Posted on 05/07/2013 3:17:44 PM PDT by markomalley
A Suffolk school suspended a second grader for pointing a pencil at another student and making gun noises.
Seven-year-old Christopher Marshall says he was playing with another student in class Friday, when the teacher at Driver Elementary asked them to stop pointing pencils at each other.
"When I asked him about it, he said, 'Well I was being a Marine and the other guy was being a bad guy,'" said Paul Marshall, the boy's father. "It's as simple as that."
Christopher's father was a Marine for many years. He thinks school leaders overreacted.
"A pencil is a weapon when it is pointed at someone in a threatening way and gun noises are made," said Bethanne Bradshaw, a spokesperson for Suffolk Public Schools.
The Suffolk school system has a "zero tolerance policy" when it comes to weapons. And, Bradshaw admits, that policy has tightened up in recent years because of widely publicized school shootings.
"Some children would consider it threatening, who are scared about shootings in schools or shootings in the community," said Bradshaw. "Kids don't think about 'Cowboys and Indians' anymore, they think about drive-by shootings and murders and everything they see on television news every day."
But Christopher's parents say school administrators failed to use common sense. Christopher has good grades and no history of being disruptive in class. They pointed out a line on the suspension notice, where the teacher wrote, "I told him to stop and he did."
"Enough is enough," said Paul Marshall. "I see it as the tail is now wagging the dog."
And while Christopher can play freely at home, he says he won't pretend to play with guns at school in the future.
Bethanne Bradshaw with Suffolk Public Schools says both students were suspended for two days. The other student was also 7 years old.
According to school policy, suspensions can last up to 10 days. The school makes that determination based on the situation, the student's age and behavioral history.
I guess playing cowboys and indians is out too.
Now, if he had been playing with a condom, he would have gotten extra credit.
“A pencil is a weapon when it is pointed at someone in a threatening way and gun noises are made,” said Bethanne Bradshaw, a spokesperson for Suffolk Public Schools.
No it’s not, it’s a pencil. Only an idiot liberal(I repeat myself) would mistake a pencil for a gun.
No one talked about the war after WWII in front of children. We were never scared. Our parents protected us from the horrors of war.
Secure your schools through re-design.
Stop driving the kids nuts.
Eric Holder said he wanted to brainwash the kids....
Zero Tolerance does this...
If I had a kid in elementary school right now, especially a boy, I’d just wait for the phone to ring.
Sooner or later, every boy is going to point and say ‘bang’.
To be accurate, he held a pencil like a gun, not a gun-like pencil.
And removing them from our kids too...
He held the pencil as if it were a gun.
WOW! This is all it takes today to get out of going to screwls. I’m surprised a whole class hasn’t pull this stunt.
I teach and yesterday a kid brought one of those CO2 powered BB pistols to class. My hands are tied in that situation and had to take the kid to the office. I was able to keep the kid from being suspended or expelled but he got ISS for a few days. I’m sure he would have been hung, drawn, and quartered in some places in this country.
Can they think about guns? I used to sit in class and daydream about hunting. Sometimes I daydreamed about plinking for fun. And when I was in high school shotguns and rifles were in lots vehicles on the school lot and no one gave them a second thought. Amazingly enough, all those guns never did shoot up our school. Now kids are endangered by good old Ticonderoga #2’s. Pathetic!
These nazis are ruining a great country.
You all realize that we are allowing certified crazy people to teach and watch over our children. And we are doing it WILLINGLY!
I’m going to glue a picatinny rail to a good ole #2 pencil and make it an assault weapon.
This was my favorite toy when I was 7 years old, back in the days when boys were boys, and gun crime was really pretty rare because most of us actually had values.
Morons: a pencil is a weapon when it is thrust into the eye socket of an adversary or otherwise used as a stabbing weapon; pencil is a toy when pointed at another person while saying “pow, pow” or “bang, bang”.
And if the parents aren't smart enough because they went to the public schools, too, then the grandparents should do it. Who would put their kids through this nonsense?
Wow! I wonder if my finger gun pointed at the TV every time someone peeing on the Constitution is legal?
I am in big trouble now...
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