SHE talks a lot?!! Hmmm… wonder where she gets it from…
And I concure on the “brought it to school by accident” analysis. It may have been an accident but if it was, she really should not have bragged about it.
I’m convinced that she had no malicious intent (given the evidence you’ve presented) but this suspension may teach her another important lesson. How to keep certain things to her self.
But hey, we’ve all been kids and said/done really stupid things. Chalk it up to experience.
When we lived in Madison, there was an article in the local weekly about a kid who had essentially the same thing happen. His mom asked the paper to do the story, which had quotes from the authorities and a picture of the offending knife, so that she would have some documentation. She figured that, when he was applying to college, someone was going to ask about the suspention for carrying a weapon, and she thought that a newspaper article about it would carry more weight than simply him saying, “Well, it was an accident that got blown out of proportion.” The paper ran the story, complete with the rationale, so she had her documentation. IIRC, the boy was still given the “zero tolerance” punishment.
I don’t know if she was right or paranoid, but it’s something you might want to consider.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by QuickSilver *
**
She gets it from her dad. Yep, that man could talk the ears off a corn stalk.
WTF are you talking about Quicksilver?!! Someone carrying a Swiss Army knife needs professional help?! In high school, my freaking keychain was a Swiss Army knife.
Chalk this up to the irrationality of schools after Columbine, not irrationality on the part of Lil’L.
Sua
Yes, intent can be hard to determine. But what’s being suggested with zero tolerance policies is ludicrous. Are we, as a society, going to be so lazy as to not even try to understand the circumstances of an event before administering punishment? Haven’t people ever heard about the term “extenuating circumstances”?
According to the North Carolina law Zumba points out, it could be interpreted as illegal for a parent (“any person”) going to a football game to carry a pocket knife. Do you think anyone would enforce that law unless the person was threatening to other people? I seriously doubt it. Yet it seems in some people’s minds a child is not exempt simply by virtue of being a child…
LOL! Good luck with getting her off the hook at school. It sounds like a huge over-reaction.
It’s not the knife I worry about. It’s the blankie and passifier thing in the hands of a 9th grader. Of course Lyllyan did come along later and help clarify things… a bit.
I still think it’s strange for a kid that age to be craving comfort from these types of infant related objects. Throw a knife into the equation and the fact that she felt the need to brag about it and I just thought the kid could benefit from a brief chat with a childhood councelor. He/she may make little L’s transition into adolescence a little less scary.
But that’s just my unqualified armchair psychologist opinion. It’s MPSIMS. I don’t have to provide credentials or a cite. Just my mundane pointless opinion.
Strange thing is, Lyllyan doesn’t seem to be taking it as seriously as you. Good for Lyllyan!
OK, a question…
Did she actually brag about having the knife, or did she reach into her pocket and whisper to a friend, “Ooops, I accidentally brought my knife!” or something else?
Oh, I definately take it seriously! However, I think the whole issue could be better resolved using common sense, rather than resorting to scare tactics, lawyers etc… IMHO the situation is being blown all out of proportion. Now, if LittleB had a past history, at school and at home, of violence, then fine, throw the book at her. But as I have pointed out, she has not been in trouble before, is a sweet loving child and is being treated like a criminal. Yes, yes, I realize it’s against the law (or school rules) to have a knife in one’s posession, but is it any worse than being stopped by the police and realizing you do not have your license and insurance at hand?
And mrblue, it was a whispered, “I brought my dad’s knife! It was in my pocket and I didn’t even know it!” …kind of thing. Someone saw when her reach into her pocket to see if she had any money her friend could borrow for lunch, and bring up the knife along with the change.
The worlds gone mad.
On my first day in school all those years ago , I was quietly minding my own buisness when someone took a distinct dislike to me (i was younger than everyone else) and decided to jab me in the eye with a pencil , breaking the tip off which remained lodged in my eye.
Yeoowch!
My mollycoddling parents decided to not send precious little me back to the school and wouldn’t indulge this 3 yearold’s plan for bitchslapping the guy with a cue ball in a sock. I’m not sure my father ever got over the dissapointment despite my protestations that the guy had suckered me in a heinious and cowardly way.
in reality I cried my little heart out and was terrified of going back.
No lasting damage was done and since that day I have been heading up the Graphite Decommisioning Group whoose sole aim is to see pencils banned from schools.
Seriously , a pencil in the eye can pretty likely cause serious damage , likewise a ruler , an eraser and so many other items that are in common everyday use in a school.
If you are a determined enough kid you will most likely find a weapon if you are so inclined.
I can empathize with the principal who might be concerned that a knife is being brought to school but really is suspension warranted? And now peole are talking about bringing in lawyers FFS ? Lets put this in perspective please.
Doesn’t anyone remember being a kid?
At various stages I was hauled in on the carpet for possesion of amongst other things fireworks , hunting knives , Cows Eye’s (loooong story), twine, and the components for manufacturing parachuting flower bombs.
Reprimaned was I (along with my dastardly colleagues) , parents were called and punishements meeted out but c’mon Lawyers?
…and is anyone at all concerned about decommisioning those deadly pencils?
