Monday, October 25, 1999
Students asked who they would kill
Franklin disciplines teacher for lesson
BY SAUNDRA AMRHEIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
FRANKLIN — A class assignment asking students whom they would like to assassinate triggered an uproar at Franklin High School.
The teacher was reprimanded after the assignment caught the attention of parents.
The teacher named by parents did not return phone calls and administrators refused to verify her name.
School officials acknowledged that focusing students on such topics isn't appropriate in the post-Columbine era of rising concern about student violence.
“I think it was in poor taste considering what's happened,” said Valerie Ward, whose son is a sophomore at Franklin.
She and several other parents interviewed said they felt the school should have taken more action earlier this month. “I think the school just brushed it under the carpet,” Mrs. Ward said during Friday night's football game against Fenwick high schools in Middletown.
The Franklin controversy arose from a “prompt,” or a single-sheet list of suggested topics for the students to write about in their daily journals.
Among the questions: “If you had to assassinate one famous person who is alive right now, who would it be and how would you do it?”
Another question that upset parents asked students who they would save “if you had to lose everyone you know in a tragic accident except one person.”
Other questions asked what students would like to change about themselves or what they would do if a best friend didn't like them anymore.
Another asked, “If you could keep only one of your five senses, which would you save?”
Parents say the questions for the journals were distributed at the beginning of the school year for freshman and sophomore English students in the teacher's class.
The assassination entry was due on Sept. 29 and parents began calling school officials to complain.
Franklin High School Principal Robert Leahy and Assistant Principal David Gregory met with the teacher and told her the assassination question — pulled from a book outside the district's curriculum — was inappropriate.
Parents and administrators said they didn't know what book the questions came from.
The teacher should have picked more upbeat topics to stimulate students' minds, parents said.
“You get them thinking about how to off somebody,” Mrs. Ward said. “I hate to think that kids have to think about these kinds of things.”
Some parents noted that in the post-Columbine climate, students in many schools have
been suspended for merely talking about considering violent acts.
“They mention the word gun and they're out the door,” said Beth Kinzer, who has freshman and senior sons at Franklin High School but not in this English class. “She should get the same thing the kids would get — five days suspension.”
Administrators say no more action will be taken against the second-year teacher, who has had no other problems.
“I think that it would certainly not be a topic that we would want students to write on in any age — much less today,” said Franklin Schools Superintendent Dinzle Brown, refer ring to school violence nationwide. “We feel that won't happen again.”
Mr. Brown said he thought the prompts were optional but parents said students were given a calendar with numbers on the dates marking when each question was due.
Between cheers at Friday's football game, several students agreed the assignment was not well-thought-out.
“I don't think it's right because if teachers are thinking about that stuff it may influence others to think about it,” said 16-year-old Ashley Ferrell, a sophomore who is not in the English class. “We're trying to get our minds off that kind of stuff and this is putting it in our heads.”
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