I was watching the news a bit ago and saw a story about zero tolerance policies in school about weapons. Apparently the mother to a 6 year old who loves school and does well was shocked to receive a call telling her to come to the school because her son was being suspended for bringing in a dangerous weapon.
The child is a cub scout who goes on frquent camping trips and his parents had bought him a swiss army knife type thing (they showed it on camera and it was a fork, spoon, knife, bottle opener) to take on his camping trips. He was excited and took it to school to eat his lunch with it. Of course he was seen eating his lunch with it and took to the office where he received a 45 day suspension and is facing REFORM SCHOOL!
I am curious how we feel about this. He is obviously only 6, a good student, and meant no harm and never considered hurting anyone. I'm sure he didn't even realize there was such a policy seeing as how he is only 6! I can understand a punsihment but 45 days out of cshool amounts to a huge amount of instructional time that a 1st grader shouldn't miss. Also what kind of reform school can you send a 6 year old too? Are these zero tolerance policies getting out of hand? Tell us what you think!
I agree that the punishment was too severe, he's 6. 45 days and reform school? Come on. But, I disagree with the parents allowing him to take it to school in the first place. It could be used as a weapon, whether that was the intent or not is irrelevant. Someone could get seriously hurt by it, and it has no place in school.
~ Krystiana ~
Wife to Nick & Momma to
Juliana ~ 03.11.2006 Dylan ~ 02.16.2009
Quoting Simple-Beauty:
That's ridiculous.
I agree, we actually had a HS school student who was in the TOP 10% of her class put into Alternative School because there was a large knife in her truck(her father's truck actually). Her father is a Nurse practitioner and head of the emergency response team in our area and has the truck in there for that purpose and had forgotten it was there when he loaned his daughter his truck that morning.
I think it should be on a case by case basis!
I understand he may only be 6 but the school needs to follow their no zero policy regardless of the situation and regardless of age But i say this from a mom's point of view my son has been in cubscouts since he was 6 and my youngest son is now in cubscouts he to is 6 they both have the swiss army knives with the fork and spoon and all in them but as a parent i made sure to tell my childre they were never to be brought to school because it was against the rules at school and that they were considered a dangerous weapon so to me the parents are just as much as fault for not making suire their child knew that those were not allowed in school and hopefull this will send a message to all other parents and children!!!
I however do not think he should have been given a 45 day suspensition but i think he should have been given at least 1-3 day suspenstion because in the matter of dangerous weapons age should never be considered!!!
I don't think his parenst allowed him to take it. I believe it was more of a situation of he took it an dthey didn't know it. Should they have a had a conversation about it? Sure. Is having a 6 year old miss 45 days of school an dpossibly go to reform school with REALLY bad kids the answer? NO
Just in general, I feel suspensions do nothing except inconvenience the parents because they have to take a day off of work and/or shuffle around their schedule to accommodate their kid now taking a day off school all day.
The problem needs to be addressed there in the school, proper punishment (privileges taken for example), maybe let the parents know and thats it. But punish them with a day off? Cmon...
In some cases the punishment isn't that serious to the parent as it is to the principal, yet they expect us to punish them at home too, which I don't really think is their business what we do at home.
I wrote a journal about this last year that is still on my page. I wrote it because of many stories i was seeing about kids mainly int he 5 to 6 age group being suspended and expelled from school for what i feel has become a total lack of common sense.
I made a list of possible weapons, humorously, of course. but if we are taking it this seriously than almost anything in a school can be a dangerous weapon.
For example the 6 year old who took a butter knife to school to cut up cupckaes or some treat he was taking for his class and was suspended!
Ashley's Husband Made it Home From a Deployment in Iraq - And Then Tragedy Struck
- CosmicPossum
on Oct. 13, 2009 at 7:51 AM