Posted on 05/13/2007 3:04:17 PM PDT by TornadoAlley3
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. -- Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables.
The mock attack Thursday night was intended as a learning experience and lasted five minutes during the weeklong trip to a state park, said Scales Elementary School Assistant Principal Don Bartch, who led the trip.
"We got together and discussed what we would have done in a real situation," he said.
But parents of the sixth-grade students were outraged.
"The children were in that room in the dark, begging for their lives, because they thought there was someone with a gun after them," said Brandy Cole, whose son went on the trip.
Some parents said they were upset by the staff's poor judgment in light of the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech that left 33 students and professors dead, including the gunman.
During the last night of the trip, staff members convinced the 69 students that there was a gunman on the loose. They were told to lie on the floor or hide underneath tables and stay quiet. A teacher, disguised in a hooded sweat shirt, even pulled on locked door.
After the lights went out, about 20 kids started to cry, 11-year-old Shay Naylor said.
"I was like, 'Oh My God,' " she said. "At first I thought I was going to die. We flipped out."
Principal Catherine Stephens declined to say whether the staff members involved would face disciplinary action, but said the situation "involved poor judgment."
Like ood little defenceless victims should...
/big time sarcasm
Somebody needs to learn a new word before the week is out...To send a nice message to the rest of the dunderheads that think like this, before they believe this is a good idea to do something like this...
The word in “unemployment”...
Let me be clear--- I abhor the NEA. In the state of Texas, we are not required to join any union, not even the NEA. (That seems to be a commonly misunderstood myth around here.) There are other non-union teacher organizations and I make every effort to get fellow teachers to join those when possible.
I'm not saying it should be against the law, I'm saying it already is against the law.
They assaulted these students under the provisions of the Tennessee criminal code. It's that simple.
I am assuming you are trying to argue that the following is applicable:
39-13-101. Assault.
(a) A person commits assault who:
(2) Intentionally or knowingly causes another to reasonably fear imminent bodily injury.
To say there might be a gunman in the area or even to have someone fake like a gunman does not establish that the teachers intended to cause fear of a bodily injury. Imminent? Take out the media hyped fear of a Columbine-type killer on the loose, and suppose the teachers said a killetr bear was loose. Would everyone panic and scream for criminal charges? Why not? Indeed the teachers may have been punking and hoping to cause fear but not fear of bodily injury and certainly not imminently.
It wouldn’t be criminal as a terrorist hoax nor would it be official misconduct.
Well I guess if you can’t say nappy headed ho then you can’t say anything.
I’m a teacher. There’s no other way to express my feelings. These teachers are goddamn idiots. They deserve whatever comes their way, which should include loss of their teaching certificates, loss of their pensions, loss of their jobs, and loss of their reputations. What a stupid, stupid, stupid thing to do to a group of children under your care who trust you. Yes, if my son was in that class, the school district would be hearing from my attorney, too.
...and, speaking as a teacher, I have my plate full teaching kids how to read and write well. These teachers have time to pull this kind of stunt?
What kind of fear does a 11-year-old have from a masked gunman at the door except the fear of imminent bodily injury?
Imagine what would happen if some children sprung a fake gun attack on the teachers...
Many teachers are not, and that's scary. Many here are not, so I've been trying to note it here as often as possible, especially when the question "What's happened to America?" comes up.
Another case of over-educated idiots running wild!
We support Campus Crusade, BattleCry and and any other efforts we can that help strengthen these young people's fight for real diversity, inclusion, tolerance, multiculturalism and free speech at our universities.
The parents should insist however, that the guilty, including the airhead principal, be made to wear placards in public declaring "I will not terrorize the children" and "I apologize to the community" and have FoxNews air it in lieu of being sued.
exactly right
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