Posted on 04/23/2013 8:48:52 AM PDT by grundle
Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have filed a civil rights lawsuit against a Chicago public school district on behalf of a second-grade teacher who was suspended after he displayed garden-variety tools such as wrenches, pliers and screwdrivers in his classroom as part of a "tool discussion" in his class.
Despite the fact that all potentially hazardous items were kept out of the students' reach, school officials at Washington Irving Elementary School informed Doug Bartlett, a 17-year veteran in the classroom, that his use of the tools as visual aids endangered his students. Bartlett was subsequently penalized with a four-day suspension without pay - charged with possessing, carrying, storing or using a weapon.
The complaint charges that Bartlett "suffered humiliation, embarrassment, mental suffering, and lost wages, and was suspended for four days" - and asks for "nominal and compensatory damages" and for the suspension to be expunged from the teacher's record.
"This school district's gross overreaction to a simple teaching demonstration on basic tools such as wrenches and pliers underscores exactly what is wrong with our nation's schools," said Rutherford Institute Pres. John Whitehead.
"What makes this case stand out from the rest is that this latest victim of zero tolerance policies run amok happens to be a veteran school teacher," Whitehead said.
None of the tools were made accessible to the students. When not in use, the tools were secured in a toolbox on a high shelf out of reach of the students. They were used to demonstrate the proper use of tools.
a dirty, motherless one at that
Certainly someone around here is familiar with kobudo...
<psychologically prepared for post deletion trauma>
That's easy. They go online and buy things.
damn .. shoulda known .. lol
Instruction in sodomy would have won him an award for tolerance and human rights.
No one there intends to work.
....to open her midmorning snack [a pear]. She knows how to use the tool safely.
The school went into lock-down, and her dad got a call at work.
He in turn, called me, mad as a wet hen! LOL
Our local high school does. My daughter filled out her schedule for her freshman year last week, and she almost took woodworking, but she chose Ag class instead as one of her electives.
Then again, she took a hunting certification course this year (8th grade) at her school. They take the first day of deer hunting season off the Monday after Thanksgiving in the local schools (and many workplaces, including my husband’s).
The first thing she asked after she passed her hunting certification class is if she could go squirrel hunting with the .22 rifle we bought her for Christmas.
Here is the same event covered in WorldNet Daily:
It mentions a 2-1/4” pocket knife and a box cutter.
Now this is Chicago. Remember ComDem Insane Turf. Home of Obozo and Rahm Emanuel.
2-1/4” is exactly the size of the lockback pocket knife I carry. I have had something like that in my pocket since I was 7 or 8 years old. Always carried it to school after I got my first pocket knife. Thought absolutely nothing of it. And feel as naked without it as I do my keys or my billfold.
This is NUTS.
The only thing that has prevented overall closures of the public schools as too dangerous to expose American youth to is that the teachers unions would then have to disband as completely non-functional.
A real lefty dilemma.
If he had shown his other tool and talk about man/boy love all would be forgiven.
makes sense in 2013
The only “screwdriver” approved by the Chicago Public Schools is covered by a condom.
Only in Chicago when GUN violence is high, would you think that a screwdriver is a weapon.
Should there be a tool registry at the local ACE Hardware to see if the buyer should be allowd to own a tool?
I wonder how many of the students have more access to a gun, then to a tool? And I wonder if they are in a single parent household and if they had gun violence in their young lives.
Or else he called a shovel a spade and someone got insulted.
I wanna be in that class.
Do they still have Metal Shop and Wood Shop Classes in Middle School?
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