Need quick help - DH needs some sort of consequence for student at school

[jenkuh]

Okay - so my DH is a music tech teacher in a high school. He is impressed with the gentle discipline results with both our daughter and his middle school bands, but we are both at a loss on how to handle this particular situation.

There was a kid in one of his classes (he knows who by process of elimination) who deleted three folders on the desk top that had his work and the work of his classmates from the entire semester. He hasn't talked to the student yet and he doesn't know if it was on purpose or not (chances are it was because it was deleted and he "emptied the trash"). What should he do in this situation? We are stumped with brainstorming! :

Oh - and I wanted to edit this to add that the his work and the work of his classmates is like "art." They are pieces of music that the kids created using Garage band.

[ktbug]

In a structured setting like a school, at least to me, some of the tenets of GD don't apply, as it's not really a universal code of behavior and chances are the school has its own rules which trump your DH's code of behavior in his classroom. That said, I really think his only reasonable course of action is to take the matter to his superiors and follow the chain of discipline set out by the school. This is a huge matter, honestly, which affects the entire class, and other students who have worked hard all semester have effectively had their work wiped out by the actions of a saboteur. The student should be referred to the head of school, disciplinary dean, or whatever it is at your DH's school. I'm certain those actions are against the code of conduct and code of academic honesty, and should be dealt with accordingly. Just my .02. I don't think 'logical consequences' are effective or applicable to this situation.

[jenkuh]

We've always wondered about this. Is the general consensus that GD is only for parents and not really for teachers (talking about older grades here)?

[delphiniumpansy]

I was a teacher and used GD all the time. Positive discipline by Jane Nelson. There are several books for teachers. That being said, not knowing the full circumstances, I think your dh needs the consequence. How did the kid get access to his computer desktop? It should have been password protected and his room locked when he is not there. I would have the kid help him rebuild everything that has been lost, if that is possible, or have him do something else to help your dh so dh has time to rebuild that lost work. He can clean the room or sort papers or whatever. Logical consequences work well for older kids. It is logical, to me, that this kid needs to help your dh fix the problem.


And, dh needs to lock his room and password protect his computer.

[jenkuh]

Originally Posted by yellowpansy

I was a teacher and used GD all the time. Positive discipline by Jane Nelson. There are several books for teachers. That being said, not knowing the full circumstances, I think your dh needs the consequence. How did the kid get access to his computer desktop? It should have been password protected and his room locked when he is not there. I would have the kid help him rebuild everything that has been lost, if that is possible, or have him do something else to help your dh so dh has time to rebuild that lost work. He can clean the room or sort papers or whatever. Logical consequences work well for older kids. It is logical, to me, that this kid needs to help your dh fix the problem.


And, dh needs to lock his room and password protect his computer.

Well, Dh agrees something needs to happen as a consequence and I like the idea of having the student help fix the problem.

As far as the room/ protecting the computer thing goes - each kid has their own computer. The class is all about how to use this particular software to create music, remixes, etc. So the kid deleted the folder with his work and the work of the students who worked at that particular computer (so I guess we're talking about 3 students work, including his own).

[delphiniumpansy]

Then I think having him help the other students to rebuild the work he deleted is a good consequence. If that cannot be done, then he should do something for your dh to help him while dh helps the other kids. Can the folders be password protected?

[jenkuh]

Originally Posted by yellowpansy

Then I think having him help the other students to rebuild the work he deleted is a good consequence. If that cannot be done, then he should do something for your dh to help him while dh helps the other kids. Can the folders be password protected?

I told DH about your post and he said he'll definitely look into getting password protected user accounts for each student. He's not sure it will work, but he's looking into it! As far as the consequence, I can't tell what he thought because he started looking into the folder issue - hehe.

[chfriend]

Has your dh try to restore the files? Are the files backed up anywhere?

What would make your dh think it might be malicious? If it's not malicious, what would be the point of punishing the student?

[jenkuh]

Originally Posted by chfriend

Has your dh try to restore the files? Are the files backed up anywhere?

What would make your dh think it might be malicious? If it's not malicious, what would be the point of punishing the student?

Well, the student emptied the trash (this is on a mac) which means there's no restoring it. He's going to talk to the student tomorrow and see if there is an explanation, but I guess, according to the circumstances of how much the kid would have to know to do this, it'd be hard to imagine it wasn't malicious. There was a sub that day (Dh was home sick), when you open the folder it is very obvious that other students work is in there (and he also deleted an art folder and a samples folder), and then he emptied the trash which means to restoring the info.

