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.
Zero tolerance = zero commonsense : Americas new instruction to our leader in a few years, scary!!
Here in Northern CA in the 1950s when I was in school we would bring our guns to school during deer season and hunt after school. The hill directly behind the school usually contained several prime bucks and we would make a drive down the hill to the standers at the bottom. Everyone knew what a gun was and how to handle it safely. No one ever shot a fellow student(No where in the USA at that time if I recall correctly). As a matter of fact it was still legal to buy a gun through the mail and drive by shootings were mostly unheard of except when talking about the 1920s and prohibition.
Now, of course we have the liberal view that has been brewing in schools since the 1960s and look what it has wrought. What jerks and maroons, they have ruined our country and we have to take it back.
Where can I get a "My daddy has a shotgun" t-shirt?
I will ask the girl next time I see her! I have been really wanting to talk to her, but haven't seen her since they yanked her out of the class. I only sub in the school, so my contact is sporadic. I'd like to get one of those shirts for my daughter too!
I hope you were being sarcastic.
Industrial Arts is alive and well and also has a teacher shortage. You can indeed do a lot more damage with a flame cutter than with a butter knife.
'Fire the band director for leaving the deadly butter knife out where anyone could get it and go on a stabbing spree.'
I propose a friendly amendment to your post:
'...could get it and go on a buttering spree.'
I'll take the stronger discipline and "horrible" prayer and mass that I had to endure in the Catholic school over the insanity that seems to be present in public schools today. We were required to take a religion class every quarter, yet I still managed to learn more math, english, and science than I'm sure I would have been able to learn in one of the government's youth camps. In addition to that I also got a knowledge of biblical studies, morality, and even an overview of other major religions.
I was lucky enough to have parents capable of sending me to a proper school, but there are too many people right now who don't have that option. We need to work to end this nonsense and bring some sanity back into our schools.
If the knife was in the band room, it must have been sharp.
I was not being sarcastic. Many a school has dropped those classes and many a teacher, administrator, etc... cites lowering self esteem as a reason to not suggest such courses to some students.
I bet it b flat
Government schools are evil.
Government-run education seems to prove the point regularly.
Many a school has dropped those classes and many a teacher, administrator, etc... cites lowering self esteem as a reason to not suggest such courses to some students.
The consolidation of industrial arts programs into county-wide vo-tech centers and the elimination of such programs at the middle school level is very prevalent here in the Midwest. I wonder where the person questioning the veracity of your statement lives. I thought it was a nationwide trend.
In our school district, shop and home-ec were eliminated at the middle school and vo-tech eliminated at the high school. The county vo-tech center has long waiting list for its programs since the local schools no longer offer it. Governor Granholm recently stated her mission that Every child growing up in Michigan today must have more than a high school diploma to compete in the 21st century economy," www.michigan.gov/gov/0,1607,7-168-23442_21974-116486--,00.html
So when the governor is faced with the huge loss of manufacturing jobs to states and countries with fewer regulations and lowering taxes, her solution is not to reduce regulation or lower taxes, but to claim that every child should be going to college anyway! Ridiculous! Obviously there are many people in society who do not belong in college, and it is a tragedy that the vo-tech option is being eliminated.
When I was in school, one of my classmates got caught by the school selling a nickel bag of dope in the parking lot to another student.
They told him to stop.
We survived.
That joke fell flat with me...
Ever seen a oxyacetylene tank fall and have the top come off and shoot through a wall?
it's way cool.
I'll call your bluff, prove it.
It's no Coke bottle full of liquid nitrogen tossed into a trash can full of warm water but it'll do.
You should see what I can do with a baseball bat from the Field House!
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