By Kim Moore

 

Last week news had spread like wildfire about Kiera Wilmot’s expulsion, arrest and felonies for her science curiosity. Today the spotlight is on Wesley Teague.

Wesley Teague is a senior at Heights High School in Wichita, Kansas. On May 2, 2013, Wesley took to his twitter account, as many of us have done in the past, to criticize sports teams. The sports teams he criticized that day were his high schools.

“Heights U” is equivalent to WSU’s football team” – @Rolltide_Teague

This tweet resulted in Wesley’s suspension.

According to the Wichita Eagle Newspaper, the phrase, Heights U, was coined by underclassmen of the high school. WSU stands for Wichita State University a college that has not had a football program since 1986. When asked about his tweet, Wesley said, “It’s a 100 percent truthful tweet and it wasn’t meant to offend a single person or group of people. … I only meant that ‘Heights U’ doesn’t exist because it doesn’t. We’re not a university.”

The Wichita Eagle was able to gather more information about Wesley’s suspension, finding that a letter sent to Wesley and his parents from Assistant Principal Monique Arndt stated that the senior was suspended because he “acted to incite a disturbance.”

“Wesley posted some very inappropriate tweets about the Heights athletic teams, aggressively disrespecting many athletes,” the letter says. “After reading the tweets and taking statements from other students it was found that Wesley acted to incite the majority of our Heights athletes.”

The irony of Wesley allegedly having “acted to incite a disturbance” is that he is active in his high schools sports, as a member of the track team.

“Inciting disturbances” does not sound like behavior from an individual who is senior class president, and was selected by members of Heights High School faculty to deliver a speech at the senior breakfast and the convocation ceremony. Unfortunately, Wesley is now barred from both events and suspended for the remainder of his senior year.

This story begs the question; are our students being taught anymore or are they just going to school to be disciplined?

 

Email: Kim@soulrevision.org 

Twitter: @SoulRevision