Posted on 10/12/2009 3:26:07 PM PDT by NYer
Six-year-old Zachary Christie was so excited to become a Cub Scout that he brought his camping utensil to school. The tool serves as a spoon, a fork and a knife, and Zachary wanted to use it at lunch.
What Zachary didn't know was that the gizmo violated his school's zero-tolerance policy on weapons. And now the Christina School District in Newark, Del., has suspended the first grader and ordered him to attend the district's reform school for 45 days.
Zachary's parents insist their son did not intend to hurt anyone, and they are fighting to overturn the ruling.
"Zachary wears a suit and tie some days to school by his own choice because he takes school so seriously," Zachary's mother, Debbie Christie, told the New York Times. "He is not some sort of threat to his classmates."
The school district, in a statement, said rules are rules and defended its decision to suspend the boy.
"At this time, the Student Code of Conduct does not take into consideration a child's age in a Level three offense," the statement read.
"This is the first incident this year involving a student under the age of seven in possession of a dangerous instrument. Christina School District staff and the Christina Board of Education are constantly examining ways to improve policies regarding student discipline."
At a meeting with the school disciplinary committee last week, Zachary's karate instructor and his mother’s fiancé made the case for the boy's character.
And Zachary's mother has started a Web site to attract support for her son before a meeting of the school board on Tuesday.
Click here for more from The New York Times.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...

Are we still living in America?
Oh, come on, whatever happened to the selective enforcement of rules based on common sense?
If the kid is in karate, HE is more of a “dangerous instrument” than the spork. Sheesh.
Have to side with the school this time. This kind of thing has happened so many times you would think the parents would have had the sense to keep the kid from taking a knife to school. Sheesh.
In 1968 I took a shotgun to school and the police showed up... because the police chief volunteered for skeet shooting.
FReep ‘em. Man up, parents, and homeschool him or send him to private school.
Abolish government schools. Problem solved.
Biden’s home state. This is beyond foolish and I think the important thing for Patriots to do is to NOT let these stories dumb us down and become acceptable nor let them slide off our backs. This is NOT the norm and it’s not America!
Ludicrous. Private schools people, private schools.
I asume you belive all parent do a strip and cavety search before they send thier little ones to school.
Rules are not laws, they are rules.
Seriously, these people are too stupid to be educating anyone’s children. If you care at all about your kid’s education, get them out of public school. Homeschool them, send them to parochial school, send them to your church’s school, let the hobos down by the railroad tracks educate them, you couldn’t do any worse than letting these pinheads have access to your kid’s mind for the next 12 or 16 years.
A knife is a knife until you use it as a weapon!
Same goes for a gun.
Stop using the word WEAPON!
Exactly. Grandparents, you may have to help. But get those kids out of public school.
An interesting result showed in a recent study by Home School Legal Defense Association was that test scores, on average between 84th and 88th percentile, did not correlate with whether the child was taught using a a full-curriculum, high-contact, school-at-home method, or a "give him some meals and a library card" method, or anything in between.
I remember when I was in junior high school, around 1950, their was contest to sell magazines. I sold enough to get a hunting knife which I received at school. I carried it around school all day and showed it off to my buddies. No problems from anybody including teachers.
Zachary reminds me of Damien from THE OMEN.
Can’t you see the 666 just beneath the part in his hair?
I have read of at least 100 ‘incidents’ like this, it seems, since this crap started happening. The way it works is alway the same:
True tragedies like Virginia Tech and Columbine happen right under the noses of sleeping bureaucrats, functionaries too tied up in PC to acknowledge something that needs to be nipped in the bud.....and they do NOTHING about it ‘until it’s too late’-—and what they IN FACT do, when it’s , yes, ‘too late’, is redouble their efforts at adopting a Zero tolerance policy on a CHILD, who never had or could show any signs of being a misfit. The downright ABSURDITY of what this little boy and his family are being put through is in DIRECT PROPORTION to what the VTech and Columbine perpetrators were NOT put through. This is the absurd way it works, when you’re dealing with government schools.
The kid’s dad needs to bring a Barbie doll to school and ask the principal if it’s a weapon. After the principal says no(of course), the dad should use it to kick the snot out of the principal and explain that it’s not what the item is that’s in a kid’s hand... It’s what’s in the kid’s heart and mind that should be a concern.
Anything can be used as a weapon. I make my 16-year old keep a knife in the center console of her car at all times. Not as a weapon, but to cut away her seat belt if she gets in an accident and needs to extricate herself.
Nanny state rules simply aren’t effective and producing the results they’re aiming for.
Zachary reminds me of Damien from THE OMEN.
