Third Graders Suspended For Tiny Action Figure Toy Guns

[CShine]

Three third-grade boys who brought tiny action figure toy guns to school received one-day suspensions for violating the Spokane School District's zero-tolerance weapons policy. District officials said the suspensions Tuesday also were given because the 2-inch-long GI Joe toys violated a policy against bringing toys to school.

"They don't need toys during the school day. If kids are playing with toys, they are not attending to school," Bemiss Elementary School Principal Lorna Spear said.

Spear called two of the boys' parents Tuesday and met with another and agreed on the disciplinary actions.

Two boys, who allegedly used the guns in a threatening manner, were given one day out-of-school suspensions, while the third boy received a day of in-school suspension, where he was allowed to go to school but not attend class.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=WA%20School%20Toy%20Guns

[Fridays Child]

1. A threatening manner? What did they do? Hold other kids down...

...and try to make them eat the little guns? How do you threaten someone with a 1½ inch long piece of flexible plastic? A twig picked up from the ground would be more threatening. Do the administrators make sure the students never do that, either?

[bleedingheart]

2. As a parent of an elementary school child I personally see nothing

wrong with this...actually I think parents should be fined for letting their progeny come to school laden with toys. School is for learning, listening and doing school-like things. Today so many parents have no clue what their kids are doing and many don't care.

My son's school has had to send letters home telling people not to send toys to school!...Oh and the Yugioh cards are another nightmare... parents have called the Principal to bitch that their kid made "a bad trade" on a stupid card and they think the principal should intervene...for christsakes...what is happening to common sense??

[qanda]

10. Wrong!

"School is the ideal time to influence attitudes, build long-term loyalties, introduce new products, test-market, promote sampling and trial usage—and above all—to generate immediate sales."

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/3g.htm

[bleedingheart]

13. LOL!

[Just Me]

3. The "zero-tolerance" policies are too reactionary,...

,...and, I believe, they are merely a reckless aim at symptoms and an utterly ineffective means of addressing the real problems which are socioeconomic in nature. We sure as heck can do better than this. All the "zero-tolerance" approach does is place a black mark on kids futures. It doesn't work.

[bleedingheart]

4. I have zero tolerance for parents who let their kids go to school with

toys...

What is wrong with people???

Eons ago I never brought a toy to school and those kids who did had it confiscated for good and no self-respecting parent would come to school years ago and ask for it back either.

[RC]

5. You're mis-monicker'd

how 'bout hardheart?

[bleedingheart]

7. kids can play with their toys at home where they belong

:P

[joeunderdog]

12. Send Bush's Boys in and start busting some heads.

This is how it starts. First toy figures with guns, then democrats and then terrorists.

[bleedingheart]

14. nah..just throw the toys away...then junior will go home and whine

and whine and through this torture ...mom and dad will learn that it isnt a good idea to send him to school with toys...

:-)

[earthside]

22. Kids?

You obviously don't have children.

These days all kids carry day packs to school. Kids are kids, they'll put a small toy in a pocket and take it to school. Unless you're some kind of anal, fascist parent, you don't give your childen the third degree and search their entire person every morning for "contraband". If a teacher doesn't want a kid playing with a toy, they should take it way, then give it back to them at the end of the day with a warning (it is still the kid's property).

Suspension is "zero tolerance" run amuck. Of course, it is really "100% blame the kids" for anything that the educrats get nervous about. Believe me, teachers wish they had control of their own classrooms again. But administrators have become so sensitive to the "politcally correct"crowd (and I mean liberals and conservatives) that they have lost all reason.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

21. It's true that kids shouldn't bring toys to school, but

there's a simpler solution. It's called a trash bag. Any kid caught bringing toys to school will promptly file them with Dr. Gladbag.

I bet the problem will be resolved within a week.

What disturbs me is this ridiculous notion that they should be suspended for a weapons violation. This makes a mockery of a serious safety issue.

I have a zero-tolerance policy for idiocy.

[proud2BlibKansan]

26. Play guns are violations

of every schools' no-weapons policy. You need to understand that some of these kids are 5 years old and they can't tell the difference between a toy gun and a real one. So if it looks like a gun, it gets the kid in pretty big trouble.

BTW, I know a guy who held up a store using a toy gun. His sentence was the same as it would have been if he had used a real gun. The judge said the victim didn't know it was a toy.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

27. Real guns which kill people are not 2" long and made of plastic...

Any adult who doesn't realize this shouldn't be trusted with our children's welfare. The only thing a suspension will accomplish in this case is confusion and resentment on the part of the child toward the system which is supposed to be teaching him/her how to think. It makes adults look really stupid in the eyes of a kid who's already half-convinced of that fact simply by watching TV.

[Wonk]

6. Here's yesterday's (*cough* LBN rules *cough*) gungeon thread on this

You may wish to add some of your comments down there as well.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=35803&mesg_id=35803

[bleedingheart]

9. Oh I did...went down there and posted a tirade on the issue

[Just Me]

19. There are many parents who do not hold your level of resourcefulness,...

,...a "zero-tolerance" policy doesn't address their issues either. I have about as much confidence in these "zero-tolerance" applications against school children as I do jail-time for substance abusers. Neither have proven to be effective.

[1monster]

23. Oh come on!

A two inch toy will fit into a child's pocket and leave no tale-tale bulge that there is ANYTHING in that same pocket.

