With just days before his fellow seniors walk across the stage to receive their diplomas, senior Jake Zimmerman .
Despite the Paulding County School Board’s decision last month to , a preliminary injunction issued Thursday from U.S. District Judge Harold Murphy in Rome will allow the senior to take part in commencement exercises, set for May 26 at 10 a.m. at the high school.
Zimmerman had been following . His original punishment, which he says was also levied against others involved in vandalism of the school and nearby roadway, included 10 days of out-of-school suspension followed by long-term suspension for the rest of the year, the latter of which is carried out by . But that punishment package would still allow those involved to graduate from East Paulding and participate at graduation ceremonies.
Zimmerman and his family appealed the punishment, and the school board at its April 10 meeting answered the appeal by levying the additional stipulations after returning from a closed session that lasted nearly four hours.
“The ruling of the court [Thursday] was that Jake had a constitutional right to appeal to the school board, had a right to speak with the media as he freely did in the time between his initial tribunal and the time of the school board hearing,” said attorney Lester Tate, who is representing Zimmerman. “And the actions taken by school board in upping the penalty when they had no basis to do so was retaliatory and violated Jake’s First Amendment rights.”
Paulding County Schools Associate Superintendent Brian Otott said district officials as of Thursday afternoon had not received a copy of the official ruling from the court, but said the school system intends to follow the judge’s order.
“The district believes the decision to not allow Mr. Zimmerman to participate in the ceremony should be made by the local board,” Otott said. “However, the district respects Judge Murphy’s rulings and will certainly honor it, and the district hopes all parties will do everything in their power to make the graduation ceremony a positive event for all seniors and their families.”
saw school buildings spray-painted to include windows; some perpetrators also made it onto the school’s roof, which was also painted. Some of the paintings across the campus, in addition to “Senior” and “2012,” also included the text “YOLO” and “Musgrove is a [expletive]”—the latter message seemingly targeting Assistant Principal Greg Musgrove. In all, school district officials said clean-up of the damage to East Paulding High .
Neither Zimmerman nor Tate deny Zimmerman’s involvement in the vandalism, but both say his role in it was limited to spray-painting the intersection in front of the school—a long-time tradition for the school’s senior classes, they say.
Zimmerman, like the 23 other teens arrested and initially charged with criminal interference with government property for their role in the vandalism, accepted the deal offered last month by Paulding County District Attorney Dick Donovan to enter a pre-trial diversion program in lieu of facing prosecution. That deal has the teens each performing 400 hours of community service and altogether paying the Paulding County School System’s clean-up costs, which . Each teen is also set to pay $720 in fees—a $300 administration fee to the county and $420 to cover 12 months of pre-trial diversion expenses.
“His parents told me today that all Jake does is study and go try to get his community service hours done,” Tate said. “Jake always felt like he was willing to accept responsibility—it was the proportionality of the penalty imposed on him and him being a relatively minor player [in the vandalism]”, “and we still feel that he’d have a great case.”
Zimmerman, president of his senior class, was on pace to be valedictorian before the March 11 incident. Tate says the student remains in contention for the honor despite being taken out of his classes as part of the punishment.
“Although Jake was fearful about his grades, he reports to me that he’s done better than expected, that his grades have actually gone up. He’s still competitive to be the valedictorian, but we’ll have to see how that comes out with the final numbers,” he said. “Certainly, we wish that he had continued to get instruction in [his Advanced Placement] courses … and he wasn’t able to get that in the alternative school. But you’re talking about an extremely bright kid who has excelled academically for his whole life, and I think Jake has been able to step up to the plate and do as well as you can expect for anybody in that situation.
“We’ll just have to wait and see if that’s enough.”
In the meantime, Tate says he is looking to attending the graduation ceremony to see Zimmerman receive his diploma.
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Behold your elected officials. Merciless bureaucrats who sought retribution on a teenager who dared defy them, imposing a harsher sentence on a teen who truthfully admitted to a lesser role in a crime that other co-conconspirators received a lesser punishment for executing. What should taxpayers think of the board's general counsel, who led the county straight into a reversal of the board's decision? Worth the salary? This is why the courts are there--to help the stupid--not just the teen, but the adults who have lost sight of what it is to be a kid, what it is to follow the Constitution, and how to (if the every knew) to shape young lives. This is why courts exist, to save us from minor politicians with too much power over our lives and too little sense to wield it. Congrats, school board.
And personally I think the 400 hours of community service was excessive as well. By the time these 23 kids get done with 400 hours of service each, they will have performed almost 10 times the $8000 clean up costs, if you assume minimum wage for their work. And that doesn't even consider the various fines and such that they have had to pay. I'm a law and order kind of guy, but it sometimes seems to me that common sense has gone out the window in this county when it comes to the issue of deciding reasonable punishments for childhood pranks like this. Maybe it is time for some new faces on this elected body?
So I don't think the other 22 students were ever barred from participating in graduation in the first place. I could be wrong, but that is what I understand from the news stories I have read.
So then think about the actual punishment they received.. In addition to the fines and fees, which more than covered the cost of the clean up, they got an additional 400 hours of service time. That is two and a half months of full time labor at 40 hours a week! That is way overboard, in my opinion. All this student did was ask the board to reconsider that decision. He has a right to make that request.
http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2012/05/17/judge-shows-more-mercy-on-accused-east-paulding-high-vandal-than-school-board/?cxntfid=blogs_get_schooled_blog http://www.therightsphere.com/2012/05/federal-judge-smacks-down-vindictive-school-board/
I'm loving your posts. My guess is that the family will probably let it die. They sought injunctive relief and got it. The school wisely said it would follow the order and I figure that damages would be hard to prove. He already had access to the media, so they didn't "chill" his speech. And, his right to education was still being met, albeit poorly as one can imagine, in alternative school. They'll probably want to focus more on getting the lad to Tech. It's up to the voters to figure out what to do with most of the board members and the attorney (Cable, is it?) who signed off on the decision to bully a high school kid.
The real point of this legal action, and the reason I'm glad the judge ruled the way that they did, is that this School Board decided to heap additional punishments on to one student simply because he spoke about the topic in public and he appealed to the board to consider whether he was treated fairly or not. He is guaranteed by the US Constitution the right to do both of these things, and the School Board tried to silence him and intimidate the other students by giving him additional punishment (on top of what all the other students got) simply for speaking about the issue in public and addressing them in the board meeting. If you don't have a problem with that then I'd recommend you get yourself a pocket copy of the Constitution from Cato.org and give it a quick read.
I can see why the family would just let it ride at this point. They have gotten the relief they sought and the rest of the issues will work itself out when he's off and gone to college. I hope the School Board has learned a valuable lesson from this experience. I won't hold my breath. And you're correct in criticising the board's general counsel. Anyone with a basic understanding of the First Amendment should have seen this outcome coming from a mile away.