Student asking for a snow day snowballs into something bigger
 

Snow days, kids and school officials have always been a delicate mix.

But a phone call to a Fairfax County public school administrator's home last week about a snow day -- or lack of one -- has taken on a life of its own. Through the ubiquity of Facebook and YouTube, the call has become a rallying cry for students' First Amendment rights, and it shows that the generation gap has become a technological chasm.

It started with Thursday's snowfall, estimated at about three inches near Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke. On his lunch break, Lake Braddock senior Devraj "Dave" S. Kori, 17, used a listed home phone number to call Dean Tistadt, chief operating officer for the county system, to ask why he had not closed the schools. Kori left his name and phone number and got a message later in the day from Tistadt's wife.

"How dare you call us at home! If you have a problem with going to school, you do not call somebody's house and complain about it," Candy Tistadt's minute-long message began. At one point, she uttered the phrase "snotty-nosed little brats," and near the end, she said, "Get over it, kid, and go to school!"

Not so long ago, that might have been the end of it -- a few choice words by an agitated administrator (or spouse). But with the frenetic pace of students' online networking, it's harder for grown-ups to have the last word. Kori's call and Tistadt's response sparked online debate among area students about whether the student's actions constituted harassment and whether the response was warranted.

Kori took Tistadt's message, left on his cellphone, and posted an audio link on a Facebook page he had created after he got home from school called "Let them know what you think about schools not being cancelled." The Web page listed Dean Tistadt's work and home numbers.

The Tistadts received dozens more calls that day and night, Dean Tistadt said. Most were hang-ups, but at one point, they were coming every five minutes -- one at 4 a.m., he said. At the same time, his wife's response was spreading through cyberspace.

Within a day, hundreds of people had listened to her message, which was also posted on YouTube. A friend of Kori's sent it to a local television news station, and it was aired on the nightly news program. As of yesterday, more than 9,000 people had clicked on the YouTube link. Hundreds of comments had been posted on the Facebook and YouTube pages, largely about what constitutes proper and polite requests for public information from students.

One Oakton High School student said in a posting yesterday that the crank calls to the Tistadts' home were out of line but that Kori's call was appropriate. "I am not happy that [Dean Tistadt] gambled multiple times with our safety just so we might have a bit more knowledge crammed in our heads at school," he wrote.

A Westfield High School student agreed: "thank God someone stood up for us at last!"


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...isrc=rss_metro

and you all should hear the message...hehehehe..I am curious to hear the message that was left at the home that caused this woman to go off the way she did.

^^^All this over 3 in. of snow? Come on, kids, you're tougher than that. Can't even make a decent snowman with that little snow...

We had to be dayum near knee deep before they considered even sending us late....but that was 20 some years ago...hehe....these kids today...if it gets cloudy enough they close'em down!

Oddly enough in this area we haven't gotten a lot of snow (maybe 3inches TOTAL all WINTER) thus they haven't closed school so I think this lil pissant was so used to every winter getting at least 3 to 5 snow days a year felt......entitled.....

They played the message on the radio down here in Hampton Roads, VA this morning.

I can understand both sides, but hopefully the official's spouse is now getting some um "media training."

Course after all the accidents due to black ice in Va Beach earlier this week and the miscommunication with school delays, etc it's more about overall safety esp with buses even with a small amount of snow.

That's fine...but what happened to calling him AT WORK?

and then because you didn't like the response you are going to display the number so others can join in your juvenile fun (well he is a teen after all)


I would curse you out if you called my house too!!

3.9 GPA?

Sonny is your homework done??

Many, many local opinions on this matter

http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/fo...d/2/70071.html

Ok....but then check this...if there was an issue on if the school was going to be opened or closed...he should have requested his parents to handle it....

again...the initial call is what's missing.

First off calling to question/complain at the official's home number crosses the line and I completely agree with the spouse's reply "Get over it, kid, and go to school!" - whiny little brat complaining because he didn't get to stay home because of 3 inches of snow?!?

"Any call to a public servant's house is harassment" says the school's spokesperson, in the article.

I'm not sure if I agree with THAT... maybe it is impolite and best not done, but one phone call does not always equal "harassment."

I just found a new link for the phone message, too (the one in the article has since been "removed by its owner"): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIGtf_ula8k

Hijack!
 

I live in Hampton Roads also. Sent you a PM.

Apparently the student had tried to contact the administrator for weeks at official numbers, to no avail.

The guy's a public official with a listed phone number - he doesn't stop being a public official at the threshold to his home, nor does a daytime phone call affect his privacy.

The kid was taking a role in his own education and questioning a decision that affects him - there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, regardless of the amount of snow. While this issue isn't exactly Tinker v. Board of Education, we should still applaud the kid rather than deriding him as a "whiner," especially given the fact that he has shown no iconoclastic or anti-authority tendencies at all that we know of - kid's not a troublemaker, by all descriptions. By turn, don't you think the woman would have said things a little differently had she known it would be on the news?

There's no need to call the kid a "whiner" - it just makes you sound like Old Man Cooper, who rode uphill both ways through high water, sub-zero temperatures, broken glass, the monster from Cloverfield and attempted pirate rape.

