# Ridiculous school suspension story of the day **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 24, 2005, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607 "2005-02-24T00:11:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![FisherQueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@FisherQueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FisherQueen)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607/21 "2005-02-24T11:47:40Z")
My experience is that, when punished, kids almost ALWAYS lie, or significantly downplay what they’ve done. If they’ve hit another kid, “I just tapped her,” or if they’ve been bullying a kid for months, “We’re friends; we were just playing.” It’s enough to make you question your sanity when a child looks at you with wide, innocent, tear-filled eyes and insists “I didn’t do it!” when you saw it with your own eyes and the evidence is dangling from their hands. It sounds like this account comes from the kid, more than the teacher, so I wouldn’t believe too much. And if a kid shot a rubber band at my face (those things HURT!) I’d write his little backside up, too. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607/22 "2005-02-24T12:00:54Z")
> [@FisherQueen](#): > > My experience is that, when punished, kids almost ALWAYS lie, or significantly downplay what they’ve done. If they’ve hit another kid, “I just tapped her,” or if they’ve been bullying a kid for months, “We’re friends; we were just playing.” It’s enough to make you question your sanity when a child looks at you with wide, innocent, tear-filled eyes and insists “I didn’t do it!” when you saw it with your own eyes and the evidence is dangling from their hands. > > It sounds like this account comes from the kid, more than the teacher, so I wouldn’t believe too much. > > And if a kid shot a rubber band at my face (those things HURT!) I’d write his little backside up, too. I agree: I see this all the time. Just out of curiosity, if he did shoot it at her, and missed, what do you all thik is an appropriate response? What if he actually did hit her? ---
**Author:** ![Phnord\_Prephect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/df705f/32.png) [@Phnord\_Prephect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phnord_Prephect)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607/23 "2005-02-24T12:05:32Z")
Sure, write up his backside. Assuming he actually did something in any way wrong, of course. Heck, back in my day ‘writing up’ is NOT what my backside would have gotten, believe me. But come on. It’s a rubber band. A Rubber Band. Imagine the most horrible thing a person can do to another person with a rubber band, if they’re really really trying. Shooting them in the eye is mild by comparison. And, even if we assume the kid snuck up behind her then jumped out, catching her completely by surprise, and deliberately and with the intent to do as much damage as possible, fired the rubberband directly into her eye… Is that really any comparison to: > [@](#): > > Other violations that also receive level 4 punishment include arson, assault and battery, bomb threats and explosives So burning down the school, beating someone over the head with a nail-bearing 2x4, shooting a rubberband in the general vicinity of someone, and brandishing a stick of dynamite are all crimes worthy of the same punishment? Punishment, ok. This is insane. I’m sure the student has an attitude problem with this administration which led to this, but come on… can ya blame him? ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607/24 "2005-02-24T12:06:09Z")
It sure sounds like he shot the rubber band at the teacher, which is not a very nice thing to do, and deserves some level of punishment. A 10 day suspension and possible expulsion is WAY out of line. There should be some level of offence between shooting a rubber band and arson. ---
**Author:** ![furlibusea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@furlibusea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furlibusea)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607/25 "2005-02-24T12:18:35Z")
#1 Teachers don’t get to decide suspensions, administrators have to. #2 Seventh grade boys are the masters of riding that last nerve. Ok. I dont have another number and don’t feel like i have been here long enough to say Hi Opal. Here is my guess of what happened: This kid had been riding the teacher all hour. He had been up and down out of his seat for one flimsy excuse after another and sometimes not even bothered to have an excuse. He had been pestering other students and generaly been disruptive. When the rubber band thing happened it was the final straw of the day and she sent him to the office, for the second time of the week. He sauntered on down to the office with the attitude that they can’t do anything to him and saw his administrator for the second time of the day, the sixth or seventh time of the week and the umpteenth time of the year. This administrator has been talking to his mother on a regular basis for the last two years the kid has been in the school. He has gotten nowhere; neither have the teachers who have also been talking to her on a weekly basis. The kid is not a bad kid, but no one except his teachers ever tell him no. The administrator decides that maybe, just maybe, if he makes her deal with him for two weeks she might decide to discipline him. He decides to suspend the kid. She goes to the press. There is, of course, no mention of the fact that he has skipped 5 detentions. Has refused to write sentances. There is no mention of the numerous other breaks the kid has gotten. Heck, because of privacy policy, we only have her word that the suspension is for weapons violations. Oh no. The evil evil school picked on her pweshous sweetums and wants to make him behave. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607/26 "2005-02-24T12:31:25Z")
