Posted on 12/17/2011 11:36:36 AM PST by bkopto
For the rest of the semester, a Rutherford County elementary student has to eat lunch at the "silent table" for allegedly waving around a slice of pizza some say resembled a gun.
Nicholas Taylor attends David Youree Elementary School in Smyrna, about 30 miles southeast of Nashville.
School leaders say the 10-year-old threatened other students at his lunch table with a piece of pizza with bites out of it so it looked like a gun and when asked about it was initially not truthful.
Nicholas' mother LeAnn calls her son's punishment "absolutely ridiculous" saying he was just playing around and never said anything derogatory or anything about shooting anyone.
"The kid across the table from him said it looked like a gun so he picked it up and started shooting it in the air," she told Nashville's News 2 Investigates.
Taylor said she learned of the incident when the school sent her a note saying her son was threatening other students.
James Evans, spokesperson for the Rutherford County School District, said the boy isn't being punished because he had a piece of pizza shaped like a gun.
He's being punished because "some students reported he was making some threatening hand gestures, that he was shooting other kids at the table and they reported it to a teacher," according to Evans.
He continued, "The student didn't tell him the truth about it so he got silent lunch for six days."
Evans called the punishment minor but said the message is clear.
"I realize some might say we are going overboard but the principal is just trying to use an abundance of caution and send the message that we don't play about guns and it's not something we joke around about," he said.
To that, Taylor said her son knows he shouldn't play with guns.
"We don't have a gun in the house," she said. "He plays with light sabers. He's a big Star Wars fan."
In addition to lunch at the silent table, Nicholas has spent time with the school resource officer learning about gun safety.
Taylor said the school system has made it clear that if her son eats his pizza into the shape of a gun again and there is a similar occurrence, he will be suspended.
Old habits die hard. You want to make sure they’re dead before you open that trunk in the pine lands.
Let me guess... the school gun safety officer is now teaching Nicholas how to nibble his pizza gun to have a safety lock? That he needs to register his pizza before shaping it? That he should never, Never... NEVER!! EVER!!! conceal his gun-shaped pizza?
They should have waited until he ate it, then they could have charged him with carrying a concealed weapon.
You know how those black slices of pizza are. They all look like guns.
In my experience, the people who make public school pizza should be punished
LOL! I was TDY at a remote site on a government reservation, and part of my duties were maintaining an old sattelite link. A tree had grown over the years and was partially blocking the signal.
As I was complaining about the paperwork maze and environmental impact statements for removing the tree, a super-sized (6'6") Senior Airman from NJ said: "Sarge, go take a break for a while"
When I came back the tree was GONE. Completely dissapeared. Like it had never been there.
/johnny
School leaders say the 10-year-old threatened other students at his lunch table with a piece of pizza with bites out of it so it looked like a gun and when asked about it was initially not truthful.
One of my students made a model of a Sten gun for a project and showed it to me yesterday. I thought it pretty cool myself.
Sounds like a Monty Python skit.
“Today’s lesson: How to defend yourself against an attacker armed with a slice of pizza”.
What about a pointed stick?
School is not the place to be playing with a piece of left over pizza shaped like a gun, and should be cause for punishment.
There is a time and a place for kids to gawk at live suicides on their cell phones, watch videos of zombies eating flesh, where everyone is armed and blowing each other away. There is plenty of time for these activities after school.
It will save lives and ANY tax money spent on the "the Bureau of Pizza Death and Dismemberment Regulation Department" is well worth the cost!
Our children deserve the chance at a fulfilling life!
Sausage and pepperoni makers MUST pay their fair share to society to protect us from this scourge of destruction.
“He should eat it into the shape of an extended middle finger. “
He should constantly hold up donuts and bagels to the administrators.
Tell me how it is possible to shoot other kids with a piece of pizza. Liberals are flat out insane and parents who let these scum bags get away with this lying BS need to be horse whipped.
~snort
When I was in junior high school (back in the early 70’s) it was not uncommon for about a half-dozen of us to walk through the neighborhood with our BB and pellet guns. We’d go over to the abandoned gravel pit on Allisonville Rd. and shoot up whatever we found; cans, bottles, birds, whatever. Just not each other. Then when the ammo ran out we went home and played basketball or football.
Can you imagine what would happen if the kids in my neighborhood tried that today?
Another point; my sister in law insisted that my nephew not play with toy guns so she wouldn’t buy any for him. When I was over at their house visiting, he was out in the yard using a stick he found as his toy rifle. So much for that idea. Now he and my son both attend Purdue; the other day they were looking at information on Tiger tanks on the internet.
Boys will be boys, you cannot legislate against it.
I’m guessing he came from “Pretty Much Alabama”, “Pineys”, or “Farms and Army Bases” per this map:
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