(no subject)

[choneychurch]

This is a notification for all students regarding a change in rule enforcement.

This year, there has been a significant amount of antagonizing, harassing, and bullying through the journal system. Many prefects have intervened during these incidents or attempted to stop situations from escalating; I'm immensely grateful for that. But prefects can't be expected to constantly monitor the journals and these efforts haven't put a stop to the problem. Effective immediately: Maggie and I will be giving detention for bullying behavior on the journals. While other prefects may continue to be involved at their discretion, the lack of prefect involvement won't prevent anyone from being punished and we won't be giving out warnings. This is your warning. So please consider both the impact and the consequences of your actions.

For anyone that needs clarification, this means any comments made with the intention of hurting another student, comments made with blatant disregard for the feelings of another student, or comments which contain unwanted or aggressive language toward another student.

For example:

• Making threats, physical or otherwise.
• Calling someone derogatory names or slurs or using hate speech of any kind.
• Mocking or belittling the feelings, experiences, or opinions of other students.
• Making sexual comments or innuendoes that aren't wanted. This includes drawing lewd images in other students' journals.
• Spreading rumors or gossiping about other students.

These are just some examples, but if you are willfully antagonizing another student in an unwanted way and you don't stop when it becomes clear that they want you to stop, you will receive detention. We do understand that we all have different standards and different sensibilities, so if a situation genuinely seems to be unintentional or if those involved stop before the situation escalates, that will be taken into consideration. This consideration, however, will not be given to repeat offenders and people that have been talked to by prefects on multiple occasions about this type of behavior. I think most of us know when we're making someone uncomfortable or when we're hurting someone and that's something that we all have to take responsibility for.

Detentions will be scheduled in two-hour blocks on Saturdays and Sundays and will be overseen by me, Maggie, or a staff member. We've been given permission to assign multiple detentions per week to a student with multiple offenses or serious offenses and to keep students out of activities like dances, camping trips, Quidditch practice, and Quidditch matches if we deem it necessary. I hope that it never comes to that, but that's up to all of you. I'll be posting a full list of detentions every Friday so everyone knows where they are expected to be, when they are expected to be there, what they will be doing, and why they will be doing it. If your name appears on this list and you believe that we've judged a situation unfairly or incorrectly, tell me or Maggie and we can discuss what happened. If we can't come to a resolution that way, we can discuss the situation with the Heads of House. All of the Heads have been notified that this change is occurring and will make time for discussions as needed.

We'll be keeping up with the journals as well as we can, but anyone is welcome to contact us regarding specific incidents or to contact us regarding messages that have been privately warded. We'll have to see the content of warded messages to be able to act, because we don't want to let anyone use these rules against other people, but I promise that anything told to us or shown to us won't go any farther.

I realize that this will seem unfair or unreasonable to some of you, but please keep in mind that we're not asking for all of you to be friends or for all of you to get along. We're just asking you to treat each other with respect and empathy and to treat your peers as you would want to be treated or as you would want the people that you care about to be treated. And I hope you all understand that we're not doing this because we want to; we're doing this because nothing else has worked and we don't know how else to improve the situation. I suppose that's all I can say.

If anyone has questions, please let us know.

[Warded to Levi]

[...]

I know we already discussed this. And that it isn't a surprise. But I hope we're all ri

Hopefully this will go better than I'm anticipating, but

Can I see you later? Before you go to Astronomy tonight? [...] Nothing serious. It'd just be nice, that's all.

Comments

[firstposition.insanejournal.com]

You have my full support, Cecil, as both a friend and colleague.

[...]

[Cecil]

Thank you.

I have been worrying that when I step in, sometimes it makes things worse. I will still do it, someone needs to, but if it happened less I would be happy.

[choneychurch]

Thank you, Rafael. I appreciate that.

[Rafael]

You're welcome. But [...] we should have done it sooner. I know that you've been in a difficult situation. I hope this helps.

Cecil - in which you can't escape my characters.

[indiefolk]

Are you gonna be okay?

Diego & Cecil

[choneychurch]

[...]

