Just so we are clear on this point - the tape that these staff members have been putting over kids' mouths, self-reportedly for years, is VINYL FLOOR MARKING TAPE. It is meant to adhere to gym floors. It likely has a rubber-based PSA adhesive on the back. "These adhesives are a common choice for floor marking tape due to their strong initial stickiness and ability to bond well to many surfaces." This is a photo of the back of the very tape that was used. These aren't stock photos. The tape photos shown insofar have been submitted by involved families.
As is common most times people get called out for their poor behavior, there have been and will continue to be a barrage of sideways comments full of sentiments of sympathy for the accused parties.
Excuse me.
Do you see this tape?
Do you see it?
If not purposefully injurious, if not neglectfully abusive - at the very, very bare minimum least (like seriously the lightest level at which we are willing to entertain intentions), an adult who does not understand why putting this over children's airways is a huge problem is dangerously incompetent.
Especially for someone who we are paying to employ to teach our children Physical Education.
PHYSICAL. EDUCATION.
No one is overreacting.
This is outrageous and the fact this has been going on unaddressed for years - and now, after being allowed to happen for years, the QPS School Board feels like it's finally time to address it, and their response is, "Well it happened for years but it's over now so that should be good enough and the victims and their parents should actually be the ones who feel shame for saying hurtful things about those poor, poor full-grown adults..." Does anyone need help with why we don't "respect and support" that position?
Look, being an educator can be a difficult profession. It can legitimately be a stressful calling. We respect educators who respect students and their families. But respect is a two-way street. No one should think they deserve respect from people who they are not respecting.
We need our schools to be respectful environments.
And hopefully we can get there, but any continuance of acting like it's "no big deal" or "a fun game" to flagrantly disregard respect for students' physical and psychological well-beings has to stop.
We will trust our schools when they show us they are worth trusting.
THANK YOU for supporting the students involved and our community as we stand to seek better justice for those who have been literally silenced with gym floor tape, the fellow staff members whose integrity is being harmed by the actions and excuses of a select number of co-workers and administrators, the parents who have been speaking out against these specific known situations for years already at the point, all survivors and current victims of abuse and violence for whom these acts can be permanently psychologically damaging, and our entire community of reasonable and validly-concerned people who cannot understand or believe how horrendously mismanaged these situations have been insofar.
There's not enough gym floor tape in the entirety of Quincy Public Schools IL-District 172 to silence us all.
It's disgusting feeling like they would if they could.
#RespectKids
#SilenceIsViolence
#TellSomebody
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