In Loveland, Colorado, school officials at Mary Blair Elementary School have suspended a second grade student for throwing a make believe grenade. That’s right, an invisible, pretend grenade followed by a reported “pshhh” sound. It is the latest in the sheer lunacy of “zero tolerance” policies that continue to be applied in this ridiculous manner because school officials are never disciplined for these decisions (here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and and here). For a prior column, click here.
Alex Evans says that he was just playing around with friends when he found himself suspended. He said that the game is called “rescue the world” and threw the imaginary grenade into a box with pretend evil forces inside. “I pretended the box, there’s something shaking in it, and I go ‘pshhh.’” That appears to be a shocking display in a place called “Loveland.” So adults proceeded to throw aside any sense of logic, judgment, or equity and suspended a seven-year-old boy for throwing a pretend grenade.
This type of absurd and abusive action occurs because these school officials know that they will not be held accountable for suspending students but could be blamed for any violation of the rules. The result is that the kids bear the cost of this bureaucratic lunacy.
I could not find any statement from Principal Valerie Lara-Black on her zero tolerance for make believe grenades in the fight against evil in a box. It is not clear if Lara-Black called in a pretend bomb squad to be sure that the pretend grenade in the box of evil was entirely safe.
While her stand leaves most of us entirely incensed, she did give little Alex Evans an important lesson in authoritarian learning.
Source: KDVR
I do think there is a level of blame to be shared in the community. There are always a handful of hysterical parents who would be there to demand why the school didn’t “do anything” about that awful terror tot. Sadly, there are a lot of people who rise to the level of school administrator who are constantly testing the wind and acting on their sense of what will be easy and cause the least amount of backlash. Maybe this time, the principal guessed wrong. Whatever the case, the punishment for having an imagination just saddens me.
No, the imbeciles are rarely if ever punished. I’ve got my own horror stories of absolute idiocy on the part of school administrators, which will haunt my child and me for life. Luckily, he’s strong-willed and determined to succeed. After a few of these types of episodes where there was no accountability whatsoever on the part of those guilty of incompetence and worse, my friend acquainted me with the doctrine of “sovereign immunity,” and that along with the disproportionate amount of resources schools have in fighting any suits makes it difficult for any parent to “fight the machine.” Sovereign immunity is an anachronistic relic, and the entire doctrine should be eliminated from American law.
A child’s imagination is being criminalized. That is a crime.
if it went “pshhh” it wasn’t a grenade it was a smoke bomb. completely harmless, just like the one used at the branch davidian compound in waco.
@myron
I think you’re on to something. We should have a terror watch list for these kids.
It’s only a matter of time before some tot gets life in a 3 strike state. Insanity just got worse,
Gene H, looks can be deceiving.
Indigo Jones claims, “It’s never too early for kids to learn that actions have consequences, and that, later in life, the exercize of imagination only leads to dissatisfaction and trouble.”
Yes let’s all be unimaginative dim bulbs. It makes it much easier for our police state to proceed unabated when we cannot even imagine a world where we still had rights.
This is something the legislature is going to have to take up since the schools refuse to do anything about it.
The only means the public has in this is to publicly humiliate the school board, vote them out of office for these zero tolerance issues, and vote NO on the next school levy. And even then it is going to require a court decision regarding violation of due process and excessive punishments.
In a way he is one lucky little terror tot. He could be prosecuted under the provisions of the Holy Land Charity Case(see Global Research article and link to the 2008 case). Prosecutors could use “anonymous experts” to testify that the pretend group he is affiliated with is supporting terror groups. He would not have due process rights and no 6th amendment rights, It would be an easy case for prosecutors and the little “terror tot” could be put away for say 65 years. But the easiest way to dispose of “terror Tots” is for Obama to use the authority in the white paper recently discussed by this blog to declare this Tot’s pretend group is related to groups that are hostile to the US. Then, on that authority, he could dispatch a drone, fire a couple of hell-fire missiles and rid this noble land of any possibility of this “possible” jihadist from “possibly” harming future generations of Americans. Now you see why so many of our rights are being usurped. We just cannot go easy on any would be terrorist tot. School Administrators do not seem to realize that in cases like this they are supporting the loss of more of our rights. The whole thing sounds nutty, but I do not have the highest regard for human intellect as I have observed everyday life and history. Sad.
There is something positive to be harvested from this situation nevertheless.
Every time an incident like this occurs, or people make public calls for “taking guns out of the hands of people”, Karl Rove has a knee-shaking orgasm. Orgasms rock.
So, let’s keep it up Liberal America! Let’s help Karl Rove elect more batshit crazy Republicans. It’s not like global warming is a critical issue or anything.
It’s never too early for kids to learn that actions have consequences, and that, later in life, the exercize of imagination only leads to dissatisfaction and trouble.
From a song we have probably all heard:
(Buffalo Springfield, Stop Hey What’s That Sound).
Between killing civilians with our drones in other countries and our policy of punishing kids for this type of behavior in our country, we are ensuring a future supply of terrorists.
Went in dumb, come out dumb too, hustlin round Atlanta in our alligator shoes….
About time the ACLU does something. A group of parents could put a slate of candidates up for the school board. School Board could hire competent Principals (none dare call a principal a “pal”), implement some review procedures for suspensions. Implement some rules on “make believe”.
Fire the Principal and make a believer out of her.
“This type of absurd and abusive action occurs because these school officials know that they will not be held accountable for suspending students but could be blamed for any violation of the rules. The result is that the kids bear the cost of this bureaucratic lunacy. ”
And it is worse than that. The schools know they will be held liable for large damage awards if anything goes wrong. If little Jonny goes on a shooting spree & people find out little Jonny once threw an imaginary grenade & was not punished that will count against the school. Access to guns doesn’t kill people, schools kill people, apparently.
Insanity reigns supreme!
That’s funny. She doesn’t look like an idiot.
We live in a world gone mad.
Just like mommy and daddy are trained to do most likely….. Geese… Fly naturally…. Kids play war naturally…..