Expert: Carl Fuglein - 5/29/2009

Question
Hey everyone, my name is Ryan Kissinger and I just finished highschool. I am going to tell you a little story first so try to stay in with it , i really need help.. their are a few different scenarios leading up to one big ordeal...Last year in my 11 grade I took biology with one of the teachers at my school, it was the first year she had taught at the highschool(being promoted from the jr.high)starting off the year all she seemed to talk about was church and how she wanted all of us to go to her church , where she is a youth administator.i thought that it was fine the first few months but after a while i started to catch on, she didnt care if you went to church she wanted you to go to the church that she attended. she would always ask me to attend but i never went. I failed biology that year.CONT..>>12 grade>>  I was taking an Earthscience class in my 12 year, and the teacher was the same as the year before..  I never attended the church she went to, but my sister goes regularly to the same one she does.. shes also in the earthscience class with me.  She is two years younger than me so shes just getting into the whole highschool drama.  She is a very good girl except when she wanted to skip school with me in the mornings.You see..in my school if you are tardy over three times you get In school suspention, so if me and my sister even thought we were going to be late we wouldnt show up to her class just because we didnt want to get iss..And knowing us we were late a lot..  One day in earthscience class, the teacher calls my sisters name out and asks why she hasnt been coming to class in the mornings.  (We both had her first period so we both thought that we would go eat first period and just show up second period.along with the fact that we would get ISS if we were tardy..  no big deal).My sister replied, ' I dont know I just havent been waking up on time".. the teacher says in front of the whole class"I think that your brother is causing you to miss this class and you shouldnt spend so much time with him'(reffering to me)....Shocked,! me and my sister just looked at eachother in amazement that she just said that.and me and my sis were very close..Often when my sister would miss a day of church, the teacher would call her back into the science lab alone and ask her why she missed church...this is a public school where religion is not supposed to be pressured by teachers.AT ALL..but this teacher seems to do it a lot..At the end of first semester( with a lot of absences in her class) I felt confident that I was going to pass her class.  Come the end of second semester and I started to worry about just her class because i needed all my classes to graduate. But she didnt seem to want to help me at all with giving me any of my makeup work.  She had been helping all of the other seniors in that class make up all of their work.  But not me.After asking repeatedly. still no make up work, but all the other seniors(who have missed the same if not more days than i had)Got to make up all their work.  The day comes to when we have our second semester exam which counts huge on your over all average....Four days prior to when the exam was.. we were given the huge study guide for the exam which had about 150 questions on it.. ..me and my mom stayed up every night working on the sheats which were very difficult and even google didnt know half of them.. and this is suppose to be a 10th grade class...After studying and studying i was probobly the most confident i had ever been on a test.. I went in the class. took the test and came out very confident about it..their were 100 questions on it..each question counts off 1 point.. i thought that i had missed a TOTAL of 5 questions..I WAS THAT CONFIDENT.. and it takes a lot to make me confident about something.. walking out of the class room i left knowing that i aced the test and was going to pass the class and graduate with my class the following week.....A few days later I show up to school to finish my last exam , when i get finished with it I go to the earth science teacher and ask her how i did on my exam.. She tells me that i failed,  in the rudest voice..Im standing at the door looking at her sitting at her desk and i tell her that I know I didnt do bad on it..I said I want a copy of my Test and  my study guide.. she refuses...I go home enraged..telling my parents they were very upset thinking that this is the only teacher that is going to stand in the way of me graduating... My mom says"im going to call the school and talk to her tommorrow.."... the next day Mom calls and calls asking to talk to the teacher...she doesnt call back..I had to go to the school that day and give some work to another teacher..while i was their I decided to go to the earth science teacher and tell her that my mom has been trying to contact her.. I stand in the doorway and tell her politely that "my mom has been trying to call you , and you need to call her soon" The teacher replies very very angrily"I will deal with you monday",, I told her that i did not have until Monday because thats the day when all seniors grades are final and I needed to makeup the work that she refused to give me or i would fail her class...  