I'm running out of explanations as to why the administration (assistant principals and principals) are so lenient to the disrespectful and sometimes downright criminal students.  It might be a conspiracy.

Take 'Timaya."  This student clearly decided that her friend would do a better job on her homework than she would.  However, instead of asking for the answers, evidently Timaya simply handed over the paper, at which time someone else filled in the missing responses.  How do I know, you ask?

   It's literally not even in the same pen.  The differences in handwriting are obvious, or so I thought.  Timaya so vehemently denied that this work was anything but her own, that I decided to pass on the case to an assistant principal ("Mecsage" for reference purposes).
   When Mrs. Mecsage came to my room to talk to Timaya, we all 3 went out to the hall with the evidence shown above.  Timaya held firm saying it was her own work.  Mrs. Mecsage said I could return to teaching while she spoke with Timaya. 
   When I was called back out, Mrs. Mecsage said this:
"Timaya says she did her own work, and I believe her.  If you look at it, it seems like some of the letters look the same, and the ones that look different, she says are from the fact that she was hurrying to get the assignment done. I believe she should get full credit for the assignment."
   I was so shocked I couldn't respond for a second.  After having both Timaya and Mrs. Mecsage defending the work for another few minutes, I carefully pointed out a few of the obvious discrepancies.  At this point, Timaya ran away from us crying, saying, "FINE JUST TAKE OFF THE POINTS THEN!"
    Mrs. Mecsage simply said, "Oh, I guess that means she was cheating then.  Please just take the points off of the ones she didn't do, it looks like she should get... a 72."
Me:  "It's in my syllabus that students who cheat get zeroes, and referrals."
Mecsage: "I'd recommend the 72 for her, she gets discouraged easily."
(walks away).




That story is pretty disgusting, but it's even worse when the students are engaged in something worse than cheating.  As I've mentioned before, I have received feedback on 3 of the dozen referrals I've submitted in the past 6 months.  I use the term "feedback" because there is never any punishment.  For instance, when a student screamed "You n*gger!!!" to another (black) student who was in his way, and I wrote a referral, I got the paperwork back with the note from the assistant principal (not Mecsage but equally perfunctory) saying:

Fitting, right? Here's a short list of offenses I have reported with their "punishment" or, in most cases, lack thereof:
Have you noticed all the labels are "bad stuff" lately?  Not sure I can hang on another year here.