By Kayla Samimi
News Editor
As a result of the incident with former French teacher Timothy Hirsh and the former policy that did not allow 18-year-old students to leave campus during second office hours, several students chose to create petitions to voice their concerns. Petitions like these are ineffective because they do not directly influence any change and instead, are merely looked over by the administration.
According to Mira Costa principal Dr. Ben Dale, students have the right to create petitions to voice their opinions and any petition given to him will be looked over but if not given to him, he has no obligation to review it and with all petitions, he has no requirement to comply with its demands. Therefore, there is no benefit in creating a petition since it clearly does not guarantee any form of change.
Since the administration does not have an obligation to view and comply with any petitions, it is evident that a single petition, no matter how demanding, is simply a piece of paper with no power. The same effect a petition has could be achieved if a student directly met with the administration since they would still be able to voice their concern.
Instead of signing or creating a petition, students should attend Board of trustees meetings where they will have the opportunity to express their opinions. That way, the entire administration is guaranteed to be present.
Furthermore, when students created a petition against the former rule forbidding 18-year-old students from signing themselves out of school during second office hours, it is simply made the problem seem far larger than it was. Dale said that the administration had always intended to allow 18 year olds to leave campus but he was simply waiting until all students adjusted to the office hour schedule. For that reason, the petition did not affect the administration’s decision in the slightest bit.
Similarly, when Hirsh was released from Costa, students banded together and signed a petition in an effort to bring the French teacher back. The administration did not ever look at the petition and since the petition had little power, they did not listen to it, according to Dale. This petition was yet another ineffective document that did not impact the administration’s decisions in the slightest bit.
Several of the petitions created at Costa have not even reached the eyes of Dale. He states that although he heard rumors of the office hours petition, he never directly saw it. In addition, similar situations occurred with the Hirsh petition. Since they never reached the eyes of Dale, an individual who the petition was clearly meant to be viewed by, it can clearly be said that both these petitions were unprofitable.
Although as of now the administration does not have any obligation to comply with petitions given to them, they should still take them more seriously. For instance, once a petition reaches a certain quantity of signatures from the student body, the administration should have no choice but to revise their policy and obey the petition. That way, students can truly receive a voice from petitions they make.
In truth, petitions are ineffective in publicizing students’ opinions especially since many times, the administration never sets eyes on them. What may seem like a way to band students together in order to create a voice clearly has no authority on the administration’s judgement.
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