Now that I think on it, we used to use way worse things than rubber bands. Started off light. You snapped people with rubber bands. Then we began finger shooting them. That put the snappers in their place because they couldn’t get close, so they started folding up pieces of paper and shooting those. This way you didn’t even lose your rubber band. The paper also hurt like a bastard. Then came the dark days of paper clips. Those drew blood. Just a plain rubber band as a class four weapon? Can’t see it. You’d really have to work to put someones eye out, and it doesn’t compare to arson by any stretch. ---
**Author:** ![TwistofFate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@TwistofFate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwistofFate)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607/27 "2005-02-24T12:36:33Z")
Wow, you got all that from the linked article? What great imagination! you’re investigative powers are wasted on us here. A career in crime solving awaits. Go now, FOR THE GOOD OF THE CITY! ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607/28 "2005-02-24T13:01:08Z")
Let’s all assume this is a reasonable teacher, reasonable administrators. This is one incident, and probably not an isolated one, told from the POV of the student and parent who are going to downplay the worst aspects of the incident. Students and parents do it all the time. My teaching experience with reasonable administrators is that they don’t put students out of school for 10 days without plenty of witnesses, corroborating evidence and previous documented incidents of escalating rule-breaking. We live in too litigious a society to arbitrarily put kids out of school. Assaults on teachers, even relatively benign ones, MAY be fully prosecuted according to the school code once the teacher brings it to the administrator’s attention. Especially if the student has done something similar before. Administrators have guidelines deciding what is or isn’t a major offense. I note this was a seventh grade science lab. I suspect this probably isn’t one of those itty-bitty newspaper rubber bands, but the big thick kind they use in elasticity experiments, or to demonstrate biology concepts like extensor muscles. Good for that administrator for backing that teacher. Let’s hope the kid learns something his two weeks off. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607/29 "2005-02-24T13:05:34Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > \ > It could have went in her eye? Are they fucking serious? At my school they were fairly chilled about elastic bands, but you’d have got the cane for using an auxiliary verb with the past historic. 😛 /grammar nazi. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607/30 "2005-02-24T13:08:12Z")
What amazes me about stories of this nature is that people are so willing to react to them. They what??? Those bastards!!! It seems especially true of any story that is about outrageous lawsuits, unreasonable schoolteachers, or naughty celebrities or athletes. For fucks sake, Dio, realize that the media is playing you and stop being so reactive. You’re smarter than that. ---
**Author:** ![Tenar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@Tenar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tenar)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607/31 "2005-02-24T13:10:47Z")
We are NEVER going to know the truth of this one, folks. Either scenario is equally likely – habitually obnoxious kid pushes things too far and his mother rushes in to defend the little “darling” OR school administrators go nuts. Nonetheless, I have a mental image of my nephew, Spike, who was “counseled” for drawing a picture of a gun in school when he was eleven or so, being dragged off to the hoosgow for drawing a picture of a rubber band… ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607/32 "2005-02-24T13:54:46Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > At the school where I taught, explosives rigged above a teacher’s piano got the kid a three day suspension. Rigged to go off when you play the last note of “These Endearing Young Charms”, right? ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607/33 "2005-02-24T14:12:58Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > Rigged to go off when you play the last note of “These Endearing Young Charms”, right? /clever me spots the Bugs Bunny reference 😃 ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607/34 "2005-02-24T15:26:05Z")
> [@Phnord Prephect](#): > > And, even if we assume the kid snuck up behind her then jumped out, catching her completely by surprise, and deliberately and with the intent to do as much damage as possible, fired the rubberband directly into her eye… > > Is that really any comparison to: > > > [@](#): > > > > Other violations that also receive level 4 punishment include arson, assault and battery, bomb threats and explosives Well, if it happened exactly as _you_ describe it, then i’m guessing that, in plenty of legal jurisdictions, it would in fact fall under the banner of assault and battery. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607/35 "2005-02-24T16:06:49Z")
