Child Suspended After Finding Toy Gun At Bus Stop

[Kadie]

Child Suspended After Finding Toy Gun At Bus Stop
Student Says He Brought Toy Gun To School To Give To Principal

UPDATED: 11:47 AM EST February 2, 2005

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A Kansas City student is being punished for what he thought was a good deed.
SURVEY

Tuesday morning, a boy waiting for the bus to Oakwood Manor Elementary School in Kansas City dug up what he thought was a gun in the ground.

snip...
Frasier wouldn't find out it was a toy until later. He said when he first found it, he wanted to make sure nobody got hurt. Just before the bus arrived at the corner, he put the gun in his backpack so that he could give it to school officials.

snip...

"It did look like a real gun," Principal Marla Wasserman said.
She said the boy had good intentions, but while making his way through the hallway to her office, he told another student what he had in his backpack. Wasserman said the boy should not have told another student. She then suspended him.

more...
http://www.thekcrachannel.com/education/4155928/detail.html

[MissB]

1. Zero Common Sense

Or Zero Tolerance, take your pick.

on edit: By Zero Common Sense, I meant the school's action, not the child's.

[saigon68]

24. Marla Wasserman has her head up her ASS

She can't breathe up there ---her ears are cutting off the air.

[havocmom]

2. Great job, Principal Wasserman. You have assured that if it happens again

the child won't go to the authorities closest at hand! Dumb fuck!

[Mountainman]

3. He was probably feeling proud of himself for wanting to do the right thing

now for the rest of his life he will distrust anyone of authority. I had a similar thing happen to me when I was in the second grade. I still can recall it vividly. Though I think that is could have been a good lesson for me because I haven't ever thought that those in authority were lily white like some freeper types do.

[histohoney]

4. Fabulous

Next time the poor kid will be to scared to do the right thing.
This women needs to realize what a treasure she has in a child that did not show it off, pull it out of the bag or anything like that, just talked IN PASSING about it.
Ms. Wasserman needs a time out.

[vpigrad]

5. He touched what he tought might be a gun!

That's something horrible for any child to do. He shouldn't have endangered himself, the others on the bus, and the public (an out of control bus with a driver with a gunshot wound can cause a lot of damange) by doing what he did. It ended-up ok since it was a toy gun, but what if it wasn't? The kid could have killed dozens of children. It's better for the child to call the police to let them handle dangerous items.

[Arkansas Granny]

9. You are so right

about teaching children not to touch a gun. I do believe he was unfairly punished for trying to do what he thought was the right thing. Maybe a lesson, instead of a suspension, was in order.

[TahitiNut]

18. The adults showed they could be stupider than the kid.

There has never been a "bad thing" done other than for "good reason" - false beliefs and inverted values lead to both stupid acts and atrocities.

[Richard Steele]

21. Maybe so, BUT:

This is a CHILD we are reading about. He did what he thought was the RIGHT thing; he acted out of concern.

The appropriate response would have been to give him a _BIG_ 'attaboy', followed by a "here's what you could have done better" speech.

ENCOURAGE his noble impulses while teaching him SAFER actions.

PUNISHING him for a good deed is entirely counterproductive, not to mention 'stupid bordering upon EVIL'

[AndyTiedye]

6. Let No Good Deed Go Unpunished

[malachi]

7. More "zero tolerance" idiocy. Zero tolerance running amok.

As reported by Stephanie L. Arnold in Saturday's Inquirer, a senior on the honor roll at Haverford High School had the temerity to take an over-the-counter pain medication - a generic version of Aleve - for menstrual cramps without first clearing it with the school nurse.

Mind you, she is 18, old enough to fight and die in Iraq. Mind you, she was not misusing the pain medicine. Mind you, she made no attempt to hide her behavior. In fact, she was busted after she went to the nurse and reported that her cramping continued, despite the pill she took.

Does this sound like a crazed drug abuser to you? In the black-and-white world of zero tolerance, the question is moot. She violated the school's drug policy, which bans students from, among other things, taking medication without permission. And she was suspended, if only for part of one day before she apologized and was allowed back in school.

The girl's mother about nailed it when she likened the policy to "throwing a hand grenade on an anthill."

Unfortunately, the problem is not isolated, which leads to Exhibit B: The case of the handcuffed 10-year-old.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/10783229.htm

[BanzaiBonnie]

14. I hate this school policy

It is idiotic. We are working to teach responsibility. This does nothing to further those ends. It is an over-reactive way of dealing with drugs in the school.

