Melissa Bowerman

Too bad, a lapse in judgement, but sounds harmless?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/05/21/national/a111953D65.DTL&tsp=1

Hmm...does sound harmless to me. Given her relationship with the kid and permission from his father, termination seems drastic.

Lack of judgement at least. How does a 41 years old accompanying the boy to the prom make the boy look any better?

Suck it up, boy. Mark Zuckerberg didn't do well at his prom either.

She was a lot closer in age to her prom date than her husband! She's 41 and her husband is 73 so she's used to big age differences!

This is what happens when you try to do something kind.

Having the parent's permission should have been enough.

Bad bad choice on her part. If this was some no name guy taking a girl to prom it would be looked at differently. I'm sure this causes quite a distraction also for the school. I can totally understand them letting her go.

Prime example of how ridiculous things are these days. Get over it. She was being nice.

Dave-O wrote:Hmm...does sound harmless to me. Given her relationship with the kid and permission from his father, termination seems drastic.

Agree.

Jerry wrote:Lack of judgement at least. How does a 41 years old accompanying the boy to the prom make the boy look any better?

Suck it up, boy. Mark Zuckerberg didn't do well at his prom either.

I agree with Jerry!

Jerry wrote:...How does a 41 years old accompanying the boy to the prom make the boy look any better?

It doesn't, but it was probably the only way the diffident boy would go to the prom at all. Good decision for the boy. Good example of a kindness for people to follow. Bad decision for herself in a paranoid society, but surely she had a right to expect anything so open and obviously free of impropriety would be accepted for the gracious act it was. Honi soit qui mal y pense.

Bob wrote:Bad bad choice on her part. If this was some no name guy taking a girl to prom it would be looked at differently. I'm sure this causes quite a distraction also for the school. I can totally understand them letting her go.

Do you really think that would be the case, Bob? I mean, you're clser to the situation than I am, would it not draw criticism if the gender roles were reversed?

I would have thought it would still draw the same response. It was a chaperone (read: another parent) that raised the objections, I would think those same objections would be voiced if some "lech" was slow dancing with a teenaged girl.

I dunno. Usually teachers/parents/coaches volunteer to chaperone the prom not "take a date"; however, it does seem harmless and most likely just a lapse in judgement when trying to help an otherwise outsider kid.

There is a perception of preferential treatment. This is a track coach AND the DIL of Bill Bowerman. The kid was on the track team. It communicates a kind of closeness that could be viewed as preferential and that's always a potential issue with the other kids and families.

I suspect that there is more going on that lead to termination of employment. If the administration felt she was a superstar coach and faculty member I think that they would have made more of an attempt to diffuse the situation. I read this as (potentially) a situation where they had someone on staff that perhaps that weren't terribly happy with anyway, and she gave them a reason to pull the trigger.

Of course, I could be wrong.

I suspect that the perception is less about preferential treatment for an athlete and more about the fear of an inappropriate relationship between an adult in a position of authority and a child. I am not suggesting that there's anything untoward happening here, but I've edited enough stories about middle-aged coaches getting into sexual relationships with teenage students — and subsequently getting arrested — that I can easily see school administrators in this case freaking out and showing her the door.

Mark B wrote:I suspect that the perception is less about preferential treatment for an athlete and more about the fear of an inappropriate relationship between an adult in a position of authority and a child.

However, if there were an inappropriate relationship the adult faculty member certainly would not likely take the student to the prom. Her husband knew, as did the student's father. I don't think it was about an inappropriate relationship, or even the perception of one. Nothing was being hidden and there's no evidence of any other issue. But, who knows? Maybe that's it.

I still think that if she were someone they wanted to retain, the administration would have tried to diffuse the situation. These things do blow over. Maybe.

My guess is that the extension of a presumption of innocence in the eyes of the observers was hard-pressed to begin with, and then dropped further among said observers when they slow danced together. That put things "front and center' and probably became a distraction from the event.

What's the quote? "Dancing is the vertical expression of horizontal desire?"

Interesting...all the public schools where I grew up had a rule that you couldn't bring a date to any dance who was 25 or older. I always thought it was silly, but I guess it could have prevented situations like this.

Martin VW wrote:

Bob wrote:Bad bad choice on her part. If this was some no name guy taking a girl to prom it would be looked at differently. I'm sure this causes quite a distraction also for the school. I can totally understand them letting her go.

Do you really think that would be the case, Bob? I mean, you're clser to the situation than I am, would it not draw criticism if the gender roles were reversed?

I would have thought it would still draw the same response. It was a chaperone (read: another parent) that raised the objections, I would think those same objections would be voiced if some "lech" was slow dancing with a teenaged girl.

I think my explanation was bad, what I was trying to say was exactly what you said. If it was an older man with a younger girl, I would guess the reaction by many would have been much worse.

Mark pretty much summed up what I was trying to say while typing on my phone. There has become, in our current culture, whether deserved or not, a real issue and fine line when it comes to teacher/coach/student "relationships". In this case, I think a what makes this story interesting and to some excusable is the name of the coach. And personally, even though I think it was wrong for her to go, no matter if the parents were aware or not, it was the slow dancing that did her in. Totally wrong. Totally inappropriate.

I've been reading y'alls comments. I dunno. I'm kinda in the middle of all this. but to be honest, kinda creepy in a strange way

Bob wrote:

Martin VW wrote:

Bob wrote:Bad bad choice on her part. If this was some no name guy taking a girl to prom it would be looked at differently. I'm sure this causes quite a distraction also for the school. I can totally understand them letting her go.

Do you really think that would be the case, Bob? I mean, you're clser to the situation than I am, would it not draw criticism if the gender roles were reversed?

I would have thought it would still draw the same response. It was a chaperone (read: another parent) that raised the objections, I would think those same objections would be voiced if some "lech" was slow dancing with a teenaged girl.

I think my explanation was bad, what I was trying to say was exactly what you said. If it was an older man with a younger girl, I would guess the reaction by many would have been much worse.

Mark pretty much summed up what I was trying to say while typing on my phone. There has become, in our current culture, whether deserved or not, a real issue and fine line when it comes to teacher/coach/student "relationships". In this case, I think a what makes this story interesting and to some excusable is the name of the coach. And personally, even though I think it was wrong for her to go, no matter if the parents were aware or not, it was the slow dancing that did her in. Totally wrong. Totally inappropriate.

OK, thanks, I can see now how it could be read either way.

Here in the northeast at least, the gender issue probably isn't any different young girl/older guy or young boy/older woman. I'd say if anything, they react more in local media to "cougaring." At least I see it on the morning news more often.