Fifth grader charged after bus fight over snack cake [9 yr old beaten to unconsciousness]

AP ^ | April 2, 2004 | Staff writer

[TaxRelief]

For discussion and education purposes only.

Greensboro, North Carolina-AP -- A North Carolina fifth-grader has been charged with assault for knocking out a boy in a school bus fight over a snack cake.

(snip) ...According to the principal, when the boy sitting next to him asked for a bite, Kevin said no and was smacked in the face with a stuffed Tweety Bird. Kevin hit back, but was slammed against a window and hit in the back.

Then he fell in the aisle and was stomped.

School officials say when the bus driver pulled the aggressor off him, Kevin was unconscious.

[Libertina]

Carry_Okie PING One more good reason FOR homeschooling!

[Buffettbassman]

You know NOT what you write.. THIS WAS A PRIVATE SCHOOL!
A pretty expensive private school.

[PureSolace]

BAN TWEETY BIRDS! THEY'RE A VIOLENT DANGER TO OUR YOUTH!

[Buffettbassman]

I only wish decorum would permit me to respond to you in the fashion you so deserve.

Not that it matters to you, but the kids were unsupervised by school staff, on school grounds. An expensive PRIVATE SCHOOL! My kid did report several assaults to us and us to the school. The other assaults that were reported were not reported to us from school officials. Hence my anger and outrage...the school decided, on its own, to be judge and jury without involving the parents on both sides. So what happens...these two kids meet at a church function...the bully decides to choke my kid. If I had known of the other incidents, they would have been reported and the little b#(#(stard would have been charges back in November when this stuff started.

You know, I'm a smaller government guy myself, but tell me, aside from a law, how the heck are we going to send a message to these flaming liberal educators that WE are the parents, WE are the moral authorities and WE decide what our kids heads get filled with. NOT THEM.
You know, the public school is looking pretty damn good right now!
Your sarcasm indicates your have all the answers. I'd love to hear them because you obviously decided to criticize mine. Am I angry at your response, you bet... so I'll end my response and this discourse with this...Do me a favor...walk one day in my shoes...and we'll see if you still have all the answers. I pray to God, you never have to see your kid in the hospital due to a situation that was 100% preventable. I pray to God you never have to live ONE DAY like he does now.

Godspeed my Freeper colleague.

[Buffettbassman]

Way ahead of you. My home has one TV, no cable in my bedroom. Way ahead of you!

[Buffettbassman]

I did the same thing after the latest incident but it was too late. The parents responded as I hoped they would. As I said to the parents, my only intent is to get him help because he sorely needs it. Sadly, law enforcement will take it from there a process my wife and I will not interfere with. we were lucky. Kind of...

[ladylib]

I just found this on the Christine Miller classical education site under WHY WE HOMESCHOOL:

http://www.classicalhomeschooling.org/education.html#why

[TaxRelief]

Some private schools are no different than public schools, except that they are not free.

There are some very good, small, private Christian schools, but the only real guarantee for safety is bubbles.

[TaxRelief]

http://schools.guilford.k12.nc.us/spages/cone/aboutcone.htm

POPULATION:
Number of students:498

Ethnic Breakdown:
African-American -- 83.6%
Caucasian -- 5.2 %
Hispanic -- 2.8%
Asian -- 3.2%
American Indian -- 0.2%
Multi-racial -- 5%

Number of Teachers:40

School Board Representative: Kris Cooke (District 7)
(336) 379-0649 Email Address: kcooke73@triad.rr.com

MISSION:
The mission of Cone Elementary School is to provide an environment where there are opportunities for all children to reach their maximum potential and to become productive citizens in an ever-changing world.

MASCOT: Cougar.

COLORS: Columbia Blue and White.

HISTORY:
Ceasar and Moses founded Proximity Management Company and later three cotton mills: Proximity, Revolution and White Oak. These brothers contributed a great deal to theircommunity, including YMCA's and free schools for the children of mill workers. They were from a family that stressed the importance of education. The Cone brothers also provided low cost housing for their workers and at one time 1,600 families occupied Cone houses in "villages" around the mills.

