Fargo debate pair punished

Teagan Lende and his debate partner, Zach Lipp, have won some big debates, but when an all-nighter to make an international competition deadline caused them to miss a day of school, their arguments fell short.

Officials at Fargo’s Shanley High School are making the pair come in from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. today — on a day off for the rest of their classmates — to make up the lost day that one parent said was called truancy.

The punishment comes despite the fact the pair had put in their marathon session to keep Shanley in the prestigious New York University International Public Policy Forum in April.

“I’ve never heard of this happening before, where students doing something of an academic endeavor of this sort, get punished,” Lende said Thursday. “It was really hard to accept. It felt unfair.”

Lipp declined to comment.

The Catholic Diocese of Fargo said in a statement Thursday that the disciplinary action was an internal matter and administrators would not be able to comment. The diocese said it would not affect the speech and debate programs.

Teagan’s mother, Nancy Lende, is unhappy with the punishment, particularly since she felt both sets of parents were up front about why the boys were kept home and followed school policy.

“We’re fighting the whole principle of the thing. It just makes no sense whatsoever,” she said.

Nancy Lende said Teagan and his debate partner had a deadline of noon on Feb. 15 to get written arguments submitted for the competition in New York. After two days of nearly non-stop work, they finished at 4 a.m. on the 15th.

She said both sets of parents had permission in advance to keep the boys out of school for Feb. 14. They then called the school and sent notes to cover the second day, she said.

In Teagan’s case, he’s often been excused from school without problem, often for school debate events, she said.

On Wednesday, Feb. 16, the youths were pulled out of class and sent to the principal’s office, Teagan Lende said.

“Instead of congratulating them, the principal (Sean Safranski) told them they would be punished,” Nancy Lende said.

When she complained about other parents pulling children out of school for other activities, she said Safranski told her those parents may have chosen to lie and use an acceptable excuse, and implied that if she had lied, it wouldn’t have been questioned.

Several attempts were made to contact Safranski, but he could not be reached Thursday.

Superintendent Deacon David Haney said Safranski did not advocate lying.

“The idea that the principal told them to lie is not true,” Haney said. “My principal did not say parents should lie.”

Haney also said the international debate event may be highly respected, but it’s not a school event.

“They are representing Shanley, but it’s not part of the traditional debate program. It’s unique, outside of it,” he said.

“It just has been a real flabbergasting event,” Nancy Lende said.

Teagan Lende and Lipp may have scored a few points in their rebuttal arguments, though.

The original punishment was to prevent them from going to the next out-of-town speech tournament. That was downgraded to the in-school punishment, Teagan Lende said.

He and Lipp will make the best of their in-school punishment, he said.

“True to form, we might work on the debate case while we’re there and just turn it into a practice,” he said.

Helmut Schmidt is a reporter at The Forum of Fargo- Moorhead, which is owned by Forum Communications Co.

Tags: news, fargo, debate, education