I always told my daughters that they know the rules and have a choice to follow them or not. If they take Tylenol or some such thing at school, just be sure not to be seen.

Nice place to be in; teaching them to get around the system. Be sneaky and hide what you're doing. It's bullshit, that's what it is.

[lostnfound]

20. Would have been embarassed as heck if those rules had been around

when I was in school. What teenage girl wants to talk to school teachers about something so private? None of their business.

[Tempest]

8. Online Poll: 93% say he should not have been suspended

Should Frasier McCart have been suspended after taking a toy gun he found at his bus stop to school?


Yes, he should not have told the other child. 73 2%
Yes, he should not have even touched it. 185 5%
No, he was just trying to help. 3378 93%

[Renew Deal]

10. I just spoke with the principal

She said that the media isn't reporting the whole story. I let her know that it's hit the web. She wants to clear this up, but she can't talk. She seems like a nice woman.

[w4rma]

12. What (if anything) is missing from the story and why can't she talk? (nt)

[Kadie]

13. You mean the media isn't doing their job?

Only reporting part of a story? I am shocked, absolutely shocked!

:-)

I wonder what the rest of the story is.

[LizW]

25. There's GOT to be more to it

The story as reported, just doesn't make sense. I'll be interested to hear what the story is leaving out.

[Renew Deal]

11. Here is the website for the school.

http://w4.nkcsd.k12.mo.us/~mwasserm/

[rodeodance]

15. where is the commonsense in this situation!!! the adult should be

suspended!! this is an effect of the zero tolerance mentality!!

[biftonnorton]

16. As Eddie Eagle Says

If you see a gun:

STOP!
Don't Touch.
Leave the Area.
Tell an Adult.

Lather.
Rinse.
Repeat.

[meow2u3]

17. Zero tolerance: power games played adults who act like children...

at the expense of real children. I bet these are the same bullies who preach against bullying in school.
:grr:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. Sounds like another ACA

(ass-covering administrator). This is a species of human being who memorizes rules but uses no common sense whatsoever in applying them.

If you hear of something stupid happening at a school, chances are good that an ACA is involved.

[BiggJawn]

22. "Zero Tolerance" 100% STUPIDITY.

I'm so glad they don't teach Industrial Arts in schools anymore.

Could you imagine what would happen to the kid in Electricty class who got a little tingle?

"I'm sorry,son, but under our 'Zero Tolerance' policy, you touched Electricity. that means we have to take you out back and throw you onto the High Voltage wiring, because anybody KNOWS you get killed when you get electrocuted. We can't have people running around in this world paying less than the ULTIMATE price for their errors..."

[Spangle]

23. This kind of stupid Crap happens all the time

Not just dealing with "dangrous" issues.

I NEVER thought I would be teaching my young kids that adults don't always know best. I'm one of those that believed in teaching children to respect teachers, teachers are ALWAYS right, blah, blah, blah.

I don't do that any more. Instead, I teach them that the teacher is in charge of the class room. Her rules goes, no matter what. Doesn't make her/him right. And that it's "ok". And that life is JUST LIKE THAT. Some times the biggest idot is the boss, gota learn to deal.

So when my kids get in trouble for stupid stuff that they shouldn't, I become real realistic. In this case, so the child gets a couple of days off from school. I would remind the child how proud I was of him. He did the best he could with the information that he had. Granted, he could have done better. He could have LEFT it there and just reported where it was. But we are talking about a child. He didn't THINK of that. IT's not something we talk about and teach our children about.

AS for being suspended. It's a catch 22. That is the rule. But it doesn't mean that the school can't do it with a smile and tell the child how proud they are of him for TRYING to do the right thing. YES, it's in his record. But the WHOLE story could also be put in the record. That the child was TRYING to report it, etc, etc. That the suspention was a matter of rule, not because the child actualy needed the punishment.

Both could have and should have been done. Stating that the child wouldn't have been in trouble if he didn't TELL another student, that is just lame and stupid. Not to mention totaly unrealistic. No way a child that age wouldn't talk about something so exciting. Another words, the child is being punished for being a normal kid? That is why the explaination is lame and stupid. Better to have said that it was the rule, didn't agree with the rule in this case, but it is STILL the rule. And while following school rules, they were going to show the kid how proud they were of him for TRYING.