Can’t you see the 666 just beneath the part in his hair?
I have read of at least 100 ‘incidents’ like this, it seems, since this crap started happening. The way it works is alway the same:
True tragedies like Virginia Tech and Columbine happen right under the noses of sleeping bureaucrats, functionaries too tied up in PC to acknowledge something that needs to be nipped in the bud.....and they do NOTHING about it ‘until it’s too late’-—and what they IN FACT do, when it’s , yes, ‘too late’, is redouble their efforts at adopting a Zero tolerance policy on a CHILD, who never had or could show any signs of being a misfit. The downright ABSURDITY of what this little boy and his family are being put through is in DIRECT PROPORTION to what the VTech and Columbine perpetrators were NOT put through. This is the absurd way it works, when you’re dealing with government schools.
When I was in school, we all carried pocket knives all the time. During recess we played “stretch”.
Actually, at that time it was normal for all adult men and most kids to carry a pocket knife. It hasn’t been that long ago that I used to carry a folding belt knife all the time. Not for any particular reason, but just because.
“Ludicrous. Private schools people, private schools”.
...except any “Montessori” schools. They’ve now come out of the closet with their new “global” insignia. Teachers are libs and the kids turn out to be artistic, tree hugging sissys.
hahahaha...
what a nice memory. hell, in those days if a kid did NOT have a pocket knife on him to play ‘mumbly peg’, (remember that game?!), at recess or lunch or right after school, he might have been considered queer.
Private school or permanent home schooling are their answers. They would be crazy to send their kid back into a system that wants to send him to 45 days of reform school.
“Are we still living in America?”
Ni, we haven’t been living in America since 1988, when Ronald Reagan left the White House. Instead, we’ve been living in Amerika, a creation of the leftist nanny state social police.
- JP
So you have figured out their goal. When something bad happens, in this case school violence, the left glooms onto it to advance their agenda.
I read on another thread that the mom was homeschooling him now until this is settled. Maybe she will decide to continue after that.
“Too Much Pork For Just One Spork!”
Great song by Southern Culture On The Skids!

How utterly preposterous...
Yeah.. I think they should all have plastic spoons instead. Well.....except that you can break off a plastic spoon and be back to square one.
Six year old kids don't understand the sick and complex world we live in, so it was a pretty naive and innocent mistake for him wanting to show off his valued possession to his peers. I think the punishment is all out of proportion to the "crime". Should he be punished and sent to reform school for the fault of his parents or the insanity of his educators? Is that your idea of justice?
THIS Retired Boy Scout wants to see what this "Weapon of Mass Destruction" actually looks like. Was this it?
Hell, why not just shoot the little bastid and bill the parents for the bullet? /sarcasm
Nope. Standard communist methods of controlling the population. Starts with the youth.
The school would have called out the SWAT team if the little terrorist had been armed with a pointy stick...”Those things can kill an elephant”.
"Zero Tolerance" actually means Zero thought.
You'll note that it was "Zachary's karate instructor and his mothers fiancé" who went to school to vouch for his character. I would submit to you that if children like Zachary had regular (married to mommy) dads like boys did in the past, the schools would be afraid to try stupid crap like this.
IMHO, every administrator, teacher and school board member (past and present) who contributed to forming and enacting the mindless policies that enabled this fiasco should be introduced to hot tar, feathers, and a freshly-split rail -- ASAP. And they should be taken for a "ride" in such fashion and of such distance that they can never find their way back to said community.
And, "Pour encourage les autres", the event should be televised on every functioning channel every day for a week...
My high school had (and probably still has) a competitive shooting team. From time to time, on our way to competitions, we carried .22s at school, of course with our teachers’ knowledge. Oh, it was another time (but not too long time ago) and another country...
Are you #$@#$$ me? The rules and the enforcement are idiotic.
The TALIBAN and Al Queda don’t seem to have this problem. Neither do the Palestinians. I guess we are training our children to be the perfect VICTIMS to the above.
At any given time we would have 2-6 guns in our shop class and that was in the 80's. And every boy carried a knife. Most of the boys carried a large lock blade openly on their belts.
A lot of people are terrified of the *idea* of homeschooling, and don’t understand that it’s basically doing things with your child. If the parents like their child and have interests themselves, that’s really all they need.
Agreed. These schools are run by people who are mentally ill.
They’ve forgotten what normal is.
This week, a Cub Scout with camping utensils.
Public education! Hell yea!
AHA! He had a knife AND a fork. He was going to kill em and then eat em. Little devil’s a cannibal. They should lock him up forever!
/sarcasm
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