My youngest is an FCPS student. I agree with holding school last Thursday. The roads were fine at the normal release time. All afternoon and evening activities were cancelled that night and there was a (IMO, unnecessary) 2-hour delay the next morning.


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Apparently Mrs. Tistadt is a Helicopter Wife.

BTW, she is also an employee in an FCPS elementary school.

My sister called the superintendent one year when we had two feet of snow on a Sunday afternoon. She figured they would call Monday off that night and when my mom hadn't received her "teacher's call" by a certain time my sister decided to see if his number was listed. It was so she called and he told her he was just about to call it in that school was cancelled. Apparently other people had called as well. He soon got a new, unlisted number.

again....f that was an issue, he should have had his parents handling this.

and I think she would have handled it differently dependent on the initial call.

Again...ad nauseum, we heard HER message...what did he say that would have initiated the meltdown?

I don't think it was so much Kori's phone call as all the other Lake Braddock students calling as well.

Mrs. Tistadt works in a very multicultural school with a high ESOL and FRL rate. She may be able to get away with that attitude with parents and kids from that school, but not at a school with LBSS demographics.

Why do we expect kids to act mature on one hand and then go run to mommy and daddy on the other? If he'd been lewd or threatening in his message you know that he would have gotten in trouble for it. It sounds like this kid was persistent, not abusive although we may not know.

I feel you Drole...but what I was saying is he should have started with mom and dad first...have THEM make the call and let THEM handle a potentially irate person. I don't care if he is a 3.9 student or not, adults should be handling the situation...not the child.

I disagree. There's nothing inappropriate about making the initial call itself. It isn't the parents' job to handhold their teenager, and he didn't do anything wrong by calling and leaving a message with name and number.

Show me where his call was obscene, abusive, etc. and I'd agree with you. But I'm not going to assume that it was.

If I as a parent feel that it is unsafe to take/send my child to school - he is not going, no matter what the school decides. The kid should have been talking to his parents about not going to school if the concern was his safety.

That's all fine and good until a truancy keeps the kid out of his next school-sponsored activity (like the next debate competition). And some schools won't allow you to make up a test if you were truant... should he have to take a failing grade on a test?

I don't think the kid was completely in the right... but I think that women like this are the reason kids learn how to bully so well. She should have ignored the message, called his parents, called her husband at work to have him deal with it, or else made sure that her phone number was unlisted if she was that touchy.

Some people don't understand as well as others the line between work and home. I've had teacher friends talk about how many parents feel free to call them at home quite frequently. A polite, please contact me (or my husband, in this woman's case) at the office would be sufficient to get the point across.

Totally agree. Think of the "helicopter mom" threads that we all read this past fall. If we want kids to handle things themselves, it isn't a "turn 18 and everything changes" scenario. Kids have to learn gradually how to address a situation, and we can't demand that we make them wait on their parents to fight their battles one year and expect them to handle them without going back to mom and dad the next.

I'm with you on this. What did he really think he was going to accomplish exactly?

I also have to say while I'd stop short of calling one phone call at home harassment, I don't think that working for the school system makes you a public official in the sense that you should be regarded as being on call 24-7, even at home. Most school system employees in my district, often even at the administrative level, have a contract day and a contract year. I don't think it's reasonable to expect this guy to take calls at home from the public.

I saw that someone said the kid had been trying to reach him for weeks, but how would that work if it was about a snow day? Are you saying that the kids had general theoretical questions about how the man made his decisions? If that's the case, and he was brushing him off at work and wouldn't return his call or make an appointment to meet with him, then the kid should have gone above his head to his school board rep. or the media about the lack of responsiveness to his concerns.

It still doesn't make it okay to hound the guy at home. If the kid expects to be treated professionally, he should avoid taking it to the personal realm of calling at home.

(Similarly, even if a mom or dad has a legitimate question for me, I don't want to have an impromptu parent conference while I'm buying food at Kroger. I don't think I should have to have an unlisted number or shop for food out of town; I think people should just show a little respect for boundaries.)

All that said, the woman who returned the call should have A) ignored it or B) returned it politely with her husband's work number and the suggestion that he try to reach him there. There was no reason for her lapse of decorum, particularly if this was the first time he called at home.

I think you mean "unexcused" vs. "excused".
I dealt with the whole "unexcused vs. excused" thing when I was in high school and had to be absent for some horse shows. My mother called the school to arrange my absence. She was told that no, I could not be absent (I was an "A" student, btw). My mother wanted to know if she reported that I was sick if I would be considered unexcused. She was told no. So she told them that if I was absent with her permission, I would always be "sick". I never had to miss a speech tournament.
In the case of the kid in VA - again, I'm talking about if the conditions were indeed dangerous (which I understand they were not). If I have to weigh possibly losing my child by sending him out in dangerous weather or risking an absence, it's an easy choice.
And I think the wife went over the edge - but I would like to hear the first call before I decide if she is totally nuts.

I think if it's actually unsafe to go to school, then you accept the consequences for your decision as a parent. Not making up a test pales in comparison to dying in a wreck.