Dh agrees that some sort of back up system would be perfect, but right now there's not enough money in the budget to do flashcards and it is really complicated to do any password protecting (even though he's looking into it further).

[chfriend]

I think your dh is wise to ask the student what happened, especially since he wasn't there, before deciding to punish the student.

[l_olive]

What kind of macs are they? Do they have cd drives? Do they have zip drives? Do they have USB ports? All of these could provide a simple way to back up each students' work.

I know none of this provides a consequence for the student, but I'm not sure that we know enough about the situation to say that it actually warrants one.

But it does seem to me that the teacher has an obligation to protect the work of all the students by a password or backup so that this doesn't happen again -- whether it was malicious or accidental.

[Twocoolboys]

There are many inexpensive ways to back up files. I'm shocked that a teacher had such an important file without a back up! He could e-mail the file to himself as an attachment every day or at least every week. Then he could put it on his home computer. Or e-mail to another teacher in school.

And he should look into using a cd burner. His computer may already have one. The media is inexpensive. Has he talked to the tech department about recovering the files? My dh is a computer tech and can sometimes recover things, but he doesn't work with Macs, so I have no idea if that is possible with a Mac.

What about storing a copy of the file on the network? I'm assuming the school's computers are networked.

[ktbug]

I agree that steps need to be taken to protect students' work, but it baffles me that a student did something destructive, dishonest, and malicious, and we're all sitting here talking about what the teacher did wrong. I may be the lone voice on this lonely branch, but I really think the offending student deserves administrative punishment. What would happen to a kid who went to his English teacher's desk and destroyed a bunch of students' term papers? Would that student simply be asked to help the other students re-create their papers? I don't think so! I mean, not where I went to school. Seriously, no one else thinks the offense is worthy of administrative action?

[LynnS6]

Originally Posted by jenkuh

Well, the student emptied the trash (this is on a mac) which means there's no restoring it.

That's actually not true - but the expense of finding the (possibly corrupted) deleted files is not worth it.

At the risk of being stoned by parents, the school could ask kids in this class to bring in flash drives to store stuff on. They're down to about $20 these days, and so it might be possible to ask the PTA to do a fundraiser to go toward flashdrives for kids who can't afford them.

Is there no server in this school? The work can (and should) be backed up onto a server.

Can he have the students e-mail their work to his school account?

[chfriend]

Originally Posted by ktbug

I agree that steps need to be taken to protect students' work, but it baffles me that a student did something destructive, dishonest, and malicious, and we're all sitting here talking about what the teacher did wrong. I may be the lone voice on this lonely branch, but I really think the offending student deserves administrative punishment. What would happen to a kid who went to his English teacher's desk and destroyed a bunch of students' term papers? Would that student simply be asked to help the other students re-create their papers? I don't think so! I mean, not where I went to school. Seriously, no one else thinks the offense is worthy of administrative action?

How do you know it was destructive, dishonest and malicious? The teacher was not in the room and has not discussed it with the student yet?

[Cheshire]

If he destroyed the other students work then he needs to explain himself to the teacher and the administration - I'm sure the school has a policy for handling this situation.

His "punishment" should include restitution. He should have to apologize to the other students. He could also help to locate a Mac computer wizard to see if the files can be restored. He could also help find the best way to prevent this from happening again (i.e. researching backup capabilities, passwords, etc.).

Also, flash drives are just $4.99 at Walmart. I think they are like half a gig but not positive.

Sorry this happened to your DH. I hope the student is able to learn from his mistake (and restitution is a darn good way towards that goal).

[jenkuh]

I just talked to my DH and he has taken care of the situation. It is only his second year teaching the class and nothing like this has ever happened before. He's not neglectful or stupid - just fairly new to teaching the class. I was disappointed by many of the attitudes that I witnessed here. Students and even teachers make mistakes. I was just asking for him what some good ways to handle the situation would be. Thanks for the helpful input - it was appreciated and helped him take care of the situation.

[chfriend]

jenkuh....I didn't see any judgement of your dh, so I must be reading the posts differently. I'm sorry it felt like people were picking on him.

[fek&fuzz]

Originally Posted by jenkuh

I just talked to my DH and he has taken care of the situation. It is only his second year teaching the class and nothing like this has ever happened before. He's not neglectful or stupid - just fairly new to teaching the class. I was disappointed by many of the attitudes that I witnessed here. Students and even teachers make mistakes. I was just asking for him what some good ways to handle the situation would be. Thanks for the helpful input - it was appreciated and helped him take care of the situation.

What did he end up doing?