We have yet another case of lunacy in our schools as part of the zero tolerance policy regarding guns. We have previously explored how teachers and school administrators are expelling or suspending students for everything from finger guns to stick figures. (here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). For a prior column, click here. Now, Josh Welch, 7, was suspended for two days because he nibbled on his strawberry tart and made it look like a gun. He picked up the fearsome Danish and said “bang, bang” and a teacher reported was irate.
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
That teacher ain’t fit to carry out the turds in an outhouse. The princiPal needs counseling. The parent needs to think about bringing a counselor to school– for the teacher. Maybe psychiatric clinic time for teacherpoo.
It is not just teh gunz.
I was consulted by a defense attorney when a little boy was charged with rape of a child. I can’t remember his age at the moment, but as I recall, he was in the third grade. Something like eight or nine years old. The DA wanted his trial moved to adult court so he could be tried as an adult. The judge appointed me to do an evaluation on him. Apparently, the little girl was showing him that hers looked different from his and let him touch it. I found he had an IQ of about 70, and he had no concept of sex. I asked him if his ‘dingus’ sometimes got hard and stuck out in the morning when he first woke up, and he said it did. I asked him reckon why it got hard like that, and he said he did not know but when it did, “It feels funny.”
I put all that in my report to the Court, and the judge threw the charges out. From what the public defender told me, the judge gave the assistant district attorney an ass-chewing.
This incident was five or six years ago in North Carolina, if I recall correctly. A first grader was suspended for sexual harassment when the teacher saw him give one of his female classmates a peck on the cheek. I don’t know if his crime also involved a more serious charge of aggravated hugging. No one bothered to ask the little girl whether she minded or not.
After the kid who’s mom claimed he was throwing imaginary hand grenades to save the world turned out to be actually throwing real rocks at real kids on the playground I am not in the mood to rush to believe this story.
Yes, there certainly are enough idjits in the world that things like this might happen but I am discovering more and more that these stories are designed to inspire outrage and often ignore, or outright lie about the facts.
Maybe the overreacting idiots should be dragged off to a shooting range and have an unloaded firearm aimed at them to see if they can tell the difference. Those idiots shouldn’t be in schools if they are that stupid and inept.
For the record, what the hell sort of parent gives their kid crap like “pop tarts”? If there was any wrongdoing to be punished, that’s where it is.
OS,
That’s just a sad tale of wilful ignorance on the part of the school district and as you point to a fine example of the appearance of doing something versus doing something substantive that might require a bit of effort.
Soon after the Columbine shootings, both the US Secret Service and the FBI psychological profiling units published white papers on the subject of school shootings. Both were substantial, well documented, scholarly, and published online for easy download. Both these documents were the size of a college textbook. There were suggestions for school administrators and consultants such as myself to help take concrete actions to forestall future tragedies. We have both a city and county school district. I approached the high school principal and the school superintendent. They were unaware of the Secret Service and FBI white papers.
When I offered my services pro bono to conduct in-service continuing education for teachers and staff, they said they would get back to me. I could tell they were just humoring me and had no intention of scheduling any in-service training. I have yet to hear back, but no surprise there. FWIW, all these people know me and know my background of doing profiles on violent and potentially violent people for four decades. It is a lot easier to make up draconian rules so they can say they are “doing something” about the problem.
The Citizen’s Commission on Human Rights.
*sigh*
Scientology may be many things to many people but it is not a cure for stupidity. The actions of the staff in this instance are pure stoopid and have nothing to do with with Scientology’s war on psychiatry (which is perfectly understandable as psychiatry and psychology rapidly reveal CoS as a Ponzi scheme rather than an actual religion) other than it illustrates stupid is as stupid does. Scientology is only the answer if your question is “how to separate a fool and his money?”.
Either a pop-tart gun or a story about Xenu will apparently work.
I wonder if, when these folks look in the mirror, they see stupid looking back. They have forgotten what it was like to be a child. They have forgotten the games children play. They have forgotten what they are there for – to teach. Instead of explaining that guns, even fake ones arn’t appropriate in school, they turn it into a royal BFD and become the laughingstock of the nation. Apparently, they are the ones with learning disabilities. They haven’t made the connection with the furor and lawsuits raised at other schools for similar situations.
Seems the doughboy….. Can’t make a playboy….or does a doughboy become the playboy…..
Again & again & again, the ONLY thing we need to know about Gun Violence is missed! Its about Drugs, psychiatric drugs & stupid labels like ADHD that give psychiatry an excuse to steal more billions of shortfalling taxpayer money & set the stage for the next young white male shooting spree! This applies to the ‘Going Postal’ Prozac killings of 1987 to Columbine to Newtown, Conecticut. I liked the comment about zero tolerance for zero understanding & zero trying to understand. But here IS the answer! You can fill in the details by calling the Citizen’s Commission on Human Rights @ 800 869 2247. On the other side of the coin you have our President, far guiltier than the individual shooters as he knows well that he would not have this pretended excuse to take your guns & deny your 2nd Amendment rights if it were not for his evil friends, the psychiatrists, who last year admitted to orchestrating Hitler’s Nazi Holocaust!
I have zero tolerance with zero tolerance policies.
When are these assinine people going to be held accountable for the anguish and scarring they are putting on our children? All these people should be fired immediately from school systems and blackballed so they can never work in any kind of public service again.
Instead, they are ENCOURAGED by school boards. I can only think that this is done on purpose and is an agenda of some sort. There is WAY too much of it going on. I mean, THINK about this! All normal people know this is insanity, yet it is being encouraged at the highest levels. It gets more ridiculous every day.
WHY???
How can someone spend so much time around children and not understand behaviors that are normal for them? My kindergarten-age kids have trouble with the “no touching” policy at their school because they are constantly hugging their classmates. Fortunately, their teachers don’t freak out and have them suspended.
Administrator: We suspended your son for playing violent video games on his hand-held device.
Parent: IT’S A GAME – not a gun.
Administrator: We also suspended Josh Welch for nibbling a pop tart into a gun-shaped pastry.
Parent: SUSPENDED? MY GOD ARE YOU STUPID? HE AND HIS WHOLE DAMNED FAMILY BELONG IN PRISON!!!!!! IT’S A pastry GUN. HOW MANY CHILDREN HAVE TO DIE BEFORE YOU GET IT?
Yeah verily, these are interesting times.
“Teh stoopid”!
It burns!
The Zero Intelligence Policy among our educators is alive and well.
What a precious lot. You really have to wonder what kind of strange little bubble world these people live in.
Hoplophobia is reaching new levels. With all the money spent on psychiatric medication research, there appear to be plentifiul opportunities for a niche medication. On the other hand, it is a long held truth that there is no cure for “teh stoopid”.
“offered counseling to any student who might need it”
I think it is the school authorities that need the counseling.
And these “educators” are molding tomorrow’s leaders with these concepts of judgement. The Corrections Corporation of America must be pleased at their long term prospects for growth and full employment.
The level of insanity and lack of judgement in our schools is disturbing. If teachers and administrators are this lacking is judgement in reference to a pastry one has to wonder what other insane decisions they are making every day.