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Senior List

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Ladue's Senior List: Attitude Adjuster, But Not Such a Big Deal

Perpetrators resort to leaving list in editors mailbox to get the word out!

  Talk about an act of desperation? The Ladue “Senior List” got out again, and hardly anyone noticed. That's that smutty, hateful stuff juniors write about popular senior girls then distribute under the cover of darkness. I thought I had the hottest of hot news. I thought the list had just gotten out again. I called Ladue PR maven Susan Dielmann who broke my heart by telling me I was relaying some really old news. That’s what you get for being late to the rodeo. I checked some high school sources and one said: “I think I heard something about the list, but I never, ever even saw one.” What a bust. So, in an act of sheer desperation, the marauders dropped a copy in my mailbox. Trust me, Ladue students know where I live in Olivette. This is …

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Ladue Schools Reach Settlement with Feds Over 'Senior List' Controvery

After a flag regarding the offensive list circulated at Ladue High, the school district pledged to take steps to address sexual harassment in its agreement with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.

A few months after an angry parent filed a complaint with the federal government over the so-called "senior list" — an offensive student-produced list targeting Ladue High girls — the Ladue School District has pledged to take steps to stop the practice. That pledge comes in the form of an agreement between the district and the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civl Rights, which became involved in the flap after Ruth Ahlemeier, whose children attended Ladue Horton Watkins High School, filed the complaint. In the agreement, district officials said the steps ranged from counseling offended students to creating a student committee to air concerns about sexual harassment issues. The civil rights office summarized the steps outlined by …

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CreveCoeurDad

10:57 am on Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Yes, things like this NEVER happen at MICDS or JBS. Why, everyone there is a perfect lady or gentleman and an unkind word is never said.   more ›

Friday, February 8, 2013

Ladue School District Mom Takes Fight Against Bullies to State Capitol

Ruth Ahlemeier, a parent who filed a civil rights complaint about the "Senior List" at a Ladue High School, testified during a Missouri House of Representatives committee hearing in favor of an anti-bullying bill.

A local woman who launched a crusade against the so-called “Ladue Senior List” at Horton Watkins High School has taken her fight to the Missouri Capitol. Ruth Ahlemeier, a Ladue School District parent from Olivette, testified Wednesday in Jefferson City during a public hearing by the Elementary and Secondary Education Committee of the Missouri House of Representatives on HB 134. The bill is sponsored by State Representative Sue Allen, R-Town and Country, and would change the laws regarding bullying in schools and establish specific components that a district must include in its anti-bullying policy, according to information on Missouri House of Representatives website. This is the third year Allen has introduced such a bill. In Ahlemeier’s…

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

'Ladue Senior List' Civil Rights Investigation Moves Forward

Federal investigators have a list of district staff they want to interview as part of their probe.

A Ladue school spokeswoman confirms that the district has received a list of names federal civil rights investigators want to interview in connection with a probe into bullying problems at Horton Watkins High School. Ruth Ahlemeier, a district parent from Olivette, filed a complaint last fall after she felt her concerns with the so-called 'Ladue Senior List', a crude tradition which over the years has targeted students' perceived sexual and personal habits for ridicule. Ahlemeier said she had not had contact with the Office Of Civil Rights since receiving a letter in October notifying her that the agency would investigate her complaint. Susan Dielmann, a school district spokeswoman, confirmed that it had received a list of the people …

Thursday, November 1, 2012

UPDATE: Ladue to Fully Cooperate With Civil Rights Investigation

The district is not authorized to confirm or deny the receipt of the complaint.

In response to the news that the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights will launch an investigation into Ladue Horton Watkins High School’s “Senior List,” the Ladue School District released the following statement: “In accordance with procedures established by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), an organization against which an OCR complaint or investigation has been filed is not authorized to confirm or deny receipt of a complaint, nor comment on the investigation in any way.  That being said, were the Ladue School District to become a subject of an OCR complaint, the district would cooperate fully with the investigation and fulfill any requests made of the district by the OCR.  As always, the physical and emotional safety of …

flyoverland

8:57 am on Thursday, November 1, 2012

That's a great line. Like they have any choice but to cooperate. When the Feds knock on your door, you are cooperating whether you want to doesn't matter.   more ›

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Civil Rights Office to Investigate 'Senior List' Complaint Against Ladue School District

A parent filed the complaint in September over the annual obscene "senior list" circulated by students at Ladue High.

