Posted on 09/17/2010 11:28:13 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Parents want their child back in school. School board says no way
Samuel Burgos has fond memories of his friends at school, but he only gets to see them in pictures now. The 8-year-old boy hasn't been in school for a year and will likely miss another year if the Broward County School Board has its way.
Burgos was suspended from school in November after a teacher found a toy gun in his backpack. But when the boy went to register to go back to Pembroke Pines Charter School, he was told he will be expelled for this school year, too, as part of the county's zero tolerance weapons policy.
"He made a mistake, but why the severe punishment? I don't understand that," said Magdiel Burgos, Sam's dad.
School board officials said the rules are quite clear and that the toy gun constituted a weapon. A school board report on the incident mentions that Samuel showed the toy gun to another student and it was capable of firing projectiles.
That's all it takes for it to be considered a weapon. "This is in his backpack and it's a toy. It's not a real gun. It's a toy," said Magdiel Burgos, twirling a plastic gun.
The school board said they would admit Samuel into a correctional school for problem children who have been expelled located in Hallandale Beach.
The parents refused and believe their son has already paid for his mistake enough. Samuel has since been home-schooled, but his parents want him back in public school. "I can't sit here and allow them to send my kid to a school where students have committed actual crimes," Burgos said. "He hasn't committed a crime."
Next week, the family will attend a school board meeting to try and get their son back in class as soon as possible, but that could be after Thanksgiving. Burgos says his child has been set back emotionally and will probably have to repeat the second grade. He thinks there should be some room to determine that his child didn't bring a real gun to school.
"I understand the board is concerned about schools, and as parents we are concerned, too, but they need to work with us," he said.
The school board says it's common sense to know that this kind of item can't be allowed on school campus and that responsibility also falls on parents to know what their children have in their backpacks.
For more on what your child can and can't bring to school, go to www.browardschools.com.
Teach him at home yourself....they expell a child for 2 years and yet rapists, murderers, terrorists repeat offenses all the time. Madness..absolute, madness. I would do everythign in my power to put him somewhere where he can learn and grow.
I though Charter Schools all had a gun range on site and taught proper gun control as a normal part of the curriculum ilo putting condoms on cucumbers.
Disgraceful. It makes absolutely no sense. Schools exist to serve the children. Children do not exist to serve the school. Too often it is the incompetent who wind up in school administrative positions. With a little media coverage a good lawyer these parents could quickly teach these worthless moon-bats a much need lesson.
This is what happens when we have “zero tolerance” rules in which nobody is allowed to use common sense judgement.
A zero tolerance rule about weapons may have been adopted with the best of intentions, but, any rule should be administered by someone with reasoning and thinking abilities.
This reminds me of the case of the 6 year old boy who kissed a girl, and they sent him for sexual harrassment training/education.
Some situations just yell for a law suit against the school.
Scissors are a weapon. Mechanical pencils (and regular ones), baseball bats, any kind of glass, forks and knives from the cafeteria, and the list goes on.
Why isn’t this person suing the pants off this school?
What the hell ever happened to common sense? These taxpayer-paid little would-be Hitlers need to be fired.
I refuse to credit the originators of such policies with good intentions. They may think so of themselves, but what they are really doing is building a machine which works without individual initiative and responsibility. These are, after all, exactly the things that the schools exist to suppress in the students, so it is only natural that they should follow such a pattern in their own administration.
Out of control. Our nation is finished.
Another school “zero tolerance” horror story. It’s simply amazing how the lack of common sense pervades the educational establishment.
Paper (and therefore a page from a book) can cause a nasty slice if administered properly.
For Rodeo Days back in the 50s, my husband then about 6 or 7 strapped on his Dad’s belt, holster and gun and walked to school. (He was chubby and Dad was very thin)
His teacher asked for him to take it off, which he did. The teacher set it on her desk.
When school was over that day, she handed it back to him telling him not to bring it back to school.
He strapped it back on and walked home....end of story.
seriously... this is just plain stupid.
Liberals are not for these policies... conservatives are not for these policies...
why the heck then do so many schools have these idiotic policies?!?!
“Teach him at home yourself....they expell a child for 2 years and yet rapists, murderers, terrorists repeat offenses all the time.”
More relevantly, bullies hardly ever get expelled. Would this be, perhaps, because bullies grow up to run for school boards?
“Neither cruel nor unusual punishment?” Somehow school boards and college disciplinary proceedings can suspend for long periods and even expel students for “crimes” which are not even misdemeanors outside the hallowed halls of academe. The perps don’t have Miranda rights nor an attorney looking out for them (unless they can afford one, and have enough advance warning to engage one). Due process as we know it in the real world hardly exists. Proceedings are virtually star chamber. Appealing is pointless, because there is practically no legalities to challenge, and there is no body of precedents which has any weight. If one child gets three days for a behavior which another child gets a year’s suspension, so what?
That's a thought: instead of suing them to stop, sue them to extend the list to all potential weapons, and then to all things that look like them. Then look terribly pious and claim it's for the children.
The school board needs to be sent to a “correctional” facility for idiot school administrators who fail to use common sense; and “suspended” from having any leadership role in any school system until the correctional facility management certifies that political correctness has been thoroughly reformed out of them.
A ‘correctional school” ??
Overkill??
Here in Nevada, it is OK for sex offenders who must register for life to register as TRANSIENTS !!!!!
We do NOT know where they are & neither does the Sheriff’s office.
This kid is being over-punished, IMO. Unless there is more to the story.
Homeschool him in either case. He deserves a REAL eduction. NOt indoctrination in the Public Skewls.
That’s exactly what should be done. And then when other people protest, point out (again) that it’s ‘for the children’ and if they don’t want the lawsuit to continue, perhaps the school board should reconsider their decision.
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