Florida boy accused of assault with rubber band

[Mister K]

Florida boy accused of assault with rubber band

A 13-year-old student in Orange County, Fla., was suspended for 10 days and could be banned from school over an alleged assault with a rubber band, according to a WKMG Local 6 News report.

..snip

After the incident, Gomez received a 10-day suspension for threatening his teacher with what administrators say was a weapon, Local 6 News reported.

..snip

Rojas said she was shocked to learn that her son was being punished for a Level 4 offense -- the highest Level at the school. Other violations that also receive level 4 punishment include arson, assault and battery, bomb threats and explosives, according to the Code of Student Conduct.

The district said a Level 4 offense includes the use of any object or instrument used to make a threat or inflict harm, including a rubber band.

http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050223/BREAKINGNEWS/50223002

[SteppingRazor]

1. What they ought to do

... is lock this kid up with the lady from a few posts down and have her smoke in the cell with him. It'll serve them both right. Ho ho ho!

[murray hill farm]

2. I agree with the suspension!

He threatened the teacher...threatened to hurt her...and that does require suspension....i have been there..and i admire the principal who has no tolerance for students threatening teachers.

[SteppingRazor]

3. Aw, you can't be serious!

You're gonna put a black mark on the kid's school career because he shot a rubber band at the teacher?! I mean, detention, maybe. But not suspension. What's next? The death penalty for spitballs?

[meganmonkey]

4. Did you read the article?

According to the kid, all he did was toss it on a table because whe told him to give it back to her:

"Robert Gomez, a seventh-grader at Liberty Middle School, said he picked up a rubber band at school and slipped it on his wrist.

Gomez said when his science teacher demanded the rubber band, the student said he tossed it on her desk."

Doesn't sound like assault to me?! :shrug:

[DrWeird]

13. There was an incident a while back...

where a student wrote an article in the school newspaper and he, apparently jocularly, wrote that students should shun a pair of certain teachers.

The teachers, not knowing what the word "shun" means, looked it up in a dictionary and found it means "to ignore, as if dead." So they took it as a death threat (by their own confession) and had the boy expelled. Last I heard it was in court.

[meganmonkey]

17. Oh dear god

The teachers didn't know what 'shun' means? That is bad enough...

:eyes:

[Canuckistanian]

23. They probably thought he had a 'shun gun'

[yinkaafrica]

24. Perhaps they thought he was the rubber band Sho Gun!

[rodeodance]

21. oh for the love of god--don't adults have any commonsense!! shun piece

what teacher does not know the meaning of shun!!!

[murray hill farm]

14. I thought i did...but guess i didn't read the whole thing...

what i read said he threatened her...if that were true..yes, i am serious. If the above is true...that she demanded it from his wrist and he threw it on her desk...then yes..suspend the teacher..ha! It is the threatening of teachers and other students...and any tolerance for it, no matter how trivial the threat, that i am against. Just because it is a school, does not change that students and teachers need to be made to live with threats from other students. I think often that students especially..are expected to deal with bully's and abusive co students on their own...and do not have the rights that adults have outside of the school invironment..and i do admire administrators who have no tolerance for it.

[meganmonkey]

16. I totally understand what you're saying

It just seemed from the article that it was being blown out of proportion. I wonder if there were any other students who saw what happened. So far it looks like a he said-she said kind of thing.

[SomewhereOutThere424]

22. But that makes it okay

When teachers physically abuse the students, right? In most cases, children don't threaten unless they too were threatened, but I'm sure that part was not as important as a rubber band.

I'd witnessed a gym teacher assault a student with a hockey stick. He threatened to come after anyone who ratted him out. The man still goes free because everyone is afraid of him. Maybe, you know, if we made news about those trying to hurt children with much more serious weapons than a rubber band, we'd see a lot less of it.

I feel safer at night knowing our american teachers are safe from the threat of a rubber band. I wonder if this is where all the NCLB funding went.

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[toymachines]

5. wait, so he shot the band onto her desk

and they say it could have hit her in the eye, and called it assault? is that right, or did he verbally threaten her, or what? cause that is ridiculous if i understand it right.

[Vladimir]

6. Oh bite me

rubber bands... well it doesn't even hurt, unless done from a foot away (and even then it would have to hit in the eye, which is goddamn hard to do even if you are aiming, as most people can certify from 1st hand experience, I am sure). If he did it from the other side of the desk... this is bullshit.

On second edit: bite me comment not directed at original poster...

[DrWeird]

7. Fire the teacher.

She's got no business being around kids.

[HockeyMom]

9. Spitballs

Might be showing my age but anybody remember them? Boys in my elementary classes used to shoot spitballs at the Nuns. Ah, yes, these things would never happen if we put God back in the schools. LOL

Maybe it is more like "boys will be boys" and time and/or religion makes no difference at all.

[DrWeird]

10. Remember when...

teachers punished kids because they actually cared about discipline and kids becoming better students, then some kind of sick personal revenge?

[NickB79]

34. Spitballs, hell. We made homemade BB guns

Tubing from a ballpoint pen, a good strong rubber band, a pusher piece to slide inside the tube, a thin metal bar placed perpendicularly across the top to attach the rubber band to. Basically like a reversed bow with a tube sticking out of it. Those things hurt, and in retrospect could have definitely taken out an eye. The worst we got was detention with those.