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has agreed to investigate a complaint filed over the annual "senior list" circulated at Ladue Horton Watkins High School. The list, circulated near graduation time by students for at least 10 years, names a handful of girls each year and describes them with crude, vulgar and sometimes obscene references to students' body parts, sexual habits and hygiene. A Ladue High parent, Ruth Ahlemeier, complained to the Ladue School District about the list, after hearing that it was an annual tradition among students, and after her daughter appeared on the list that was circulated on May 11. Ahlemeier, chief executive for OEM Logistics in Olivette, filed the complaint with the Office for Civil…

Scott Simon

9:13 am on Wednesday, October 31, 2012

The best possible outcome? "OCR enforces several Federal civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination in programs or activities that receive Federal funds from the Department of Education. These laws prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin, sex, disability, and on the basis of age." I see nothing in any story that suggests discimination. What was she barred from…   more ›

Friday, September 21, 2012

Ladue High 'Senior List' Prompts Civil Rights Complaint from Mom

Ruth Ahlemeier, the Ladue High mom who exposed the school's slam-list tradition, also shared the story on the Riverfront Times.

The mother of a Ladue Horton Watkins High student who sparked a controversy by revealing the 10-year "ugly tradition" of a senior "slam" list, has filed a civil rights complaint against the school. Ruth Ahlemeier, who's daughter graduated from Ladue last year and whose son is a student there now, told Patch.com her story in an article on Sept. 11. The article exposed the tradition of the "Senior List," written and distributed by students annually toward the end of the year. The list names a handful of girls and describes them with crude, vulgar and sometimes obscene references to students' body parts, sexual habits and hygiene. In her complaint, filed Wednesday with the Kansas City Office for Civil Rights, Ahlemeier says: "When a girl …

Ladue Parent of six

9:12 pm on Friday, September 21, 2012

It sounds as if the administration works for the parents. How can you possibly be in this century and tell crying young ladies to get used to it? It is pathetic it makes me sick. I am shocked that more parents aren't outraged by this. There are kids that get bullied like this and end up taking their own life. It isn't going to go away unless somebody stands up and fights this disgusting tradition…   more ›

Friday, September 14, 2012

A Former Cheerleader Discusses Being Bullied Her Junior Year at Ladue High School

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: She and many other women were victims of an end-of-the school year nonsensical tradition.

Hundreds of young women have been defamed by the awful tradition of 'the list' at Ladue Horton Watkins High School. The tradition of the "Senior List,"humiliates young women by describing body parts and other sordid descriptions, has lived on far too long at Ladue High. One of those victims is Martha "Missy" Combs, LHWHS class of 2008. She is now about to graduate from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Here is her narrative of being bullied and humiliated during the end of her junior year at Ladue. I love Ladue. I begged my parents to let me attend Ladue High School after going to an all-girl Catholic High School my freshman year. I cannot say enough good things about the quality education I received, and how well prepared academically …

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flyoverland

9:29 am on Monday, September 17, 2012

Your comment makes me proud to be paying that huge school tax increase. I hope taxpayers who will be asked to pony up another $105 million soon will read your reply.   more ›

Thursday, September 13, 2012

The Baer Facts

Ladue High 'Senior List' Goes Beyond a Prank, but the Prank Tradition Is There

Pranks at Ladue Horton Watkins have gone on since the beginning of the high school in the 1950s.

This week, the focus has been on a senior bullying tradition that smacks of sexism at Ladue Horton Watkins High School. Seems that anonymous graduating seniors at Ladue Horton Watkins have been making disparaging remarks about senior female graduates for two decades or longer. School officials have tried to shut down this misbehavior but efforts so far have failed. A parent in the district recently brought this to the attention of the school board to take decisive action. Ladue has had a tradition, particularly of senior pranks going back to its earliest days in the 1950s. Sometimes, they bordered on the bizarre, much like we saw in National Lampoon's Animal House,  a 1978 American comedy film directed by John Landis. Here’s some of the …

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Ladue High's Obscene 'Senior List' Has Been Around at Least 10 Years

Ladue administrators say they take bullying seriously, but they cannot combat students who make bad decisions in spite of the consequences.

A vulgar and sometimes obscene "Senior List" that unkindly characterizes the body parts, sexual habits and hygiene of selected girls at Ladue Horton Watkins High School caught administrators by surprise when it was passed around during the lunch period on May 11. It was at least the 10th year that the list had been circulated by students at the high school, according to district administrators, but anti-bullying programs and other efforts had not effectively curbed the practice. "The (Ladue High) principal also stated that in the past the list had been passed around at graduation rehearsal. Therefore, having students pass it out at lunch was entirely unexpected," wrote Ladue School Board President Jayne Langsam in a letter to a Ladue High …

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Michael

4:59 pm on Friday, September 14, 2012

How about making an announcement before the list comes out? Threaten suspension or expulsion. I know that my prior High School would expel any of us very quickly....   more ›

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