I'm also in a district where you just have to be present for a half day the day of an activity to participate. If it was unsafe to go to school, then it's unsafe to go to debate.

It's nice when schools have protocols that allow for people to be honest and still be able to do what they need to do, and it's a shame when the policies basically compel people to lie.

Sometimes what complicates the whole excused/unexcused thing is that in Georgia the state actually gives a list of things that can be considered "excused" for official attendance reporting. What can be worked around in most cases, though, is that an absence can be recored as officially unexcused but kids can be allowed to make up work.

Back when I was in high school, if my parents or I thought it was unsafe for me to go to school, I didn't go. My teachers knew that I didn't just cut school for fun (that often), so if I missed an assignment, I was able to make it up.

I think that kid was out of line calling the home of a school official. It's not his job to be an answering service for students. If the student REALLY didn't feel like going that day, he should have just stayed at home.

Thats my point of contention Drole...the initial call.

regardless tho...his follow up by posting the message and phone number shows that he couldn't be responsible enough to handle adult biz on his own.

An ADULT would have saved the message and contacted the school board and LET THEM handle it...not pimping youtube...that part was childish.

But yet the ADULT does NOT call the school board, Lake Braddock administration, OR the kids' parents to notify them of the problem and let them handle it.

Ahhhh....so glad I'm not a Fairfaxer anymore...

Neither does "an adult" call a kid back and whine about snot nosed brats calling and using her answering machine in the way it was intended... to take a message. It wasn't even her call to return, yet she did. Adulthood is a fickle thing.

These days everything can and does end up on the internet. I'm not sure that it's "immature" anymore or if it's simply a sign of the times. In the past he would have told everyone else what she said and it would have been nothing more than a rumor, is this really so different?

SMH

Although this student was a little out of line for calling the principal's house, adults sometimes let their "seniority" go to their heads. There is a certain way you handle certain situations and Mrs. Tistadt didn't handle the situation in a mature way. She shouldn't have even wasted her sweet time responding to the student because that student, or any student for that matter, isn't on a need-to-know basis when it comes to matters which don't concern us [speaking from my point of view as a high school student]. Sometimes students need to stay in their place and let things play out as they may. It isn't a matter of First Amendment Rights, it's a matter of respect. I can't stand the way my generation is, as soon as something is stated that "we" don't like "we" throw hissy fits and act like we've been wronged. At any rate, both child and adult were out of line and Mrs. Tistadt has ended up looking foolish for entertaining this students petty inquisitions.

well it isn't a rumor thats for sure...HAHAHA!!

Both of them should be spanked!!!

You are, seriously, one of my new favorite people, NB.

Wow. Just, wow.

Let me clarify. From what I've seen as a parent and as a college administrator is that immigrant families and the families with fewer financial resources are more reluctant to fight with a school administrator than those families who have more resources or who are US-born citizens.

I believe that many immigrants at Eagle View ES would hesitate to confront Mrs. Tistadt if she was rude to their kids or to them. She would be able to get away with a certain amount of disrespect towards the students and their parents because there would be no complaints. Now if the immigrant family was at Haycock or any other McLean/Langley feeder (which I would infer would need a certain level of income to live in those pyramids), I think it would be a different story. The kids and their parents are treated with respect at these schools and those families have no hesitation complaining about anything whatsoever that doesn't go their way.


Mrs. Tistadt overstepped her bounds and at a minimum, needs to be put on administrative leave and to enroll in anger management classes.

Return Call rehab.

I feel bad for her. She's probably tired of people thinking they have the right to access her husband 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I see how it is for my mom as a teacher. Parents with failing kids are insisting that she stay after school to tutor them. WHY? The school already offers tutoring for all students and the parents never show any interest in their own kids. My mom has the 4 of us at home and after work is done she doesn't need to deal with their brats, they (as parents) do. People love to blame and harass others with their problems nowadays. That kid should have expressed his concern to his parent. They have the authority to let him stay home. Obviously they weren't and he should have just went to school instead of calling this poor woman in her home looking for her husband like he owes every Tom, Dick, and Harry something. Like she says in her rant, he does his job. Enough is enough. There are some boundaries that should just not be crossed. Her husband wasn't even at home. She doesn't need an anger management class, she needs for people to stop treating her husband like public property and more like a human being. It seems as if he doesn't have a lot of time to spend it with her.

I had a funny and simple thought this morning how she could have handled it better.

Instead of addressing him...why didn't she call and speak to his parents directly?

When you are dealing with kids you know they are prone to doing devious things...

Sorry for cutting down your post, but I wanted to highlight this. I think that poorer or less-educated families, especially if they are New Americans, respect teachers' authority so much that they wouldn't even think of questioning a teacher's decision unless it was blaringly wrong. It's not even that the parents are reluctant to complain--it just wouldn't even come up.

Meanwhile, in an affluent school, the parents and students may see the teachers as just another service provider. Yeah, they're professionals--but so are the vast majority of the parents at the school. Just like how you'd voice your complaints about a bad plumbing job, upper middle-class American parents are more willing to complain about a teacher's actions.

FWIW, I think this woman is nutz.