9-yr old suspended over Lego Gun

[Shipyard]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35222830/?gt1=43001

remember - the world is a kind and gentile place....

[Stradawhovious]

For the link inept......

LEGO My Gun: S.I. Boy Faced Suspension Over Tiny Toy


A fourth grade New Dorp boy faced the prospect of suspension after the principal at his South Beach school saw him playing with an action figure carrying a toy machine gun.

Patrick Timoney, a 9-year-old student at PS 52, and friends were playing with LEGOs during their lunch period when the principal took him into her office over the two-inch toy gun carried by a standard policeman figure.

Margie Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, told the Staten Island Advance that there is a no-tolerance policy for toy guns in schools.

Therefore the principal, Evelyn Matroianni, deemed the pinky-sized toy gun suspension-worthy. Matroianni told Laura Timoney, the boy’s mother, that she would check with a DOE security administrator.

But Ms. Timoney told the Advance that the DOE administrator said no other action was necessary after the toy gun is confiscated and returned to the parents at the end of the day.

According to Ms. Timoney, while another child had an action figure holding an ax, her son was the only one to be approached by the principal.

"It's crazy," Ms. Timoney told the Advance, "He's missing class time, all for silly toys. The boys are just trying to relax. If there's a real threat, why not call the Police Department?"

A conference about the matter was held among the principal, parents, and the child.

"The issue was resolved," Ms. Feinberg told the Advance. "The child will not be bringing the toy gun into school."

The DOE states that all imitation weapons are prohibited because they are regarded as harmful to the school community. The principal can evaluate if the weapon looks realistic before considering suspension.

[mrokern]

This gets me angry to the point of ranting and raving.

Natural selection used to take care of the stupid. Now they become principals, it seems.

[Shipyard]

thanks Strad.

yeah - and these are supposed to be the ones EDUCATING our children! HA!

[DeanC]

and these are supposed to be the ones EDUCATING our children!

Parents are the primary educators of their children. They may delegate a portion of that task to others with specialized expertise, but the primary responsibility falls on the parents.

If you turn your children over to the government like the parents in this case, this is what you get, regardless of who is President.

[EJSG19]

When I grew up (and I'm still working on it), a toy found at school, that shouldn't be there was taken away. If you weren't lucky, you never got it back. If the teacher was decent, or you didn't deserve to lose it forever, you got it back at some arbitrary time.

Its clear this No guns, No tolerance thing has very much overstepped its bounds when kids are getting expelled for lego to soldiers.

These kids are exactly that. Kids. Idiots like this principal are trying to hold them to standards beyond their maturity level. I can see reprimanding a kid who brings a real gun, but this is getting out hand.

[RobD]

For the link inept......

Thanks for that. I'd rather not give MSNBC any link traffic.

[hoel6466]

<-------

[GeekyGunman]

I would have to agree that this story is pretty insane, but I can't help but point out the need for perspective.

First, the kid wasn't expelled and they didn't arrest him, he was just suspended. What kid doesn't loose a few days to being suspended at some point in their life?
It doesn't say in the story that I can find, but he got suspended for what? 1-3 days?

It's not any kind of "new" school rule either. If you don't like a rule, breaking it is usually not the best avenue to changing it. There were plenty of dumb rules when I went to school as a kid (which is likely more recently than some of the folks here). We still had to follow them, and we weren't surprised if we were punished for breaking them.

As for the admin, I can't blame them either. The no tolerance rules are pretty explicit.
"Department of Education policy states that there can be no imitation guns on school property"
I'd say he would be just as likely to have the media at his throat over it if some other parent got wind of "gunplay" or similar. Particularly if it led to something more serious.
"Oh why didn't someone catch this early? Oh there was earlier evidence? Hang the principal!"

In that case some other administrator would have come down on his head instead, at the cost of his job.
His job vs 1-3 days suspension.... hmm. It's not a principals job to try and change school rules - it's parents.

I'm all for levying the anger at the zero-tolerance rules though, and those that supported their passage. The zero-tolerance series of rules are simply nuts, period. They've ALWAYS been nuts.

[lenny7]

First, the kid wasn't expelled and they didn't arrest him, he was just suspended. What kid doesn't loose a few days to being suspended at some point in their life?
It doesn't say in the story that I can find, but he got suspended for what? 1-3 days?

It sounds like he wasn't suspended, but having the threat of being suspended for having Legos is outrageous, regardless of the "zero tolerance" rules. No one will ever mistake a 2-inch Lego gun for the real thing (except maybe Heather Martens).

I'd say he would be just as likely to have the media at his throat over it if some other parent got wind of "gunplay" or similar. Particularly if it led to something more serious.

Playing with Legos certainly can lead to something more serious...like playing with Tinker Toys or Erector Sets.

His job vs 1-3 days suspension.... hmm. It's not a principals job to try and change school rules - it's parents.

I expect principals to be intelligent and to use discretion on deciding the proper course of action for each situation. A person doesn't need a Master's Degree to blindly follow rules because they're afraid of making an independent decision. There is no logical defense for this action and the principal should be let go and replaced with someone who can evaluate this situation with the proper perspective.

[mattxd]

I'd say he would be just as likely to have the media at his throat over it if some other parent got wind of "gunplay" or similar. Particularly if it led to something more serious.

Playing with Legos certainly can lead to something more serious...like playing with Tinker Toys or Erector Sets.

those "gateway toys" can lead to something more serous like a mechanical aptitude or in the worst cases a four (or five) year sentence at an engineering school

[GeekyGunman]

To be clear, when I said "lead to something more serious," I don't actually mean to imply that it would lead to something that's actually dangerous - I mean something that would be a more obvious case of breaking a school rule regarding guns that would call attention to the previous infraction. Like a larger plastic gun.

You can harp all you want on "discretion" in the case of the principal, but on touchy issues like guns, it would be just as easy to see a news article about a principal loosing his job over making the reverse of his decision.

The principal that discovered the topless cell phone pictures comes to mind. He made what I would call the reasonable decision there and ended up being fired for child porn when didn't turn the kids over to the police.


The "zero tolerance" rules and laws simply don't give administrators any wiggle room for this "discretion" you are describing.

[FJ540]

In 7th grade I was taken to the principle's office for whipping out my pocket knife to cut some hockey tape off one of the doors at school and had some chick tell our teacher that I had a knife in school (against policy). My father mandated I carry that knife at all times since the age of 7 when he "issued" it, and would yell at me if I didn't have it on me at any moment when he told me to use it for something. It was confiscated shortly there after, however, my teacher promptly gave my knife back at the end of the day. She knew I wasn't hurting anyone and no discipline was needed. Nothing more came of it.

The gist of this is that my teacher had a brain - these people clearly don't.

[1911fan]

If all answers in life were yes/no, then computers would be useful as a teaching device.

But life is never black and white, and writing rules that take judgment and discretion away from both administration and teachers pretty soon teaches kids that the people over them at school must not be trusted.

A far better idea would be to pull back from the rules and tell the admin, these are the goals we want you to pursue, that kids leave here as good citizens, who know how to do the best work they are capable off, and how they get there we will leave up to you and your staff. Then sit back and let them work, if you don't like the progress, then fire them or help them, but don't draw up idiotic rules that can never work.

[lenny7]

This is a prime example of why I tell my older two kids that there are some rules, and some laws, that we can break. That some rules and laws were formed out of complete idiocy and without logic. Some were created by a gov't that is far too over reaching and which disregards the Constitution.

When dumbasses get into positions of power, this is what happens.