Are we as parents supposed to pat our small children down every morning before watching them on to the bus or dropping them off at school?

Aside from which, elementary school children usually have recess every day where play is the order of the day... After school care is a reality for at least a quarter of chilren today, also, and children are encouraged to bring something from home to entertain themselves at various times.

Did the tiny guns belong in school? No.

Were they a distraction to the class? Very probably.

Was the situation handled in an appropiate manner? No!

As a substitute teacher, I often see children (sometime even in middle and high schools) playing with toys during class. My way of dealing with the situation is to tell them, "Put it away NOW, or it becomes mine." Or, "Wow! That's a neat toy! My son is going to really enjoy playing with it ... if you don't put it in your backpack NOW! And I don't want to see it again during school hours."

You'd be amazed at how quickly those toys and other inappropriate distractions are put out of sight and temptation. Especially if something IS confiscated during the course of the day... Word gets around fast.

BTW, all confiscated toys are returned to the student at the end of the day with a dire warning not to bring them back to school unless they don't want the toy any more.

[proud2BlibKansan]

25. Teachers are being sued

for confiscating toys from kids. A teacher in CA was ordered to pay a kid $25,000 for his Pokemon cards she took away!!

Whenever I have to take something away, I tell the kid I will return it to their parent.* In all these years, I have only had ONE kid who was actually brave enough to go home and tell his mom I took his toy away and ask her to come get it. She called me and told me to throw it in the trash. He never brought another toy to school.

A lot of the kids bring stuff and try to sell or trade with the other kids. I tell them that the sign over the door says "SCHOOL", not WalMart or Toy Store or Garage Sale.

*Don't tell my students, but I always give all the confiscated toys back on the last day of school.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

29. How can people afford to sue over such crap?

Hell, when my 16 year old was assaulted in school, and the administrators didn't call me about it; I talked with a lawyer who asked, "Do you really want to spend thousands of dollars in the hope of recovering a couple hundred?"

[Occulus]

32. You never, ever had recess, did you? nt

[Mz Pip]

8. This makes me nuts

I teach Kindergarten part time and I feel like a Goddamn fool telling these little kids they can't make things that look like guns out of Legos or Linking cubes.

One little guy looked at me when I told him he couldn't make a gun from the linking cubes and said, "It's an F!" (Turn the F sideways and you'll get it.) It really wasn't an F unless you point Fs sideways and make exploding noises. But Geez Louise, this is nuts.

Whn my kid was 4 he said he wanted a gun for Christmas. His Dad said, "Guns are bad, they kill people." My kid looked at him somehwat perplexed and replied, "I don't want a REAL one." Well that set us straight. Playing with toy guns does not make you grow up to be a psycho killer.

MzPip
:dem:

[bleedingheart]

11. on the other hand when I was in junior high I remember a teacher

who brought a hand gun to school so he could clean it during study hall...

Today he would have lost his job but back then we kids were so frightened of him that we didn't say a thing...

[0rganism]

15. Whatever happened to recess?

"They don't need toys during the school day. If kids are playing with toys, they are not attending to school,"

Funny, I could have sworn we were still at school, even when we brought Matchbox cars to play with in the dirt outside our classrooms.

[bleedingheart]

16. Most schools have toys available for recess

but today the number of toys brought to school has gotten out of hand.

As I stated above my son's school sent home letters telling people to monitor what their kids were bringing and they had to say they weren't liable for what the kids lost or did with that stuff... its the old adage...give them an inch they take a mile...

[LifeDuringWartime]

17. take it easy

it was inevitable that this was going to happen, thanks to america's favorite babysitter, the television.

[0rganism]

20. Sure they do, rubber balls and jumpropes galore

and sometimes, children enjoy playing with toys that encourage imaginative play.

Some kids would bring a whole collection case full of those little cars, or boxes of barbie stuff, or bags of marbles, or D&D game materials, all for recess and after-school play. Because if you played with them in class, you'd be lucky to get them back at the end of the year. Simple rule.

[JailForBush]

18. But if your name is James Kelly, and you work for the Seattle Chamber

of Commerce, you can carry a REAL gun on to a public school campus, pull it on some youths, and get off with a slap on the hand. The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer waged a vigorous campaign to defend him, while they attacked his rival, James Garrett, who spent a year in prison for clobbering our corrupt Mayor Schell.

Garrett should have received an award for giving Schell a taste of accountability, while Garrett deserves life without parole for all he's done to screw children.

I'm sick of corporations perverting justice.

[kath]

24. Awww, Jeebus H. Christ, we used to bring jacks, jump ropes,and

Jingle Jumps (remember those) to school all the time to play with at recess, and we turned out okay!!

(and I still have wonderful memories of playing with those things at school. Back them we used to have three recesses a day -- morning, lunchtime and afternoon. Can't do that today, oh no! It would take too much time away from test-prep. Ughh -- schools have basically turned into huge Stanley Kaplan-type test prep centers. I'm so glad my kids are spared all that bullshit.)

[GoddessOfGuinness]

28. And teachers would take them away

when kids took them out at inappropriate times.

But god forbid that we should trust teachers to know when those times are. We have to create a rule that everybody adheres to, regardless of the situation. :eyes:

[CShine]

30. bump

[number6]

31. send em to GITMO

:smoke: :eyes: