The James Logan Courier

Fourteen students who ditched school to nosh at a local eatery duing fourth period last Friday got a special surprise with their happy meals — a visit from Principal Craig Lange and Logan’s School Resource Officers and study hall assignments or worse consequences at school.
According to Lang, the school got a call at about 10:30 a.m. from Burger King management complaining about the number of Logan students lounging inside the restaurant when they were supposed to be in school.

Lang, the acting principal for the day, got a posse of himself and Logan’s two police officers, and barged into the restaurant on Decoto Road, the closest fast food restaurant to the school, and rounded up the students, took their names and numbers and sent them back to school to await their fates.

Lang said those who were off-campus without a pass would get study hall detention as punishment, and perhaps more if they had a history of”truancy issues.”

Two teachers on their breaks who were eating at the restaurant at the time, Richard Lawrence and Don Heinsohn, said that there were more than two dozen students in the restaurant before the police arrived, but that some had left just before being caught up in the dragnet .

After dealing with the situation at Burger King, Lang and the officers crossed the street to McDonalds, where they netted two more truant students. He said that they would have caught more, but students saw them crossing the street from Burger King, and ran off.

One of the students had an off-grounds pass and was expecting to be picked up and taken to an appointment when the raid occurred. She was let go, Lang said.

He said that Burger King managers call the school when too many students congregate there. “Usually, students just get their orders and go,” Lang said, “But this time they decided to hang around, so Burger King called us.” He said Logan administrators respond to several such calls each year.

This time of year, near the end of school, the problem seems to get worse. “Senioritis,” he said, although only one of those caught was a senior.

He had some advice for students who plan on ditching school: “It’s better if they don’t.”