<p>Seriously?
She was suspended because she took away the weapon that a classmate was using to harm himself?
<a href=“http://wavy.com/2014/03/19/student-suspended-for-taking-razor-from-self-harming-classmate/”>‘AGT: Extreme’ Simon Cowell reacts to dangerous acts | WAVY.com;
Incidentally, she was suspended because of her own testimony.</p>
<p>This so beyond stupid, it’s unbelievable. It’s amazing to think that people in charge of our kids could have so little common sense. Talk about fanatical adherence to rules without any thought of the more important issues.</p>
<p>Particularly inexcusable:</p>
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<p>Note to all students in this school: if you want to get out of going to school. Make up a story that has you holding a weapon. Say you held it and then threw it away. You’ll then get suspended and perhaps expelled. You don’t have to actually do it - just say that you did it. No more school for you! </p>
<p>What an incredibly stupid response from this board!! And I can’t even begin to guess why they didn’t even thank her for doing the right thing. If the kid had bled out, I’m sure the board would have bemoaned the fact that no one stepped in to help the student. </p>
<p>And people still wonder why some parents prefer to homeschool their kids instead of having them under the authority of such a school board.</p>
<p>What is wrong with people? Aren’t these schools supposed to be teaching critical thinking? What an example!</p>
<p>When I read something like this, I always think that the School Board’s lawyers told them that they had to suspend this child.</p>
<p>If they didn’t suspend her, then the School Board would be in for a lawsuit if they ever suspended another child for having a weapon (“How could you suspend child 2, when you didn’t suspend child 1 when they had a weapon? We’re suing.”).</p>
<p>What about the kids waiting for the school bus who were suspended for playing in their OWN front yard with air soft guns in a perfectly safe manner (safe gun, nets, own property, perfectly legal) ?<br>
How about the honor student in our town who was a senior about to graduate who got expelled right before graduation when she drove to school and had a knife in her car (left by an uncle who had gone hunting)–she did NOT bring it into school, did NOT realize it was there, had NEVER EVER been in trouble. Someone randomly spotted it while walking through the parking lot. Everybody vouched for her–turned her life upside down.
How about the little kid (s) who got in trouble for making guns with their FINGERS? </p>
<p>Let’s see, how can we not suspend one kid without doing it to another? Easy. Common sense.
Kid wants to cut himself with razor blade–another kid takes it away to save him. Good.
Teacher knows little kids have fingers that make gun shapes and fingers don’t hurt anybody–good.
Your own front yard is personal space. Good.
Kid brings in weapon to school with intent of hurting someone.–Bad.</p>
<p>I agree dadinator, but that still does not explain why the school refused to talk to the family until the TV channel got involved.
How can this family trust the school after an incidence like this? </p>
<p>Sorry, I wasn’t agreeing with or arguing that position above.</p>
<p>I just meant to say that is what the lawyers would say.</p>
<p>It baffles me how these rules are applied. Here I quit a job 3 years ago after a 7 year old threw a desk at me and they simply moved him to another classroom (where they finally did something after he beat the crap out of a very small refugee 1st grader who spoke no English) yet kids get suspended for making “gun fingers”. </p>
<p>It’s ridiculous. </p>
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<p>She’s got more class and more backbone than all those in the administration put together. </p>
<p>Roman–what WERE you able to do that was deemed acceptable punishment in the desk incident?
I just had this discussion with some friends of mine who are currently teaching elementary school. My only stance was that “BACK IN MY DAY”–the real troublemakers didn’t last long in school. The school and principal were pretty much judge and jury and things were pretty trouble-free.
