rights and shown nothing but contempt for us. How ironic.

4. Respect for Self, Others, and Property - This ties in directly with the last one. They have shown nothing but disrespect for scrape. We, on the other hand, have been quite polite in our means of protest.

5. Respect for Authority - In America, what greater authority is there than the government? And what is the government founded on? The Constitution. So, by attempting to deny us the rights to freedom of speech and the press, they have shown total disrespect for their authority, the American government.

Some may argue that we have been disrespectful to our "authority", the school administration. We, however, have shown that we have respect by stepping forward with constructive criticism. If we had no respect, we would fill these pages with a plethora of obscenities (which we have obviously not done.)

6. Discipline - The book defines discipline as the "demonstration of dependability and conscientiousness in discharging one's responsibilities."

How can the school be dependable if they are telling us one things and doing another?

And we have most definitely been dependable. Always here to torment, that's us.

7. Tolerance - This is the big one, friends. "Tolerance is the understanding and acceptance of others' ideas, beliefs, and values and is essential to the integrity and self-esteem of every human being." Perhaps I've missed something here, but to the furthest of my knowledge, the people who run our school are human. This rule, therefore, applies to them. Otherwise, they lack integrity. Remember, this is what they have said, not us. So according to their own rhetoric, they are pathetic excuses for human beings. Interesting.

We have been quite tolerant, letting those who do not appreciate scrape voice their opinions in our own message forum (on our web page) where we were able to discuss these topics rationally. It's ironic that the students are able to keep their cool while the administrators completely lose it.

8. Responsibility - The book basically says that people need to take care of the things they have to do. Responsibility requires knowing how to react maturely to a situation. Just because you have the power to put someone in ISS doesn't mean you should. When they abused their power, they most definitely did not act responsibly.

We have acted responsibly. When we had a problem with the school, we didn't just start acting like stupid kids and vandalizing things or getting in fights. We thought clearly and peacefully wrote down our feelings. If you think that this is irresponsible, you have a serious problem with logical analyzation.

So basically, Cougar Pride has been shot dead by the school administrators. It's sad to see them self-destruct (and take us down with them) in the eyes of their philosophy. But hey, when you make your bed, you've gotta lie in it.

Goodnight.

Political Prisoners?

It may have come to some student’s attention that Jack Ternan and Jon Bartov (students of Clark High School) were recently detained and placed in an alternative education program called in school suspension, or ISS, for merely distributing this newspaper, scrape. There were many outcries protesting this "illegal behavior" and many students became enraged when they learned of the two’s "imprisonment." But let’s face the facts, folks, what PISD did to Jack Ternan and Jon Bartov was fully legal, if not justified. According to the FMA(local) section of PISD policy pertaining to the distribution of non-school materials, "all written material over which the school does not exercise editorial control that is intended for distribution to students shall be submitted for prior review according to the following procedures...." The passage goes on to say that the materials must be submitted for review to the building principal or designee and approved or disapproved according to the limitations on content clause in the FMA(legal) section of PISD’s policy. If approved, the school will pass "reasonable administrative regulations as to the time, place, and manner of distribution" which "may not be designed to stifle expression." First of all, scrape has never been formally submitted for approval to either Clark High School’s principal or designee. Secondly, because of it’s not being submitted for approval, no time or place was designated for distribution. Common syllogistic thinking would lead one to believe that neither scrape, Jack Ternan, or Jon Bartov had any right to do what they were doing. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for scrape and free speech, I just believe that the proper procedures should be followed to achieve scrape’s goals. Should scrape be submitted, according to the FMA(legal) regulations, there is no reason for it to be refused approval. Read my following article on an extensive description and extrapolation of FMA(legal) for details.

Students' Writes Rights

scrape sure has stirred up quite a storm. Students are going to ISS, and teachers and cops are threatening lawsuits on the basis that Scrape promotes terrorism (something about Dr. Pepper and liquid nitrogen?). Seeing as how PISD is so ready to rely on the law to justify their actions, I have a legal tidbit for you, the readers of Scrape, and for PISD. Not only has the United States Supreme Court given students the right to distribute non-school publications, but the PISD policy guide itself, the holiest of holies, gives students the right to legally print and distribute almost any subject matter imaginable! Although approval for non-school publications must be received for legal distribution, PISD’s FMA(legal) policy pertaining to limitations on content for non-school publications is surprisingly lenient. Allow me to quote from FMA(legal) section 3 subsection b : "Material may not be forbidden if the portions or specific language objected to may also be found in material that is made available to students through school facilities, i.e., the school library or readings assigned by teachers." As quite the connoisseur of literature, I can assure you that all manner of curse words, violence, and sexual acts imaginable are within your grasp as students. Reach out and touch a library book. I’m not talking about a public library, I’m talking about your very own school library. Not only are violent, profane, and pornographic materials readily available, but some teachers assign them, too. Julius Caesar by Shakespeare has extensive violence, even a scene (in the literature book, no less) where a character is literally ripped into bloody shreds by a mob. Many of Ernest Hemingway's books are pornographic in nature. Independent, unrestricted study on one of Hemingway’s novels is assigned by English teachers at Clark High School, by the way. I can also recall a scene from John Steinbeck’s (a 9th grade English favorite) The Grapes of Wrath where a grown man sucks on the breast of a lactating woman. Ringworld and Ringworld Engineers by Larry Niven, both in the Clark High School library, describes aspects of sodomy in detail, with profanity speckled throughout for spice. Piers Anthony, whose books are available in every high school in Plano, has quite a pornographic streak in him that shows in many of the books available in PISD libraries. With countless sci-fi, fantasy, fiction, non-fiction, and classic literature novels to choose from within Clark High School’s library alone, how can we doubt that all manner of death, destruction, sex, and profanity are not only accessible to students, but approved by PISD? Okay PISD, before you get your panties in a ruffle, keep in mind that the subject material mentioned in this article is only an outline of what scrape could print, but in good taste, hasn’t. I think that scrape’s restraint deserves reward and praise, not punishment.

Difference of Opinions

Although the author of the previous two articles addresses the limitations placed on student publications, he does not question the legitimacy (or constitutionality) of these policies.

Forcing us to meet the approval of our principal before we distribute scrape is absurd. In America, we do not have prior restraint.

Should we go ask Mr. Spann for permission to speak every time we need to say something? No.