Suspended Boy Back in School

[question everything]

October 15, 2009
Suspended Boy Back in School
By IAN URBINA

Zachary Christie, 6, wants to make one thing clear: he was not at Disneyland last week.

On his first day back at school in Newark, Del., after he was suspended and ordered to the district’s alternative school for troubled youth for taking to school a camping utensil that included a small foldout knife, Zachary said his fellow first graders kept asking him how he had spent his days away. “I kept telling them that I was at home doing my work,” he said.

School officials had initially ruled that the camping utensil was a weapon, and that under their zero-tolerance policy they were required to suspend him and send him to the alternative school for 45 days. They reversed the punishment Tuesday night and revised the discipline code.

Zachary arrived at school on Wednesday morning with a smile from ear to ear, his mother said. He slalomed his way through the satellite trucks and reporters gathered out front, and sat with his classmates in a circle on the carpet in his class.

(snip)

By noon, Zachary’s excitement about being back at school had worn off, and his mother, Debbie Christie, took him home after lunch. “I just didn’t feel like I was fitting in,” Zachary said. Ms. Christie said that when she arrived at the school, several parents thanked her for standing up to school officials and forcing them to make needed changes to the code of conduct.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/education/15discipline.html


Find the original story here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=6765653

[havocmom]

1. Glad some commen sense crept into this one.

When I first heard about this one, I figured, little boy with cool mess kit wants to work toward becoming self-sufficient. A worthy goal and a good sign.

Then it occurred that with all the flu talk, he also may have reasoned having his own utensils might be a good idea, from a cautionary health standpoint. Thought: if so, bright kid and logical.

Then... the suspension. Ah come on! A six year old with a cool mess tool?

Man, good to have some good news about sanity regained before bed tonight.

[NavyDavy]

4. oh yeah real good kid being taught to snub the rules....

[havocmom]

5. At six, it is unlikely he would think a little fold out utensil kit was a weapon

Most sane people would probably agree.

[depakid]

13. In the future- people like him all around the world will snub your dysfunctional & cowardly "rules"

Look at this as just the first front of an overall rejection of FAILED ideology that's lost its place in the 21st Century.

[Chulanowa]

18. Not all rules are equal

"Zero tolerance" rules in schools are almost to a one, completely insane in practice. When you can be thrown out for bringing our own advil to school, where your son or daughter can have their assorted orifices fingered by school officials based on another student's claim, where taking a multi-tool that couldn't cut peanut butter gets a six year old two months of low-grade education with actual delinquents, then the rules are wrong.

[NavyDavy]

2. ok when one of those parents kids who were thanking the boys mother

for standing up gets stabbed or cut by a blade no matter what its used for I dont want to hear a peep from any of them

[havocmom]

7. I got hit by a book in school. Perhaps dangerous books should be banned too?

Also got hit by some clay during an art class. Clay can be dangerous.

How about sane administration of sane policy and violent actions being addressed? Just about anything can be a weapon. Unless the kids attend Buck Nekkid U and do nothing but sit quietly, there will always be some potential for something to go wrong.

Really, a mess kit utensil? There is a difference between that and a sharp blade long enough to do real damage.

[question everything]

8. You can and should remove the tool, and you should call the parents

but to spend 45 days in a disciplinary school?


And, apparently, this was not the first time. From the original NYT story, a third grader was expelled for a year after her grandmother sent her to school with a birthday cake and a knife to cut it. The teacher reported the knife to the principal, but only after using it to serve the cake.

[lpbk2713]

9. It wasn't even really a knife

It was one of those plastic things like a spatula that they give for free with some store-bought cakes.

I remember that. That was absurd.

[armyowalgreens]

10. Zero tolerance polices don't fucking work.

So, unfortunately, your trust that these policies will somehow stop anything is misplaced

[Swamp Rat]

3. Thanks for the update

:hi:

[lpbk2713]

6. He would have been stigmatized for life ...

... if his story had not made it in to the MSM like it did.

The local school board officials had to back off to save face.

I'm glad it worked out the way it did.

[omega minimo]

17. He already is. Did you read his lunchtime comment?

[Fridays Child]

11. An elementary school kid here was suspended for bringing a couple of rounds of rifle ammo to school.

I always wondered whether the principal was afraid that the boy might manually insert the bullets into the flesh of his classmates. Well, he was a strong kid and big for his age.

:eyes:

Seriously, a brief discussion with the kid and a call home to mom would have been sufficient. But some of these zero-tolerance policies allow only for knee-jerk responses by otherwise reasonable, discerning adults.

[dysfunctional press]

12. as a white kid in a non-urban area, the end result was never in question...

had it been a black 6-year old in detroit, the story would have ended differently.

[question everything]

14. I don't know

I really don't. But for some reason I would think that teachers and principals in inner cities have a more "street smart" to recognize a real danger from a simple mistake.

[dysfunctional press]

15. "street smarts" has nothing to do with it.

zero-tolerance policies do.

and yet, somehow they always seem to be more tolerant of the non-minorities...:shrug:

[Chulanowa]

19. Completely the opposite, usually

they're very twitchy about this sort of thing in "bad" schools, to the point where using a pencil to gesture could probably be taken as a threat of stabbing

[question everything]

20. I can only shake my head

And then there is the kid in Florida who was set on fire for pointing his finger on a would be bicycle thief.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=4102387

[omega minimo]

16. Future absurdist/dissenter/cultural creative and potential DUer

:yourock: