Wash. State Students Suspended For Nerf Guns After Teacher Gave Permission
Several students at Chase Lake Elementary School in Edmonds, Wash. were suspended this week for bringing Nerf guns to school.
The children say they asked and were given permission by a teacher before bringing the toys to school last Friday morning, where the students planned to shoot the toy’s foam darts 100 times for a probability project. The school suspended the students for firing the toys before class, citing the school’s “zero tolerance” policy on toy guns.
Shannon Shumard’s fourth grade daughter and sixth grade son received one day suspensions for simply being present and playing with the toys that morning, even though they were not the owners of the Nerf guns.
“If the teacher and the school staff don’t even know their own rules, how are the children supposed to know them?” said Shumard.
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5-Year-Old Interrogated By School Over Toy Cap Gun Until He Wet Himself With Fear
Then suspended for rest of the year
Steve Watson
Yet another child barely out of nappies has been persecuted by school officials for playing with a toy gun on the school bus.
The Washington Post reports that the five-year-old from Dowell Elementary School in Lusby, Maryland was questioned by school officials for over two hours after he showed a friend his cowboy-style cap gun on the way to school.
Officials finally called the boy’s mother when he wet his pants. The mother told the Post that she found it highly unusual that her son soiled himself, indicating that he was very intimidated.
The report states that the boy’s parents bought him the plastic, orange-tipped cap gun at Frontier Town, a western-themed adventure centre. Following the interrogation, the boy told his mother that he had brought it to school because he had “really, really” wanted to show his friend, who had previously brought a water pistol to school.
The school’s principal told the mother that her son had pointed the toy at other students and pretended to shoot them, although the boy and his sister, who was also on the bus and subsequently questioned, say this is not the case.
The principal even stated that had the gun been “loaded” with caps, then it would have been “deemed an explosive and police would have been called in.”
The boy, who remains anonymous has been suspended from school for 10 days. “If the punishment stands, it would become part of the boy’s permanent school record and keep him out of classes the rest of the school year,” the report notes.
“The school was quite obviously taking it very seriously, and he’s 5 years old,” the boy’s mother said. “Why were we not immediately contacted?”
“I have no problem that he had a consequence to his behavior,” the mother added. “What I have a problem with is the severity.”
The family has hired attorney Robin Ficker, who was also the attorney involved in the infamous Hello Kitty bubble gun incident back in January, when school officials in Pennsylvania suspended a five-year-old girl for “threatening” class mates with the toy that contains a harmless soap solution. Officials were also said to have interrogated the girl for several hours, before notifying her parents.
Officials at the Mount Carmel school issued a statement describing the girl’s actions as “terroristic” and then refused to retract it following media coverage.
“Kids play cowboys and Indians,” Ficker stated with regards to the latest incident. He added that the boy’s age is important. “They play cops and robbers. You’re talking about a little 5-year-old here.”
He’s “all bugs and frogs and cowboys,” the boy’s mother added.
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Courtesy of Ross family
Family Survival Protocol - Microcosm News 