Teen expelled for violent stick-figure drawing (public school psychos)

News-Press via SOUNDOFF ^ | 11-11-03 | JENNIFER BOOTH REED

[AAABEST]

Sixteen-year-old Ryan Richter got kicked out of school Monday morning for a stick-figure drawing that another student thought was a violent threat.

Richter, a LaBelle High School sophomore, sketched a figure shooting another figure. He did the sketch in a recent geometry class and passed it along to a friend and thought nothing else of it.

The classroom doodling, however, got him suspended for a week and as of Monday’s disciplinary hearing, got him kicked out of LaBelle High and recommended for a 45-day stint in Hendry County’s alternative high school.

Richter, his father, Charles Richter, and mother, Michael Ross, say this is a case of a zero-tolerance policy gone awry.

“We were just joking around,” Richter said of himself and the friend who initially saw the drawing.

A student told school authorities that Richter said the dead stick figure was a direct reference to someone and the pony-tailed shooter was a depiction of himself, according to Richter’s account of Monday’s meeting. Richter, who wears his black hair in a pony tail, said the stick-figure shooter wasn’t him and the victim wasn’t anyone at his school.

The school principal referred all calls to Superintendent Thomas Conner. Conner said he can’t comment on the case directly because it’s a confidential student matter. But he did say school officials take threats of violence seriously.

“We have not only a moral but a legislative responsibility to all the students,” Conner said, referring to federal and state laws dealing student violence.

Richter’s artwork does have a violent bent, his parents said. He likes to draw a cartoon character he calls “Little Paranoid Happy Dude,” whose personality can snap from happy-go-lucky to raging mad.

But the elder Richter and Ross don’t think their son has problems. They say he’s a driven young man who wants to be an architect and finish high school early so he can start college.

“His cartoons are his escape from everything,” Ross said. “(School administrators) scanned their little rule book. They didn’t look at the kid behind the rule book.”

The rule books — student codes of conduct — have gotten tough on violence, threats of violence and potential violence ever since the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado. State and federal laws support strict discipline for students who break those codes, Conner said.

“I think everybody’s awareness level is a little bit higher, and that’s positive. We look at it from a preventative mode,” Conner said.

He said even before lawmakers passed zero tolerance laws, his district was tough on violence and threats.

Lee County’s zero tolerance rules are similarly strict, according to a review of the district’s student code of conduct. Punishments for fights, threats or weapons violations range from detention to suspension to expulsion, depending on the seriousness of the offense.

Zero tolerance rules have drawn considerable debate in recent years.

Lee County’s Estero High gained national notoriety in 2001 when Principal Fred Bode banned senior Lindsay Brown from graduation because she had a steak knife in her car. School district policies forbid students from having knives on campus.

Conner said he doesn’t think policies have gone too far.

“We certainly have more of a responsibility today for the safety and the security of the students we serve,” Conner said.

If Richter goes to the alternative high school, a group of educators and counselors will evaluate him to see whether he has emotional or other problems. That’s a policy applied to all students sent to the program, Conner said.

Students receive counseling if they need it, he added.

Richter and his parents don’t want him to go to the alternative program because they are afraid the assignment will tarnish his record.

“Granted there are things he’s done wrong here that could be disrupting the class,” Charles Richter said of the in-class doodling.

“But it didn’t warrant expulsion,” Ross added.

[muawiyah]

The school authorities in this case are entirely too paranoid to be around children. It's long overdue for the state police to go in there and take them out.

I'll bet dollars to dougnuts this same school is full of teachers who claim to not know the difference between Bayer aspirin and illegal drugs.

[JesseHousman]

his father, Charles Richter, and mother, Michael Ross...

Dysfunctional family?

[AAABEST]

You know, I didn't even catch that. It's got to be a typo, nobody has a mom named "Michael".

[MarkL]

You know, I didn't even catch that. It's got to be a typo, nobody has a mom named "Michael"

Not true... Some women are named Michael... Seriously. IIRC, the actress that played the mother on the Waltons was named Michael. And I know of at least one other actress, and even someone I went to school with.