Are we expected to wrap kids up in cotton wool and bubble wrap and store them at room temperature until they are 18 ?
As well you should. But I was speaking about your response to my little bit of commentary.
But I still think this little incident, once resolved, will serve to educate Little B about the value of discretion in public. Especially when the breaking of some pretty strict (though stupid) rules is at risk.
From Lyllyan’s prior posts:
Yes, lawyers!! It is stupid that she needs one, but the school system has gone crazy. A definite one week suspension plus a hearing and the possibility of expulsion or alternative school is insane for her “crime”. I sure wouldn’t let that happen to my kid with out consulting a lawyer.
I am not recommending that she sue the school. I am not recommending that she fight reasonable punishment. (But if as Lyllyan says it was a complete accident and no harm was done why should she be punished at all?) A one week suspension in my mind is already past reasonable. And she is facing the possibility of much worse.
If enough people fight the zero-tolerance craziness then maybe it will stop.
Thanks for clarifying. It’s obvious some people were assuming otherwise. Hopefully for her sake there were kids around who witnessed and will testify to that effect.
As Damhna can verify, we practically arm and train our kids in Ireland in the use of a deadly weapon, the hurl.
Lyll, hopefully you can sort this out. remember to remain calm, and positive during the meeting. I’m sure they see enough Paretnts losing their temper.
The Hurl? I thought that’s what you Irish did after a few too many down at the local pub.
Come to think on it, that wouldn’t make a bad weapon after all.
“I’m gonna kick your Irish Ass”
SPEW
Properly directed, the guy might lose all interest in fighting.:p:p
Just recently it was in our paper about a girl who got sent home from grade school for having a chain on her book bag.
You know what it was?
She was a latchkey kid and she had about five or so key rings linked together with on end attached to the book bag and the other end had her house keys on them.
She explained to them that she thought it was a neat idea to make the links longer and that way the reached from her bag to the door and she never had to take them off, or out of her pocket and lose them somewhere.
I can’t remember what all happened in the end with the whole deal, but I do know that it is getting crazy.
Kind of off-topic, but last year when my oldest children were fighting winter colds I sent them to school with cough drops.
Little Kricket came home in tears because her teacher yelled at her and told her never to bring candy to school again.
Now these were cough drops! Real ones that don’t really taste the best but I know that the kids will take them when they can’t handle the cough anymore and not just take them to take them like candy.
I asked the teacher what the problem was with Little Kricket taking them. Would it be better for her to cough and hack and disrupt the class, or discreetly suck on a cough drop and remain quiet.
I was told that if she was that sick to keep her away from the school.
She wasn’t sick enough to stay home, she just had a lingering cough!
I asked her if that is what she would do if she had a cough. You know, stay home until you never coughed again. She said she couldn’t because that would mean too much time off work if everyone did that. Well, duh, see my point? If I keep her home over a little cough, don’t you think she is missing out on learning?
I continued to send the kids with cough drops and not another word was said to them about it.
Oh, and something else I just thought of. They won’t let the high school kids here carry back packs. What’s next, no long coats in the winter? It’s Iowa folks, and winters are cold, and you know as well as I do that if some kid is going to bring something in chances are they aren’t going to carry it into the school in a back pack. They are going to find some place on their person to carry it.
They also have metal detectors and a guard at the door.
And I giggled my ass off when my foster daught came home and told me that they did an evacuation drill in case something like Columbine happened here.
Yeah, that will help. Just get em all out in the open so the shooter can pick em off easier.
That and you can’t tell me that there aren’t McGyver type kids out there that can make a weapon out of a paper clip, a toilet paper tube, and elmers school glue or something.
Yeah, my high school had that too. And we all said the exact same thing! See, the middle school and high school were on opposite sides of the sports fields on the same campus (the three primary schools were scattered on other spots around the county). If there was an evacuation of the middle school, every middle school student would be marched across the field and herded into the high school cafeteria (where the high school kids would join them), and vice versa. So not only would the shooter have this wonderful chance to pick off the kids like a buffalo hunter shooting from a train, but the remaining students would all be packed into one room in the corner of the other building like sitting ducks!
Jeez, when I was in school (and i just graduated two years ago) I used to carry a pocket knife all the time. It had probably a 4 inch blade. I used to use it all the time in shop class, and I never got in one bit of trouble. I also never brought it out out side of those classes. Everybody used to bring pocket knives! Heck, people would even go out hunting early in the morning before school and come to school with their shotgun and hunting knives in their cars and trucks. If they got caught with the guns, they would have to take it home immediately. If anybody got caught with the knife out at the wrong time, they got it taken away and it was given back at the end of the day and we were told not to let them catch you with it again.
There’s only been one case of somebody coming in with a gun and threatening somebody with it, and he wasn’t serious about it. He got expelled for the rest of the year. The point is, knowing how to handle these weapons and/or tools is the way to prevent mishandling them. If people would just think before they go nuts when something like this happens, things would probably work themselves out.
My kids’ schools call those “drugs” and treat them like heroin.
Same deal with PMS meds at my daughter’s school. I can see it now: “Psst. Hey! Can you score me some Midol[sup]TM[/sup]?”