> [@beagledave](#): > > In situations like this (where ONLY the kids point of view is made public). I’d at least like to take a bit of a wait and see attitude. > > For example…the “Level 4” distinction COULD be as a result of a pattern of previous behavior…this latest incident being the item to escalate it to such a status. Of course this is pure speculation on my part…but that’s a result of the nature of these kinds of school incidents that involve privacy restrictions on information. Great. And clearly you COULD use the same words as you did in that post, arranged differently and with other common English words, to commit bannable offenses here, so obviously the moderators ought to ban you. I mean, it’s a pattern of behavior, right? :rolleyes: Obviously I’m not actually calling for **Beagledave** ’s banning, but showing how the argument is faulty, in case that whooshed by anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Greywolf73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d9b06d/32.png) [@Greywolf73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greywolf73)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607/36 "2005-02-24T16:07:09Z")
A boy in my sixth grade class once threw a _desk_ at our teacher. He also said some _gasp_ bad words. If I remember correctly, he had to go home early and talk to the principal and that was about it. That was…way too many years ago than I care to think about but I imagine he would have gotten the death penalty nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![beagledave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607/37 "2005-02-24T17:36:56Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > Great. And clearly you COULD use the same words as you did in that post, arranged differently and with other common English words, to commit bannable offenses here, so obviously the moderators ought to ban you. I mean, it’s a pattern of behavior, right? > > :rolleyes: > > Obviously I’m not actually calling for **Beagledave** ’s banning, but showing how the argument is faulty, in case that whooshed by anyone. What the hell are you talking about? What “faulty” argument was I making? I was stating (as were a couple of other posters after me) that in cases like this, we DON’T know much about the event in questtion except what the KID/PARENT has decided to divulge. I offered up, as an example, a purely hypothetical reasoning behind the “level 4” distinction. I make no claims at all about the accuracy of such a hypothetical example…indeed thats my point. Because of the privacy issues involving students in schools…we don’t know (at this point) what the entire story is…yet folks have no problem jumping in and blasting the school, teacher and administration. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607/38 "2005-02-24T19:09:16Z")
I’m perfectly willing to believe that the kid is probably shading is story. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he was a chronic pain in the nuts or that he actually did shoot the rubber band instead of tossing it. Even so, I think the preexisting policy of classifying rubber bands in a category with explosives or firearms is ridiculous. If the kid shot the rubber band at the teacher, he deserves some punishment, certainly, but a ten day suspension is over kill and even talking about expulsion is absurd. A kid can actually do more damage with his bare hands than he can do with a rubber band. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607/39 "2005-02-24T19:44:54Z")
Well, okay, **Dio** , do you want to write the disciplinary policy guidelines for the Orange County (FL) school district? If you take it upon yourself to do so, we will be happy to offer constructive and useful critiques of your handiwork. It might also be helpful if you could find a way to post the guidelines as they are currently published, so we may compare the two for more effective evaluation. My personal impression is that self-serving statements are coming from not only the kid, but also the mother. Please bear in mind that our only source so far is a local television newscast, and the newscasters’ only sources that have been free to offer details of the story are the young man and his mother. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2005, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607/40 "2005-02-24T20:15:48Z")
I’m not a teacher, but spend one workday a month doing math tutoring at a local middle school. Pushy, sociopathic kids kids can get away with a _lot_ of stuff today that would have gotten them bounced out of school when I was a kid. This doesn’t mean that they haven’t gotten too strict on other types of offenses: terrorist-related security concerns and increased vigilance for pedophiles have definitely tightened things up, in some cases ridiculously. But on some things, the poor teachers have to take a lot of crap before they can do anything to the kid. And the crafty kids know this. The teacher I work with has a few of these little monsters to deal with. I have witnessed them call her a ‘ho’, make vague physical threats towards her, and play the system well enough to stop short of doing anything that would really get them punished. And this is in a suburban middle-class school. There’ve been times where I felt like intervening and screaming like a drill sergeant at the kid. But that could have gotten the teacher fired. Re: the case cited in the OP, I would want to know more before deciding how I feel about it. > [@Greywolf73](#): > > A boy in my sixth grade class once threw a _desk_ at our teacher. He also said some _gasp_ bad words. If I remember correctly, he had to go home early and talk to the principal and that was about it. That was…way too many years ago than I care to think about but I imagine he would have gotten the death penalty nowadays. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-school-suspension-story-of-the-day/291607.md?page=3)