Mark

[AAABEST]

Local ping

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

Sob sob my child can do no wrong.

[David Isaac]

My guess is that this dysfunctional (thouroughly "modern" - distinction w/o a difference?) family were some of the same people who thought Harris and Kliebold (sp.?), should have interdicted by someone who could, or should have put the clues together, prior to Columbine.

I have been a substitue teacher for several years and can testify that discipline is one of the largest problems in public schools today. The largest factor in the problem is that nearly every time a student is singled out for punishment a parent comes forward saying that their child is an exception, not really a bad kid. Many times they threaten a lawsuit, sometimes carrying out that threat. I have seen students who were considered the most disruptive in the building, but wore a "hands-off" tag, courtesy of the highest level of administration (one can assume legal ramifications).

This is not to say that "zero tolerance" and "verbal assault" policies are not, in a vast majority cases, totally ridiculous. But they are in place because parents, teachers, administrators, and especially legal types, have not stood up for common sense discipline (or common-sense anything else, for that matter).

[Adder]

"Lee County’s zero tolerance rules are similarly strict, according to a review of the district’s student code of conduct. Punishments for fights, threats or weapons violations range from detention to suspension to expulsion, depending on the seriousness of the offense."

It was a doodle...a drawing...not a direct threat . And they are idiots to stubbornly insist that it was a threat in the first place.
::sigh:: I give up.

[FourPeas]

IIRC, she had several sons.

[Aquinasfan]

I spent second grade drawing scenes of the US doing battle with Hong Kong. Hong Kong, Vietcong, whatever 8-)

[AAABEST]

You apparantly had a criminal mind then.

I'm calling someone one you, expect a visit!

[SouthernFreebird]

This is so sad, I'm only 40 but in those years I've seen our Country crumble into this mess. We are not free anymore...everything we think, say or do is regulated.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

Are kids allowed to play cops and robbers anymore or will that land them 10 years in "alternative schooling"? Can't wait to see what this country's going to be like in twenty years.

[Puppage]

[Fearless Flyers]

I liked the rewards I got for my artistic expression when I was in school, I don't think they ever made it to the refrigerator though.

Writing Sister Willy is a Hillbilly on a School Book; Forty whacks with a meter stick by Sister Wilehelma. Another forty licks by Dad's belt when I got home.

Drawing a picture of Sister Willy standing in front of a urinal relieving herself; Forty whacks with a meter stick by Sister Wilhelma and another forty licks by Dad's belt when I got home.

Drawing a picture of Sister Willy lynching herself behind her desk; Ten whacks with a meter stick and twenty more whacks with the back Sisters Wilhelma’s hand after the stick broke, forty licks by Dad's belt when I got home. (That Damn Belt never had a malfunction)

Ah the days of metric conversion, gave the Nunn's a much sturdier enforcer then the old yard sticks. I miss Sister Willy I sure did love that women and respected Sister Wilhelma. Kinda hard to believe they were the same person though. She kept the National Geographic in her classroom. They Helped us young boys come to age and learn not to discriminate because of a women’s skin color.

The good old days when misbehaving children were corrected immediately, then pushed back into the learning experience and disciplined at home.

[Rifleman]

The inability to make fine distinctions is the mark of a low resolution mind. The difference between a symbol (violent drawing) and a thing (a violent act) has been understood for a couple of thousand years. These educrats are far to primitive in their thought processes to be in charge of children.

Might as well have Wahabis teaching the kids.

[jocon307]

Yes, you are right about the woman from the Waltons, Michael Learned, is that it, or is she the other one. There was/is also Princess Michael of Kent. Michael is an archangel, like Gabriel, there are lots of women named Gabrielle (I guess you spell it that way for a girl, but spelling ain't my strong suit).

[Orangedog]

Sob sob my child can do no wrong.

What did this kid do to warrant being expelled?

[ladylib]

Get him out of there and sign him up for internet classes. No normal child belongs in the public schools anymore.