Whe "Zero Tolerance" Goes Bad

[Lemur]

7-year-old suspended over stick-figure drawing

Complaint about image depicting 'water pistol' leads to disciplinary action

DENNIS TOWNSHIP, N.J. - A New Jersey second-grader's drawing of a stick figure shooting a gun has earned him a one-day school suspension.

Seven-year-old Kyle Walker's mom told an The Press newspaper of Atlantic City that her son was suspended for violating the district's zero-tolerance policy on guns. She said her son told her he'd drawn a water pistol.

Kyle gave the picture to another child on the school bus, and that child's parents complained about it to school officials.

The case is not the first in New Jersey in which students were suspended for depictions of weapons.

Four kindergarten boys were suspended in 2000 for playing cops and robbers, even though they were using their fingers as guns.

[Fragony]

Does it look like a waterpistol, some look real.

[Xiahou]

Four kindergarten boys were suspended in 2000 for playing cops and robbers, even though they were using their fingers as guns.

Wow, that's pretty awesome there.

As to the drawing, I guess it depends if it could be construed as somehow threatening. If a kid gave another kid a picture of him shooting his classmate, I could see how a parent might possibly get agitated about it.

Regardless, seeing as how the child was only 7, I think a suspension is probably unwarranted. I've read about many other absurd "zero tolerance" incidents like this- like a child being suspended for bringing a GI Joe to show and tell because of the tiny plastic gun that it came with. link.
(*Here's a picture of the a GI Joe, with gun in case anyone actually thinks it could be mistaken for the real thing.)

These "zero tolerance" policies are idiotic and show a complete lack of common sense on the parts of school administrators.

[The Wizard]

LOL, political correctness

[Banquo's Ghost]

I'm confused.

Everyone over there is tooled up like Rambo and has the constitutional right to buy their own armoured division - but a small child can't wave his finger and say "bang"?

[Tribesman]

If the picture hadn't had one figure pointing the "gun" at the other with the words me and you on the drawing could they have complained about the "threat" to the school ?
Once the compalint was made what else could the school do ?
It crazy , but its what to expect when a nations long standing love affair with having guns is coupled with extreme paranoia about other people having guns too .
What the parents should have done is pack their kid off to school with a gun himself and tell him to shoot in self defence if he ever feels threatened .

[The Wizard]

This is how political correctness strays into the realms of Absolutely Retarded.

[Fragony]

Four kindergarten boys were suspended in 2000 for playing cops and robbers, even though they were using their fingers as guns.

Missed that

[Goofball]

I'm just wondering what possible purpose the school believes these suspensions are serving.

If the idea is that the kid is displaying potentially dangerous warning signs, then it seems to me that suspending him for a day is not going to help. Rather, it would seem that an immediate referral to a child psychologist would be in order, so that the root of the kids anger/unhappiness/whatever can be identified and dealt with before he becomes a danger to himself or others.

If the idea is that the kid is already a danger to himself or others, then I would think that an immediate expulsion and reporting of the incident to the police would be the only correct course of action.

Since it appears plain from even the scant details available in the story that the school doesn't really believe either of these scenarios to be the case, all they have done here is confused and scared a poor little kid.

Shame on them.

[Ronin]

I'm just wondering what possible purpose the school believes these suspensions are serving.

the school is covering it´s ass by taking the letter of the law to it´s absolute extreme ridiculous limit.

[Husar]

What you need is a zero-tolerance policy on zero-tolerance policies.

Reminds me of my highschool days where I painted tons of tanks, guns and planes into my school papers when I was bored at school.

[Bijo]

Yes, I remember as a kid I used to draw planes flying through the air, through the clouds, as they dogfought each other, some of them I drawed as if they were crashing with smoke coming out of the vehicles, all drawn in 3D of course it looked pretty realistic too for a kid. Even made drawings of soldiers shooting each other, throwing grenades, while artillery shells exploded around them as they were attacked by fighter planes. Of course the reason I drew them was due to my interest in the military as I wanted to join them when I reached the right age and there was a talent for art and creativity and the need to express it. Or it was boredom. Or both.

But a water pistol? Give me a goddamn break. It seems they are typically operating on emotion mainly fear. So a kid should not draw a (water) pistol? Go ban toys, video games, and movies. Ban paper, pencils, and pens while you are at it. You could probably think of some more.

