Zero tolerance gone wrong

[normanvin]

Saw this on another site.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Outrage Of The Week



This week’s outrage comes to us from Winchendon, Massachusetts where, in yet another case of “zero-tolerance” enforcement defying common sense, fourth-grader Bradley Geslak was suspended from Toy Town Elementary School for bringing a Memorial Day souvenir to school.



According to a May 29, Telegram.com article, a uniformed veteran gave the 10-year-old two empty rifle shell casings from blanks used during the town’s Memorial Day celebration Monday morning. Bradley gave one of the empty casings to his grandfather and kept the other as a souvenir. The trouble began when he took his souvenir to school the next day.



“He was just playing with it at lunch,” explained Crystal Geslak, Bradley’s mother. “He wasn't showing it to anyone; he had it in his hand and was playing with it.”



A teacher saw him with the harmless piece of brass and confiscated it. Ms. Geslak was then called at work and told to come and pick up her son, who had been suspended for five days!



Ms. Geslak arrived at the school to find her son in tears. “I was totally shocked. I couldn’t believe this was happening,” she said. “It was just an empty shell, not even from a real bullet. A sharpened pencil would be more dangerous than this piece of metal.”



“He was so proud to have been given them. His dad’s a veteran, his uncle’s a veteran, both his grandfathers are veterans. Memorial Day is a big thing to us. It’s a very important holiday and we have a big celebration every year,” Ms. Geslak said.



Ms. Geslak, who will be forced to miss work in order to stay home with her son, says she is worried about what having a “weapon-related suspension” on his school record will mean to his future.



To add insult to injury, the family says a school official told them that the shell would not be returned, and that the next step might involve assigning a probation officer to Bradley! Yes, you read that right, a probation officer.



A young boy punished over a harmless souvenir. By any standard, that’s outrageous.



If you’d like to express your concern over this incident, please visit http://www.winchendon.mec.edu/. To leave a voice message for Brooke Clenchy, Superintendent of Schools, please call 978-297-0031.

[PisnNapalm]

Wait what...? 5 days suspension for an empty casing? What a joke our educational system has become.

[Bmaninmifco]

Ok suspended for 5 days for a shell casing. Gotta love the PRM
And as far as not returning it, IANAL but I would assume as it's private property the school would have to return it, if the parents want it back. It would be the same as if they confiscated my son's firefly that I got him for emergencies.

The much deeper issue here is that the kids use a dangerous weapon every day, but something that has meaning to him that's not even a weapon gets him in trouble.

[WhiteFeather]

Wonder if that teacher that wrote that boy up for an empty shell casing great grand-dad wore a red coat?

http://www.telegram.com/article/2008...805290859/1116

[larrymeyer]

Another right in the shitter

[RJH245]

I am a teacher, and that would not have happened in my classroom!

[Ten*K]

yet, my uncle, who was a tenured teacher in Vermont was fired on the spot for "touching" a 17 year old student after being hit in the head by a brick by said student while said student was attempting to stab him with... a pencil. the "touching", btw, was shoving the student away to protect himself.

maybe he'd have not been fired if if the student came at him with a shell casing.

[normanvin]

I am a teacher, and that would not have happened in my classroom!

Would that have been your personal choice? Or the schools policy?

I can understanding a teacher reporting the shell casing because he/she would lose their job if they did not make the report. But for the school district to just take every instance to the extreme is nuts. They still teach history. Firearms are a big part of our history. Aren't they breaking the zero tolerance policy by teach history?

[RocketFoot]

Stories like this make me sick!

True story...Last week, my son saw a cool piece of quartz in the gravel on the way to school. He picked it up and put it in his pocket. At school, he showed it to one of his friends and the teacher noticed. She immediately confiscated the small piece of quartz and scolded my son in front of everyone about bringing weapons to school. No suspension resulted, but still an outrage. We called the principal to no avail...they totally support the teachers actions! Thanks good school is out for the summer!

[normanvin]

Stories like this make me sick!

True story...Last week, my son saw a cool piece of quartz in the gravel on the way to school. He picked it up and put it in his pocket. At school, he showed it to one of his friends and the teacher noticed. She immediately confiscated the small piece of quartz and scolded my son in front of everyone about bringing weapons to school. No suspension resulted, but still an outrage. We called the principal to no avail...they totally support the teachers actions! Thanks good school is out for the summer!

Talk about peer pressure...