Posted on 05/18/2005 8:28:36 AM PDT by Constitutionalist Conservative
DEKALB COUNTY -- Two seniors at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. High School will miss their baccalaureate -- but make their graduation -- after a stink that started over a cake knife.
Because of the school's zero tolerance policy on weapons, Ashley Pickens and Candace Grier, both honor students, were suspended from school for 10 days and told they would not be allowed to attend their baccalaureate ceremonies. The DeKalb school superintendent upheld that punishment but decided to allow the girls to walk with their classmates during graduation.
The trouble started when the girls brought a cake to school and looked for a knife to cut it. They say they found a butter-type knife in the school's band room and tried to return it, but the door had since been locked.
One of the girls put the knife in her book bag. Then a teacher saw it.
"He said it really didn't matter [that it was used for a cake]," Pickens said. "[He said] it's a knife on school grounds, and you have to be written up for it -- you ought to be glad we didn't have you arrested."
Both girls accepted the 10-day suspension, volunteering at a homeless shelter during that time, but they and their parents think this is a case of zero tolerance gone overboard.
"The knife was not brought to school," said Wendy Pickens, Ashley's mother. "The knife was in the band suite. When they finished washing the items, the band suite doors were closed. They couldn't return it."
"I'm disappointed," Ashley said. We came all this way to go through high school and life, and now we can't participate in anything we worked hard to do."
School officials claimed they enforced clearly written codes of conduct. Wednesday, a school tribunal will hear the girls' appeal to attend baccalaureate ceremonies.
Conditioning for that future America where instead of 'Rights', we have 'Responsibilities'.
"[He said] it's a knife on school grounds, and you have to be written up for it -- you ought to be glad we didn't have you arrested."
He ought to be glad it wasn't my daughter and I kicked his ass for threatenng her, jail or not.
Just a quick question. (As I scratch my balding head)
What do students use in home ec. class to cut a cake?
You can do a whole lot more damage with the cutting torches you can find in a high school vocation ed. class.
I could just scream. Is it really a requirement that you must remove all common sense from decisions in public schools these days? My youngest graduates in a couple of weeks. If I was starting out again with small children, I would NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, send them to a public school. I would beg, borrow or steal to keep them out of these institutions. And they wonder why our students can read or write or add or subtract. The schools are run my raving lunatics!
You see, such classes were determined to be harming childrens self esteem as it labled them as "not college material" and relegated them to a life of manual labor at low wages. So no longer do such classes exist as now everyone is college material just by virtue of their heightened self esteem.
Or scissors in home-ec (or whatever politically correct name it goes by now) or many other things.
Where the terminally stupid seem to congregate.
I am so glad I was able to choose the private schools for my children's education. Not a teacher among them!
Fifth-grader confiscates gun from 5-year-old at Austin school
Fire the band director for leaving the deadly butter knife out where anyone could get it and go on a stabbing spree.
A few years ago an "honors student" put a fake bomb in a locker that my daughter shared with two other students at Fayette County (Georgia) High School. She was hauled in to the school's office with the detectives, Principal, and County Children Service folks, but had the good sense to call me first. You talk about a chinese fire drill, they were all ducking under the table when I told the Chief Detective that I would rip the top of his head off and spit on his brains-as if the dumbass had any-if he accused my daughter one more time of having anything to do with it. He had told the girls they were going to go to jail for this, and they were scared silly. They had all those 10th grade girls crying and scared to death. The county superintendent got real involved when I called him and asked him how would he like to go to court to defend the actions of the clowns there! By the way, the "honor student" got three days suspension for what was a classic stupid mistake on his part. The school was evacuated, bomb squad called, everything!! It was really unbelieveable for him to get such light punishment.
I hope that the girls ultimately prevail. In a class where I was substitute teaching last week, a girl was sent home by the principal because she wore a T-shirt that said "My daddy has a shotgun." I believe the shirt was meant to warn boys against taking advantage of her, but somehow the school viewed this as a violation of the zero-tolerance policy. Insanity is everywhere.
When I was in high school in the late 60's and early 70's, we'd get up at 5 AM, go jump potholes and kill a few Mallards, bring them to school (after gutting them of course) in the back of the truck, and there they would sit until we could again go jump potholes after school. My double barrel shotgun would sit in my truck's gun rack all day.
My teachers would want to hold it.
During duck and goose season, there were a lot of weapons in the trucks in the parking lot.
You should have seen the races to get to the potholes after school!
The teacher should be arrested for stupidity.
This is an example of why public schools fail.
talk about a dormant memory...I had completely forgotten about wearing a knife with my Cub Scout uniform, also around '65...
Where can I get a "My daddy has a shotgun" t-shirt?
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