[Fragony]

Do consider that waterpistols that look like the real stuff are illegal here in the Netherlands, you could rob a shop with a fake gun. Call it harmless, but if I was a father such a gesture would disturb me as well. Gone too far yeah, but what exactly, somewhere but where.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Zero tolerance is so administrators don't have to think. And schools seem overrun by pansy bliss-a-ninnies.

CR

[lars573]

7-year-old suspended over stick-figure drawing

Complaint about image depicting 'water pistol' leads to disciplinary action

DENNIS TOWNSHIP, N.J. - A New Jersey second-grader's drawing of a stick figure shooting a gun has earned him a one-day school suspension.

Seven-year-old Kyle Walker's mom told an The Press newspaper of Atlantic City that her son was suspended for violating the district's zero-tolerance policy on guns. She said her son told her he'd drawn a water pistol.

Kyle gave the picture to another child on the school bus, and that child's parents complained about it to school officials.

The case is not the first in New Jersey in which students were suspended for depictions of weapons.

Four kindergarten boys were suspended in 2000 for playing cops and robbers, even though they were using their fingers as guns.

What we have here are prime examples of bad Principals/Vice-Principals. The policy isn't (nessisarily) bad, but it was implemented in a very bad way.

[Gregoshi]

The kid may have drawn a gun, but I think the school officials are the ones that are loaded. Of course, a big nose-thumbing needs to go out the the parents that lodged the complaint to begin with. Common sense doesn't seem to be all that common anymore.

[AntiochusIII]

Kid draws a gun, gives it to friend. Friend's parents see it, freaks out (oh noes! school shootings!), complains. School's hand is tied. It can ignore the stupid complaint, but then the freaked-out parents will raise hell, and if something bad happens (like Pat Robertson speaking sense), school will be blamed. School doesn't want that.

So they give out a completely retarded suspension order on a seven-years-old drawing of a water gun.

Everyone over there is tooled up like Rambo and has the constitutional right to buy their own armoured division - but a small child can't wave his finger and say "bang"?

It's a big place and the American bourgeois society is notoriously hypocritical. No surprise really.

[woad&fangs]

The constitution is a sham. Freedom of speech apparently doesn't apply to minors in most school districts eyes.

[Don Corleone]

I'm confused.

Everyone over there is tooled up like Rambo and has the constitutional right to buy their own armoured division - but a small child can't wave his finger and say "bang"?

Actually, not everyone is. A large minority of Americans agree with the majority European view that personal gun ownershp should be 100% outlawed, even as a means to self-defense.

What's more, school administrations tend to act towards extremism. Because, as CR said, they're namby pambies? Or because they're retarded? No. The truth is actually more complex, but equally troubling. Some have touched on it.

In a nutshell, the problem is the litigious nature of American society. We all bitch about lawyers, but at the end of the day, it seems that is always the first call a majority of Americans make when things don't go their way.

Got fired for not showing up to work? Hire a lawyer and claim discrimination. Having marital troubles and want to really screw your soon-to-be-ex? Hire a lawyer to destroy her on the stand, ruin her credibility, have the kids taken away, then stuck in daycare for 18 hours a day. Got a bit of chicken salad that didn't taste quite right? Call a lawyer. Hell, you can't watch local television for 1/2 hour without seeing an ambulance chaser with the now ubiquituous troll... "Wanna sue somebody? Call me. If we win, you give me half. If we lose (and we won't), you don't owe me a dime".

Now put yourself in the school board's shoes. Parents call you on the phone and say they feel threatened that little Timmy showed a crayon drawing of a gun to little Bobby on the school bus. You decide not to act. Now, I don't care if little Timmy falls into another dimension through a wormhole on the way to school the next day and never shows his face at school again... YOU WILL BE SUED. And since the lawyer only gets paid if he wins, he's not going to go away.

At the end of the day, zero-tolerance policy in America is a hell of our own making. We all want to drag our fellow citizens into court and sue the pants off of each other. This is the reasonable, and I would argue only possible, reaction by rational people that don't want to go belly-up defending themselves from an endless stream of lawsuits.

[Moros]

Some principal and some parents had to much time on their hands...

[CountArach]

So, so moronic. I used to play Cops and Robbers and it was a great game.

[Slyspy]

....The truth....

Bingo! The Don has it.