One of the teachers wished she had more authority (or at least a strong principal) to handle situations more effectively and swiftly and the other teacher (who has been in administration) seemed more worried that the “troublemaker” needed more emotional guidance and help. My response to that was that I don’t want my kid in a class that the “troublemaker” takes precedence over the kids trying to learn.<br>
My kids are no longer in the system–I’m just truly curious.</p>
<p>The other point brought up in that discussion was how much some of the behavior of kids has changed for the worse. One teacher said (and I’ve heard it echoed) is that kids don’t seem to have the emotional stability that they should have (saying they’ve seen a deterioration over the past few years). I’m interested to know if that would be a local observation or more widespread.</p>
<p>Gouf, I was allowed to do nothing. The principal simply moved the child to another class. There was no punishment. It was just me and him but if there had been other students I likely would’ve restrained him out of instinct. I probably would’ve been sued for touching him.</p>
<p>The school was beyond terrible. I had three principals in the two years I worked there, the teacher regularly had breakdowns and cried in class, etc. This was in a Lansing school that was supposed to be all ELL students but this student’s mom fought to keep him there. She also accused me of provoking her child. All I did was walk into the classroom… the class was at recess and no one noticed he stayed inside. </p>
<p>To be clear, I’m not a teacher. I worked through America Reads/America Counts. I was just supposed to be a tutor but ended up teaching the class more often than not. </p>
<p>I will say this. It is an epidemic of foolish behavior on the part of school administrators. It gets worse every year. The principals and upper administration in the public schools are so intimidated by the parents that they have totally surrendered their god given common sense. When a kid misbehaves, everyone around him has to alter THEIR behavior instead of the reverse. It is infuriating.</p>
<p>Did the student have an IEP?
If they had a behavioral IEP, its possible that there was a great deal of leeway involved, but there still should have been modifications to the environment ( optimually) and some sort of structure for acting out.
It doesnt do the student any favors to look the other way.
( or you either)
When my D was a camp counselor, with a very challenging group of middle school girls, she took a bathroom break and left another counselor in charge who wasnt able to control them and one girl stabbed another in the eye.
It escaltated from there. ( D was 18 at the time)</p>
<p><a href=“http://imgur.com/r/Firearms/wjYWezw[/url]”>http://imgur.com/r/Firearms/wjYWezw</a></p>
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<p>No. The child had major anger problems and a mom that blamed everyone but her precious baby but nothing clinical at least that was diagnosed. No IEP. </p>
<p>Fwiw, our class was the most proficient in English (~20% proficiency) and he was switched to a classroom where they were basically the fresh off the boat kids who spoke no English. This child was not an ELL student. </p>
<p>Strad, your link doesn’t work 
</p>
<p>I have zero tolerance for so-called zero tolerance policies, and have railed against them for years. They are put in place by people who are too chicken#### to make decisions and/or exercise some common sense. Absolute cop-outs and CYA policies. They let administrators hide behind these policies under the guise of being fair and even handed. What a crock! As gouf78 shows, the story that motivated this thread is not unusual, nor is it the most ridiculous example of a “Zero Tolerance Policy” gone wrong. </p>
<p>Apparently public pressure paid off for the child and her suspension was lifted.</p>
<p><a href=“http://wavy.com/2014/03/19/student-suspended-for-taking-razor-from-self-harming-classmate/”>http://wavy.com/2014/03/19/student-suspended-for-taking-razor-from-self-harming-classmate/</a></p>
<p>I have seen many misbehaviors in school with kids - some get punished severely, others get a pass. </p>
<p>When school admins want to use zero tolerance, they do, but honestly I have seen things that should have been punished and aren’t. </p>
<p>Strict rules with no room for judgement and no exceptions are probably meant to avoid problems where judgement calls tend to go one way or the other due to what should be irrelevant factors like race, ethnicity, or political position of the people involved.</p>
<p>However, strict rules with no room for judgement and no exceptions merely push the poor judgement of that sort into “looking the other way” if the person in a position of enforcing the rule does not want to enforce the rule on a particular violator. But such rules can catch people who may be technically in violation of the rule but obviously doing the opposite of the expected violators of the rule (as in this particular case of taking a knife from a suicidal person and throwing it away).</p>