Leaving the room enraged I get half way down the hall and turn around wanting to ask her about some zeros she put on my progress report that made no sense what so ever..Im almost back to her room and i see her getting on the phone with the office and she is calling the principle...She angrily tells me to follow her..I told her that I am not signed into school right now so i am NOT going to the office.IM GOING HOME..following her down the hall. she thinks im following her to the office but as soon as we make it down the stairs she walks to the office and i head out the doors headed to my truck... On my way home, i call my mom and tell her what has happened... enraged my mom calls the school and says she wants to talk to the principle..the principle sets up an appointment that day after school ends..i drive my mom to the school and she walks in(just her).. theirs an office that is made of glass and i see all of them go in their from where i was parked.. I see the principle waving me to come in.. Mad i walk in the school, through the office, to the room with glass walls.. The earthscience teacher. principle, my mom, the vice principle and me were all in their..The principle has only been at the school for two years so hes very new.. and he is very into the religion and school thing, being very involved with the FCA which the earth science teacher is all over.All the teachers at my school dislike the new principle except the earthscience one because he funds the FCA with A LOT of stuff.which makes her very happy and . the principle is very rude to me and my mom.. and he tells me that we cannot have a copy my semester exam.Which i ended up making a 64 on.. 1 point away from passing.. this is the test that i was so confident on and thought that i had maybe missed 5 questions...not 36!!! My mom knew that I knew all the material on the test because she helped me study for four days!! After we found out what i made on the test the teacher says that i failed her class and that i am not going to graduate...I was soooo mad...beacuse here are seniors in the same class.. same predicimate, and she passes them but not me.. I knew for a while that she had a grudge against me because she thinks thinks that i was the reason for my sister missing so much church..but whats she doesnt know is that she is the reason beacuse she is in everyones business...she whants to know everything that goes on with the kids in her church and tries to get into their personal lives..such as my sisters...This meeting takes place on a friday.. my graduation is on the following thursday..6 days.. the principle tells me that their is a credit recover program that i take for 4 days, 3 hours a day and do some work, and i can get the credit for the class when im done, and get my diploma...I tell him that i want to start the following monday, giving me time to get done and be able to walk with my class at graduation that thursday.MONDAY comes and we call the school and want to start the program but the principle never answers,, tuesday comes around and I find out that I they are not going to let me walk with my class and that i have to start the Credit Recovery Class the monday after graduation. I had my cap and gown at home. and i had to return it to the school.  I did not get to talk at my graduation. I did attend and all the teachers were wondering why I was not walking with my class.I was on the list of students on the paper handed out at graduation.. I was in the local paper to be one of the graduating students.. but yet i was not able to have the ceremonial honor of walking with my classmates at our graduation..I feel like me not being able to walk at my graduation was a punishment from the teacher herself because she didnt want to see me overcome all of the obsticles she threw at me to obtain the very thing she wanted most...to see me standing on the sidelines watching my class graduate..I am currently on my last day of the Credit recover class.. a week after graduation..I am the only kid in the school doing any work.. I am in their with another teacher. the only other people in their are the people working on cleaning for the next year..I will recieve my highschool diploma tomm.  I still want to fight it but I dont know where to start..If you have took the time to read this then I am very grateful.  I should also say that about four years ago my house burned, and moving closer to my highschool , we were very far away from the church i grew up in. it wasnt as easy for me as it was for my sister to find a new church.  I am a strong christain and worship God in my own ways. I am a true believer in the Bible and what it says.  I need to know if what this teacher has done to me is wrong and what i need to do about it.. i need to fight it..my sister tells me that she is driving all of the kids away from the youth because she is trying to get into their personal lives in school.  She also has convinced the church that the new youth pastor who all the kids love, is the reason for all the kids not coming to church. They went from having 60 kids to about 15.. and from what my sister tells me its not the youth pastor. its the teacher. and now she has convinced the church to basically fire the youth pastor.. what do I need to do

Answer
Hi Ryan,

Well, first off, I'm very sorry that you didn't get to walk with your class.  Graduations are very important to me; I think they're a like a lifetime achievement award for your life to date.

What should you do?  There's not a whole lot you can do now.  You should have take action when you were still in high school.  Refusal of the principal to show you your test is unconscionable; he doesn't have to give it to you, but at the least he should have shown it to you.

What the teacher (and apparently the principal) is doing is against the law.  She should not even be talking about her religion, much less promoting it in the way that she is.  I would say the first step is to complain to the principal, but since he is involved, you may have to go to the school board.  If you get no satisfaction there, then the next step is a lawsuit which is very expensive and probably wouldn't get you much satisfaction.  You would need to talk to a lawyer and see what your options are.  You would need witnesses other than you and your sister, and they may be reluctant to talk.  It's possible that the ACLU might take the case pro bono.  I'd certainly give them a call to find out.

As for the church firing the youth pastor, since you are not a member of that church, there is virtually nothing you can do.

Hope this helps,

Carl