Posted on 05/02/2002 8:00:04 AM PDT by Dallas
MOUNT LEBANON, Pa. --
A school suspended an 11-year-old girl for drawing two teachers with arrows through their heads, saying the stick figures were more death threat than doodle.
Becca Johnson, an honor-roll sixth-grader at Mellon Middle School, drew the picture on the back of a vocabulary test on which she had gotten a D.
"That's my way of saying I'm angry," Becca said, adding she meant no harm to the teachers.
The stick figures, on a crudely drawn gallows with arrows in their heads, had the names of Becca's teacher and a substitute teacher written underneath. Another teacher spotted the doodle in the girl's binder Tuesday and reported it, prompting the three-day suspension.
Becca's parents, Philip and Barbara Johnson, denied the school's contention the drawings were "terrorist threats."
"She had done poorly on a test that was handed back to her. We've always told her that you can't take your feelings out on your teacher, so write about it or draw it, as a catharsis," Barbara Johnson said.
She accused the school of applying a zero-tolerance policy that "does away with due process and inflicts a penalty without a hearing or investigation."
The district said its zero-tolerance policy applies only to gun or drug possession, and denied that no investigation was done.
"All I can say is that when we have taken action related to the activities of students in the schools, we have done so after a thorough investigation," Mount Lebanon School District Superintendent Glenn Smartschan said.
Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press
TIME TO BAN PENCILS.
Just yesterday we were talking about the idiocy of zero-tolerance policies in government schools. A kid spends the night in jail because he leaves the tools from his landscaping business in the back of his pickup. The tools included a machete. One of the callers yesterday correctly pointed out that a simple pencil makes a very effective weapon. Why not ban them?
Well ... now it's happened. In Anthony, Florida. A 7-year-old has been charged with felony aggravated battery after he stabbed four elementary classmates with a pencil. He apparently became upset when he was asked to share his crayons.
I will bet you five bucks to a donut hole that this kid is on Ritalin or some similar drug.
Anyway --- clearly its time to ban pencils in classrooms.
Just like bullets, they contain lead. All lead products should be registered.
Reports Of School Shooting (Germany- 18 Reported Dead)
ALLEGED SHOOTER NAME *ROBERT STEINHAUSER* GERMAN SPEAKING FREEPERS FIND INFO WEBSITE ON HIM
The fact that this kid would blame a teacher for a bad grade is a clue -- at least -- that the kid has serously misplaced priorities. When I didn't study and screwed up on a test, I didn't fantasize about killing the teacher. I just made a note to study a little next time.
Mark W.
We can only hope.
"She had done poorly on a test that was handed back to her. We've always told her that you can't take your feelings out on your teacher, so write about it or draw it, as a catharsis," Barbara Johnson said.
Good for Becca!
If I had received Becca's vocabulary test, I would have upgraded her from a D to a C, minimum.
The girl showed spunk. The school showed flunk.
Not to be too picky --- they contain graphite (carbon).
I wish school administrators never learned the word "terrorist". Now it just gets overused by them.
Good thought ! Will you call Rosie or shall I?
Getting thrown out for doodling is as atrocious as the kid who got thrown out for pretending to shoot someone with his Chicken McNuggets.
My son did this very same thing. Out of anger he drew some similar stick figures on some paper.
The difference? My son's teacher calls us by phone, in the evening, on her OWN time, to discuss this behavior
and find out if there is anything out of the ordinary going on in his life that would cause him to do this and
ask if there was anything she could do...
No suspensions, no police calls, no uproar, no articles in the local newspapers.
I have to ask..
How many of us, that are over the age of 35, drew stick figures, battles, bombers, tanks and stuff
and the teachers never blinked?????
TAKE YOUR KIDS OUT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS.. NOW!
The girl showed spunk.
The girl sounds like she might really hurt someone someday.
'Spunk' would have been accepting her grade as a consequence of her performance, studying her butt off, and aceing the next vocabulary test.
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