Colonial Forge High School Student Suspended From School For Stunt in Banana Suit at Football Game

[Zephie]

STAFFORD, Va. - 14-year-old Brian Thompson says he never thought he would be handcuffed and placed in a police car for running down the sidelines during halftime at a football game.

He and his mother, Tavia Thompson, say they are even more puzzled that officials at Colonial Forge High School in Stafford, Va., suspended him for 10 days, apparently for being disruptive.

<snip>

Some students at the school wore t-shirts Monday that said "Free The Banana Man." They say the shirts were confiscated and students wearing them were ordered to attend school on Saturday as punishment.

Thompson is autistic. His mother says she thinks her son's autism, that results in impulsiveness, is the real reason for the suspension.

http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/virginia/colonial-forge-high-school-student-suspended-from-school-for-stunt-in-banana-suit-at-football-game-091911#ixzz1YViosztu

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Video at link

[Ikonoklast]

1. I guess it ISN'T peanut-butter jelly time, then

[Solly Mack]

2. How can anyone not be amused by a banana?

[1monster]

4. I thought our your photo when I saw this...

[Solly Mack]

7. Us bananas have to stick together

(teehee)

[Arugula Latte]

11. Bananas are appeeling.

[1monster]

3. Authoritarian jerks: bound and determined to crush any spontaneous act

of creative fun in our children. Had he been running on the field during the game,there would have been grounds for charging him with disruption. During half-time on the sidelines... No.

[FSogol]

6. Yeah, he should have been behind the bleachers getting in fights & drinking like all the other kids!

:shrug:

[lumberjack_jeff]

5. I'm a parent of an autistic son.

I give the school the benefit of the doubt here.
a) In the interview, Brian demonstrates none of the markers of autism
b) I have to believe there's more to the story.
c) In real life, a disability isn't a get out of jail free card.
d) Fox news. I question everything that comes from that messenger.

[1monster]

12. My stepson is autistic but remained undiagnosed until he was 34 years old.

I knew he was autistic, but the markers can be subtle especially when there are other conditions present. Some autistic people have markers that are unmistakeable in any circumstances. Some the markers are not as easily seen.

[Throckmorton]

13. As is my son,

who was 14 when he was diagnosed. Up until that time, the school just blamed his behavior on post-traumatic stress due to the death of his mother when he was 9. I paid for the testing that finally uncovered the truth.

It was my autistic daughters Therapist (She was diagnosed as PDD-NOS two years before her mother died) that put me onto the trail. The school systems testing monkey had tested him at the end of the sixth grade in declared him normal. We are still at war with them over 2 years after the diagnosis, but we have an excellent LMFT, and even better Psychiatrist (he spends 90 minutes a month with my son) and a Lawyer that has argued Special Ed cases in front of the Supreme Count, and won.

[1monster]

14. Ah, if only it were just the school system's failure to figure it out. He was in a

children's psych ward for five or six months at age six, and had to have been in treatment with at least ten psychologists and therapists, and also psychiatrists and neuralogists. None of them even tested him in any real way for autism. Not even when they were told that he had been diagnosed with eleven markers for autism before the age of five. Eleven. And they give the diagnosis of autistism when the subject has seven markers.

My personal opinion is that at least 92% of private practice mental health care workers are frauds (in it for the money) and five percent are sincere, but don't have enough experience for the job, leaving the burden of good mental health care on the remaining three percent.

(The fact that your daughter was already diagnosed as autistic should have been a BIG clue for the mental health workers... When there is one member of a family that is autistic, there are likely others who have related syndromes such as ADHD or Aspergers, etc.)

[Throckmorton]

15. Three extended stays in the Psych Ward,

at age 11, 13, and 14 a total of 9 months. Just like in your case, autism was never considered. Having a child diagnosed with autism already, you would think that I would have picked up on it, but he presents entirely different from his sister.

She was sweet and agreeable, but was just completely unable to initiate any meaningful interpersonal interaction on her own (today is her 15th birthday), and often acted like other people were objects, like the furniture. She has made enormous strides, and attends an all girls high school in an unmodified program, which I find just short of a miracle.

He is anything but sweet and agreeable, we have an Emergency PPT for him Thursday, as he is refusing to attend school, he is 17, and in Connecticut he cannot drop out without my consent.

[1monster]

16. Good luck. I hope you can get his cooperation and enthusiasm.

[underpants]

17. I have heard this twice on the local RW station. Of all the things to discuss this is it?

this is a big talking point for them - bash schools/pretend to be on the side of individual rights.

IF the kid was autistic and "acts impulsively" how do we reconcile that with the fact that he somehow got a banana suit, put it on, and ran onto the field?

[Javaman]

8. Peanut butter jelly time just isn't like it used to be. nt

[Javaman]

9. Is that a banana running down the field? or are you just really happy to see us win? nt

[rfranklin]

10. The problem was when the banana started to peel itself...

and the cheerleaders lost control.