[diddlysquat]

8. I'm a middle school teacher and let me tell you

rubber bands ARE weapons. I see one in a kid's hands and I take it away. It doesn't take much for an injury to occur and of course, then a lawsuit.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

27. Thank goodness we have vigilant teachers like you to ensure that we...

...don't have any frivilous lawsuits based on assaults with a rubber band.

Good thing you weren't around when rocks were the weapon of choice in my middle school...you'd probably want to expell me for life.

[1monster]

29. A sub here, and yes, I also take rubber bands away from students.

Not only do they hurt people when they are used to sting, the rubber bands are also used as launchers for what students call "hornets", paper rolled up tightly and launched with the bands. There are also what I call paper bullets. They are the same as the "hornets" but much larger. Having been hit on the back of the head with one of those, I can tell you, they really hurt.

Middle school is the pits. Bullying and bad behavior is rampant. That said, it is my belief that a big part of the problem is the whole idea of middle school. Students are not given the repsonsibility for their own behavior that they should be. They are treated all the way through eight grade like elementary school students. Punishment is often way out of line, either too lenient for the offense, or they throw the book and and bookcase at the student when a slap on the wrist would have more than sufficed.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

35. Let's not blame the schools....the parents are the folks that are....

....allowing certain things to take place at home, and are not willing to allow schools to discipline their children.

I remember a time when getting in trouble at school meant getting it double when you got home. That doesn't exist anymore...parents are much too quick to launch lawsuits because they believe that their little Billy and little Sally are perfect children.

[1monster]

36. That is only partly true. I've been in a school from rough neigborhoods

where the parents don't really seem to care much about what goes on in school, and I've been in a school where the students are mostly from very well-to-do neighborhoods where there are a lot of parent volunteers. And the rough neighborhood school had better discipline than the well-to-do neighborhohod school. It all starts with the principal and goes from there. Consistancy and appropriate disciplinary measures count for a lot.

[Solly Mack]

11. Zero tolerance must mean zero tolerance for thinking

and reasoning and being rational

[Media_Lies_Daily]

28. Whatever you do, don't let your child go to school with an aspirin in....

...his pocket! That also merits "special attention".

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

37. I have zero tolerance towards zero tolerance. (nt)

[ElsewheresDaughter]

12. oy vey

[manly]

15. rubber band assault

Time to go back to corporal punishment. I say we should cut the little bastard's offending fingers off, frame them, and hang them in the school office for everyone to see. Imagine! Shooting a rubber band at a teacher! What's this world coming to?
On thinking further about this, what about the kid's parents, are they to get off scot-free. After all, they raised this potential mass murderer. I think the parents should be made an example of, too.
Let's see, what can we do to them? Pull out all their fingernails? Tar and feather them? Make them listen to a recording of Kate Smith singing "God Bless America" for eight hours?Hmmmm.
I've got it!Shave their heads!!! Yeah, that sounds good. I'm sure Bush would approve. It's not torture, y'know.

[progressivebydesign]

18. You're ONLY taking the kid's account of this... the teacher CAN'T comment.

The District can't comment publicly on the teacher's take on this. The kid SAYS he only tossed it... There is nothing in the article that proves one way or another what happened. Sorry.. I usually side with the teachers on these things, unless independently verified.

Why is it so quick here to demonize teachers, police, clergy, and others? I've had kids in school for years... trust me, most stories like these are NOT the way the kid reports them. If we could actually hear both sides, then we could decide what the outcome should be. Right now, all you have is a kid and his Mom (who wasn't there either). God bless the teachers.. I wouldn't want that job.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

31. So, you support overreaction by school administrators who also....

...were not there to witness the event? Why is a school teacher's version of an event to be more trusted than the version told by a student?

Seems to me that I recall that a great many people used to trust Catholic priests with the safety of boys in their care...after all, prists would never lie would they? And how about some of those tv evangelists who lie through their teeth every day to keep the money flowing into their pockets?

Both of my parents were teachers for thirty+ years, but they would never have supported the kind of Draconian nonsense that we see in schools today.

[Orangepeel]

19. ya know, we only have one side of the story

the kid says he tossed the rubber band on her desk. If that is true, then the suspension is, of course, ridiculous.

But, of course he is going to say that. Even if he shot it at her face, he's going to say that. When kids do something wrong, they often lie to try to minimize it.

Now, he probably didn't shoot it at her face and the teacher/school probably did have a ridiculous overreaction.

But, we only have one side of the story.

[rodeodance]

20. will the bra be next? someone snapping them--while on the girl? but

that is probably bodily assult now. Level 5?

[1monster]

30. I know a case where that happened. The girl and her mother screamed

sexual harassment and had criminal charges pressed. He had a restraining order against him for more than a year, was suspended, and then had to attend a different school. I know that his mother was appealing the restraining order, but I don't know how it turned out...

[Media_Lies_Daily]

32. And the kid gets branded with a bullsh** legal decision for life....

Wonderful.

[Mister K]

25. Here is what I do not understand...

We were all kids once...

I can remember making the paper 'v's and shooting them at each other in school and on the bus. Now, I would be suspended or possible expelled for such behavior.

There was also an article recently about a boy being arrested for drawing pictures of one of his fellow students being impaled with knives.

I believe that there are much worse offenses to be dealt with at school than these poor examples.

[Megahurtz]

33. It just sounds really stupid.

Schools are bizzare these days. Seems like a lot of paranoia with the teachers and staff.