I'm all right, Diego. But, after last week, Maggie and I just couldn't let this continue. Hopefully, knowing that we're serious will be enough to make people pause and consider before going after someone else like that. If not. Well. I suppose we've got a plan now, at least.

[bambae]

Awesome.

[quinning]

Chris & Levi

[gdilevi]

Andddd this was the announcement I was talking about.

[knightly]

It's a good plan. Thank you, Cecil. I know you and Maggie have excellent judgement. Please let me know if I can ever help.

[choneychurch]

Thank you, Ravi. We will.

Maggie and I value your insights, so please let us know if you have thoughts about any of this going forward.

Cecil & Levi

[gdilevi]

Does your hand hurt from writing all that? I'll kiss it better.

[...]

It's okay to give me detention, you know. I know how I am. I won't be upset or anything.

Cecil & Levi

[choneychurch]

A little. That would be nice.

[...]

I will be. I don't want it to come to that, Levi. I really don't. But this is my responsibility.

Cecil

[addytives]

Hiiii sorry to make a big entry busier. But. I doubt this one was the easiest.
So please know that I think this was wonderfully said, and the right decision TOTALLY. And you will have my support and HEY! Now you can have my prefecty eyes watching out for danger too.

So ♥

Addy|Cecil

[choneychurch]

No need to apologize, Addy. I really appreciate your support. And your prefecty eyes, of course. ♥

[...]

It's been more well-received than I'd expected, honestly. Hopefully, it'll stay that way.

Cecil

[valentinez.insanejournal.com]

There's nothing unfair or unreasonable about asking people to treat others with decency. x

I think this is a good thing, even if it's maybe difficult. Thank you.

Zoey|Cecil

[choneychurch]

No. I didn't think so either.

Thank you, Zoey. That's nice to hear.

[quinning]

YES! It's about damn time Do you need an enforcer? It's like Christmas—no, it's like the Leafs won the Cup.

Another vote here for "complete support." This went on for far too

[Cecil & Maggie]
Thank you.

CMQ

[momblogger]

Threatening Quidditch always works wonders, doesn't it?

[ninjaleo]

Finally

Thank you. You have regular citizens supporting this too. If it ever becomes a concern for my team, let me know, I'll help make the consequences stick.

[choneychurch]

Thank you, Leo. Hopefully, it won't come to that, but we appreciate your support.

[cygninae]

Good.

I don't like when people are like that.

[choneychurch]

I don't like it either, Reid. I hope this helps to change things.

[get_fucked]

I sincerely hope this goes for everyone.

[choneychurch]

It does, Penny.

[professionalcorpse]

just for, like, clarification purposes - are people going to know that they're getting detentions beforehand, or is friday going to be SURPRISE, cancel your plans, you're going to be writing lines day?

not, y'know, in any way disagreeing with the decision. or trying to be a pain in the ass. bullying is TOTALLY not cool in any way, shape, or form. just asking?

[bambae]

Aren't you a prefect?

Are you expecting to get surprise detentions?

Chris | Cecil

[bambae]

Of my own volition and not because your best friend threw emotions at me

I know this took a lot of effort, Cecil. I know you don't like actually punishing any of us even though we're all assholes and deserve it. So I'm proud of you for writing this massive novel to us.

Chris | Cecil

[choneychurch]

Thank you, Chris. I don't like having to do things like this. This was the easy part, though; following through will be difficult. But I think it's important.

[...]

Levi told me that you've both been trying to avoid conflict on the journals. I really appreciate that.

And I'm sorry. About what happened with Mr. Thorn.

[nothalfplaid]

How to you know another person's intent?

Other than legilimency.

[choneychurch]

Sometimes words and actions speak for themselves, Fern. But, like I said above, we'll be taking more than just intent into consideration. This isn't a perfect system, but Maggie and I will do our best to be fair and objective in our assessments. If anyone disagrees with our judgement, we're more than willing to discuss our decisions with the impacted parties and with the Heads of House.

[orangepip]

Detention doesn't always stop bullies, though.

Pippa & Maggie

[momblogger]

Pippa?

[noblewon]

You've got my support, Cecil.