The Cone brothers built four schools that were operated nine months of the year. At that time, Guilford County Schools were only open four months of the year. The four schools enrolled 1,600 children and included modern and comfortable buildings. Proximity School was outside the Greensboro City limits, but the Cones paid the Greensboro City Schools Superintendent, George A. Grimsley, to superintend this school as well.

Cone School, which was formerly a little red school building, was originally located on Sixteenth Street, across the street from the present building. The current building which houses Cone Elementary School was built in 1935 with funds from the WPA and the Proximity Mfg. Co. (now Cone Mills). There are still inscriptions on the building and the corner stone is on the north corner next to the office. Inside the north door, there is a plaque giving information about this building, the architects, and board members when Cone School was built.

Initially, Cone School served the children of mill workers. Many current students still live in the cement- constructed mill houses on Church Street and the surrounding area. Today, the student population at Cone is very diverse, including many international students. In the early 1990's, Cone was modernized to bring water, air conditioning, and grounded electrical plugs to each classroom. Although the beautiful hardwood floors had to go, every effort was made to keep wood and trim wherever possible. It is a handsome building with the best of old and new.

In 2001 construction began on a new wing which houses classrooms for Cone's kindergarten students. Along with the construction, the school was wired with state of the art technology which includes networked computers in each classroom and an IBM compatible computer lab. Construction was completed in the fall of 2002.

Information for the history on this page was taken from an article in the Greensboro Daily News, Saturday, May 29, 1971 by Joe Knox, and from For Whom Our Public Schools Were Named, Greensboro, N.C. by Ethel Arnett.

[Tax-chick]

Wow, I'm glad you put that up! Down at the bottom they have a link to the "Underground Grammarian," one of the late, great, intellectual publications of the last 30 years. They lost track of me (or vice-versa) a number of moves ago, and now I see that the U.G. himself passed away in 2002.

People should have a look!

[Tax-chick]

http://www.sourcetext.com/grammarian/

The Underground Grammarian newsletter is all there on the site, AND online versions of his books! I need more printer paper!

[Buffettbassman]

I thinky Your confused from my point. The case of my son was a Christian Private School. I'm missing your point in your detail. I wasn't implying that the school the 9 year old attended was private at all.

Never mind, I made my point.

[Buffettbassman]

I thinky Your confused from my point. The case of my son was a Christian Private School. I'm missing your point in your detail. I wasn't implying that the school the 9 year old attended was private at all.

Never mind, I made my point.

[Buffettbassman]

Safety is never guaranteed. HOWEVER, at least here in Virginia...ANY school certified by the DOE is required BY CODE to provide a safe learning environment. In the case of MY SON...that did not happen because his assaults were not one time incidents. Clearly, you're missing the point and are confused by my comments.

The only guarantee for safety is to SPEAK UP and FIGHT. Hold the school and the pep accountable! Stop subscribing to the apathetic view that the school will never change or the answer is put them in the private school. Simply NONESENSE! It's happening in EVERY SCHOOL! I pay almost 40 K a year for that kid to go to a CHRISTIAN PRIVATE SCHOOL that you high in such high esteem. I too attended one of the best Private schools in the Country...the Hill School! Balderdash to private schools being a sanctuary! Who believe that nonsense! It happens anywhere because parents or general citizens think it's someone else's problem.

OK, let's just bury our heads and become liberal democrats while we're at it.

The only real guarantee is to hold the bully accountable and prosecute the little creep. If that's not enough, sue the poop out of each and every school system until the get the message. The schools have NO RIGHT to withhold information from the parents and certainly have NO RIGHT to not involve law enforcement in this regard. That is the missing piece. School systems, like the administrators who run them, feel they are above the law and what happens in a school is no concern to either the parents or law enforcement. Well...in the case of my son, the school found out how quickly they were wrong as the deputy arrested the 14 year old out of his math class and placed in him handcuffs for all to see. THAT my friend is safety.
The rest is simply bull excrement.

