In the latest example of a zero-tolerance policy concerning weapons brought to school that some see as having been taken to an extreme, a 7-year-old boy was suspended for two days over a breakfast pastry.
William “B.J.” Welch, the boy’s father, insists “It was harmless. It was a danish.” Yet, the teacher and the administrators at Park Elementary School in Baltimore, Md., were irate. An assistant principal said in a letter to all parents that a student had “used food to make inappropriate gestures that disrupted the class” and offered counseling to any student who might need it. Counseling for a lethal pop tart? At what point do administrators or teachers actually get fired for such foolishness?
By the way, Josh Welch suffers from ADHD and has a particular flare for art.
He told FOX45, “All I was trying to do was turn it into a mountain but, it didn’t look like a mountain really and it turned out to be a gun kinda.”
I simply cannot imagine the thought process of the teacher who was reported visibly upset with the nibbled pastry and took it upon herself to seize the child and his tart. Then you have the school administrator who did not simply tell the teacher that her reaction was absurd and instead suspended the child. In this story, the most reasonable party appears to be the seven-year-old with the ADHD. He apologized and could have been simply told not to nibble his tarts into gun shapes. These cases continue to arise because there is no response to teachers and administrators in taking such actions. These officials hide behind “zero tolerance” policies as an excuse for zero judgment or thought.
Source: Kansas City