Posted on 04/29/2013 6:19:09 AM PDT by marktwain
A fifth-grader in Cupertino, California was suspended and threatened with expulsion for bringing a small Swiss Army knife on a school-sponsored, science-oriented camping trip.
In early April, Braden Bandermann’s class set off on Garden Gate Elementary School’s annual, week-long pilgrimage for fifth-graders to Marin Headlands, just north of San Francisco.
Before leaving, Braden did what any Silicon Valley 10-year-old faced with the perils of nature might do: He packed his trusty Swiss Army knife. As any camper knows, the multi-tool device is nothing if not versatile. Braden’s particular model contains a can opener, tweezers, a toothpick, a nail file, a tiny pair of scissors and a small blade.
The little blade landed the boy in big trouble.
“They called me,” explained Tony Bandermann, Braden’s father. “They said, ‘You have to come and get him. He has a weapon. He needs to be suspended or possibly expelled.’”
At the time, the elder Bandermann was on a business trip in Sacramento, roughly 100 miles away. His wife, Braden’s stepmother, was at the camp with Braden, but they had arrived by bus and had no private transportation. (Braden’s mother was also unable to go to the camp so that he could serve a suspension.)
The school principal, Brandi Hucko, allegedly wanted Bandermann to rush to the site of the science camp, pick Braden up for a one-day suspension and then deliver him back to camp.
Bandermann told The Daily Caller that he was frustrated over Hucko’s insistence “that I risk my job and go get him out of the program for a one-day suspension all over a Swiss Army knife.”
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Knives are arms protected by the Second Amendment.
It’s only like the first thing anyone would bring with them if they went camping.
This is the epitome of absurdity. Someone needs to get bashed and beaten and it isn’t the little boy.
When I was a Scout, we had to have our whittling chip before we could carry our Swiss Army knife. Prior to that, we were allowed to keep them in our bags but not on a lanyard on our belts.
The pussification of our boys continues unabated. Is it any wonder why our boys are having trouble in school and life?
You are right about the policies but keep in mind that we also have adults — teachers and other educators — who implement them. I don’t know what adult in their right mind would suspend a child for doing something this innocent. It traumatizes the child for no reason. It teaches the child that there is no connection between bad intent and punishment. It teaches a child to be fearful of authority figures, or to not respect them. Ultimately, these policies will be very damaging to our society when the kids who had to suffer through them become young adults.
Wow, times have really changed. I remember getting a cub scouts pocket knife in 1976. I was so proud of that knife I carried it every day in my pocket to school and everywhere else. It was not an issue then. It seems these days that the innocent are punished while the guilty have excuses made for their behavior.
How is a kid supposed to learn about surviving in nature if he doesn’t have a knife. We always carried pocket knives and when we were on a Scout camping trip we all had hunting knives. Hard to make a lean-to without a knife. Honesty, if really hard times ever come to the West most of the population would die within a couple of months due to a complete lack of knowledge of how to survive outside a modern urban environment.
I have fond memories of our son buying his first Swiss Army Knife. He had completed his whittling badge in Boy Scouts. He had saved his own money. It took him forever to decide from among the three or four in the store that he could afford. I wonder if he still has it. I also remember playing with my big brother’s knife. I still have the scar. It closed on my finger and it took several months for the healing process to complete since it cut deeply into the quick of my middle finger.
the whole zero tolerance is ridiculous. my daughters (7 and 9) each have a small gerber knife. they know when and how to use them, they carry them the whole time they’re with me. i have no fear that they’ll do anything “bad” with them. the only supervision they get with them is to make sure they don’t take them to school.
Each and every day we are presented with more reasons to eliminate public schools and to imprison and torture all public school administration officials.
Principals and superintendents go to Gitmo, where special water boarding rooms equiped with 120db hip hop music will be awaiting these slime balls.
Does your child go to public school?
Why?
This is why kids are afraid of their own shadow. They can’t even draw a picture without consequences. Kids don’t know the difference between right and wrong because it seems everything is wrong. Our armed forces will pay dearly in the very near future.
The ‘camping’ trip about ‘science’ in California is not about survival. It is about environmental indoctrination. There is no cutting of trees to make lean tos.
Think it through folks.
If people fear knives from childhood, fear guns, believe man is a cancer and all the other propaganda, when they hit adulthood, they vote accordingly.
Search 1963 Communist goals and have a pencil handy to check off all the things you see happening.
Groucho Marx’ statement about not wanting to belong to a club that would have him as a member is more prolific than ever.
I am not sure I would want my family or myself taking part in organizations that have such single sighted vision.
The step mother was there(?- accordingly), common sense would say, if you don’t want the kid to have an ESSENTIAL tool, that fits the adventure, confiscate it, give it to the mother or guardian and be done with it. Oh yes, return it at the end of the week and maybe revise the ‘What is allowed and what isn’t list’.
The kid may have just been arming himself in case of an animal attack (2 legged, boogy man), they are in SF after all. (of course if you have female counselors - leader appears to be F, plus mentions mothers)
ANOTHER great, informative headline.
Doesn’t ANYONE read this stuff anymore?
The headline cites an ‘overnighter’, the story says the father should pick the kid up for a ONE DAY suspension and return them, then it says the camp is for a week.
“The school principal, Brandi Hucko”
IMO, female principals are a large percentage of the problem in public schools. They do not understand young males, bonding, the need for adventure, competition and proving yourself. They consider everything that’s sharp and pointy a weapon, and want to ban any activity that can lead to injury. Unless the little boys act like little girls they think something is wrong with them.
If the Kenyan-in-Thief wasn't battering-down the Pentagon to allow homosexuals into the platoons & squads,
wasn't allowing for D.o.D. propaganda that labels Catholics & Protestant Christians as "Domestic Terrorists...
...then maybe--just maybe--the near-future of our Armed Forces would Not be so-imminent.
“He has a weapon.”
How utterly stupid many of today’s so-called educators are!
It reminds me of a few years ago when flying out of San Diego’s Lindbergh Field. I had purchased a small toy revolver from the Roy Rogers Museum for one of my grandsons.
When the carryon conveyed up the belt and under the X-Ray the female idiot security screener jumped back, threw her hands up in the air and shouted “He has a gun!”
The damned thing was about eight inches long and it took 45 minutes to get the situation straightened out.
It was inevitable. After the guns - then the knives - one with points and blades anyway.
Baseball bats will be next.
I think they should re-name their policy a zero reason policy. Instead of judging each situation with reason they just declare that they will judge all situations the same which means not at all. Of course these days so many people are just waiting to sue over anything and everything you almost can’t blame these schools. Almost. I tell you the more I read the news and watch what is going on the more I want to just sell everything and move as far away from other human beings as possible. I’m serious. The world has gotten so screwy, I don’t recognize it any more and it seems like it has mainly happened since 2000.
“Wow, times have really changed”.
I have the feeling that this outdoor camp is like MCPS school “outdoor ed”. Not required, but implemented for 6th graders. A two day overnight camp designed to talk about water pollution, air quality etc... an environmental instruction vs a true outdoor education trip. In short, a liberal camping trip thus no room for true outdoors education/tools.
Zero Tolerance Intelligence policies reflect an inability or unwillingness on the part of supposed adults to make value judgments; to distinguish, to discriminate. But increasingly, they cannot or will not do so.
Such failure is a symptom of our society's moral and ethical collapse in the face of the Progressive ideology. Because "discrimination is... mmm... y'know, bad, m'kay???"
And that's why we're pretty much doomed.
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