Out....

[TaxRelief]

ANY school certified by the DOE is required BY CODE to provide a safe learning environment.

You have such faith in the Government. That's nice. :-)

[Buffettbassman]

If I only had a fraction of your consummate knowledge and wordly experience so I too would have all the answers.

Thanks for a somewhat informative and largely annoying chat.

I'll not waste one more byte in the ether continuing it.

To you sir I pray the life you get may be your own.

[patriot_wes]

Public schools again..."A North Carolina fifth-grader has been charged with assault for knocking out a boy in a school bus fight over a snack cake."

Public School = evolution = kids just evolved from little apes...

[Aquinasfan]

On the other hand, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to locate biblical references that stress the importance of parents to delegate this responsibility (in loco parentis) to a government education system which is philosophically opposed to, and has essentially banned, the revelation of God through His Word. Regardless, if the state were to somehow become “godly” in its agenda, the Bible fails to direct parents to delegate the education of their children’s souls or conscience minds, into the hands of those outside of family and Church authority. This observation is well worth repeating: The Bible provides absolutely no basis for the contemporary practice of in loco parentis of Christian children, by Christian parents, into the hands of the United States federal/state school system.

Thanks! Great resource.

Since parents have given children their life, they are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognized as the primary and principal educators.[11] This role in education is so important that only with difficulty can it be supplied where it is lacking...

Parents who have the primary and inalienable right and duty to educate their children must enjoy true liberty in their choice of schools. Consequently, the public power, which has the obligation to protect and defend the rights of citizens, must see to it, in its concern for distributive justice, that public subsidies are paid out in such a way that parents are truly free to choose according to their conscience the schools they want for their children.

Declaration on Christian Education (1965)

___________________________________________________________________________________

29. This becomes clearer when we consider more closely and in detail the mission of education proper to the family and to the State.

30. In the first place the Church's mission of education is in wonderful agreement with that of the family, for both proceed from God, and in a remarkably similar manner. God directly communicates to the family, in the natural order, fecundity, which is the principle of life, and hence also the principle of education to life, together with authority, the principle of order.

31. The Angelic Doctor with his wonted clearness of thought and precision of style, says: "The father according to the flesh has in a particular way a share in that principle which in a manner universal is found in God.... The father is the principle of generation, of education and discipline and of everything that bears upon the perfecting of human life."[20]

32. The family therefore holds directly from the Creator the mission and hence the right to educate the offspring, a right inalienable because inseparably joined to the strict obligation, a right anterior to any right whatever of civil society and of the State, and therefore inviolable on the part of any power on earth.

...Leo XIII declares in another memorable encyclical, where He thus sums up the rights and duties of parents: "By nature parents have a right to the training of their children, but with this added duty that the education and instruction of the child be in accord with the end for which by God's blessing it was begotten. Therefore it is the duty of parents to make every effort to prevent any invasion of their rights in this matter, and to make absolutely sure that the education of their children remain under their own control in keeping with their Christian duty, and above all to refuse to send them to those schools in which there is danger of imbibing the deadly poison of impiety.

On Christian Education (1929)

[Aquinasfan]

People want their kids to learn, and schools are a good way to ensure it. We even know that public schools can work, because they used to be good, and in many places they still are

Read Gatto's book. Public schools have never been about education.

[Aquinasfan]

I try not to be angry ... there's no one to be productively angry AT

True. But you can be angry at the ideology, or the various ideologies. I've tried to put my bitterness to good use, founding and running a pro-voucher organization for a number of years. I learned quite a lot during that time. Mostly that the leviathan is almost impossible to fight.

The only way to defeat the school monster is by homeschooling, or by working to promote voucher programs. But anti-Catholic Blaine amendments in many state constitutions prohibit aid to "private" (i.e., Catholic) schools. So these must be repealed. In the meantime, privately financed voucher programs can act as a means of accustoming parents to the idea of choosing their child's school, and for developing a vocal interest group.