Family members provided an image as an example of the sketch drawn by the boy. PROVIDEDPosted on 08/22/2007 5:17:53 AM PDT by radar101
Family members provided an image as an example of the sketch drawn by the boy. PROVIDED
An East Valley eighth-grader was suspended this week after he turned in homework with a sketch that school officials said resembled a gun and posed a threat to his classmates.
But parents of the 13-year-old, who attends Payne Junior High School in the Chandler Unified School District, said the drawing was a harmless doodle of a fake laser, and school officials overreacted.
“I just can’t believe that there wasn’t another way to resolve this,” said Paula Mosteller, the boy’s mother. “He’s so upset. The school made him feel like he committed a crime. They are doing more damage than good.”
Payne Junior High officials did not allow the Tribune to view the drawing. The Mostellers said the drawing did not depict blood, injuries, bullets or any human targets. They said it was just a drawing that resembled a gun.
But Payne Junior High administrators determined that was enough to constitute a gun threat and gave the boy a five-day suspension that was later reduced to three days.
The Tribune isn’t publishing the boy’s first name at the request of his parents.
The suspension follows an unrelated incident earlier this month in which Gilbert police were called to Payne Junior High School to investigate a rumor of a girl bringing a gun on campus. No gun was found and a letter was sent home to parents.
In the letter, school officials told parents about the incident and indicated there would be a zero-tolerance policy toward gun threats.
Chandler district spokesman Terry Locke said the school is not allowed to discuss students’ discipline records. However, he said the sketch was “absolutely considered a threat,” and threatening words or pictures are punished.
The school did not contact police about the threat and did not provide counseling or an evaluation to the boy to determine if he intended the drawing as a threat.
The Mostellers said their son has no discipline record at the school because they just moved from Colorado this year.
The sketch was one of several drawings scratched in the margins of a science assignment that was turned in on Friday. The boy said he never meant for the picture to be seen as a threat. He said he was just drawing because he finished an assignment early.
School officials issued the suspension on Monday afternoon and notified the student’s father, Ben. He met with school officials and persuaded them to shorten the suspension from five days to three.
A second student was also suspended Monday for a sketch on his homework. However, that student and his parents could not be reached for comment about the nature of that drawing.
Ben Mosteller was allowed to see his son’s drawing at the school but was not permitted to make a copy to bring home to his wife.
Paula Mosteller said she has been unable to reach the school’s principal, Karen Martin, or the vice principal, Dave Constance, since Monday to talk about the suspension. Martin and Constance did not return several phone calls to the school for comment.
When Ben Mosteller came to the school to discuss his son’s punishment, he said school officials mentioned the seriousness of the issue and talked about the massacre at Columbine High School — the site where two teenagers shot and killed 12 students and injured 24 others in 1999 at Littleton, Colo.
The Mostellers said the Columbine reference was extreme and offensive. They have contacted the district’s governing board about the incident.
“We understand that there was zero tolerance and the sketch could look like a gun, but the way this was handled was so horribly wrong,” Paula Mosteller said. “Hopefully, when my son goes back to school on Friday this will all be behind him. But a school accusing a child like this can have a huge effect on a child for the rest of his life.”
Twice : Massachussets
EVERYONE should call.
Liberals in Arizona (and everywhere else) tolerate (and endorse) illegal immigrants and jihadis far more than responsible ownership of guns by citizens.
So you home school, in part, because of a stupid school board in Arizona?
What about the schools in Florida that have rifle teams? Those schools had no influence on your decision, yet this school in Arizona did?
If you think there should be zero tolerance for DRAWING a picture of a gun I truly believe that you’re on the wrong forum....you might be more comfortable on other sites where the “Nanny State” is universally accepted......
ok, partner, you got me there. Guess I came down on wrong side of this one. But why do I fear so much more for my grandchildren than I did for my own?
What’s wrong with those school officials? It’s not a gun. It’s obviously a subway car with a penis.
Because you are told to, daily, even hourly.
However if it's viewed rotated at 180o, it would represent a fossil-fuel burning factory with a smokestack owned by an evil corporation, dumping tons of greenhouse gases into the air causing global warming. There's also the heat sink on the wall also contributing to the warming crisis, plus that dangerous chemical plume leaking out from the roof....
When I was in fourth grade I went to school once in a cowboy hat and two six shooter cap guns in a fake leather holster belt.
Did that today I probably would have been locked away in some juvenile detention cell wondering what the hell I did so wrong.
Surely, I can't have been the first to post this.
here’s my contribution to email.
Thank you so much for suspending that evil child for drawing that evil gun.
You never know what might have happened!! He may have dropped it on someone who planned to use it to give someone an evil papercut.
I’m so very glad that you people are so very intolerant of anything that even resembles a gun whether it’s real or not and so VERY thankful that you are so liberally tolerant of Gay Sex, Man Boy Sex, Man little girl sex, and just sex for sex sake.
Oh by the way can you please please please start being more tolerant of ALL of Islam? I really think these nice terrorists would stop cutting people’s heads off and sit around singing kumbaya with us if we just would surrender to their moon god.
ooooo
gun porn!
In a related story, the police arrested the boy’s mother, Paula Mosteller, because her name was too similar to “molester”.
And now you're posting on a conservative website. Face it, buddy, you're a monster!
“Chandler district spokesman Terry Locke ... said the sketch was ‘absolutely considered a threat...’”
I notice this clown isn’t backing down one iota. This is like trying to reason with a jihadi. That’s why I’d like to see these “teachers” in a public court of law explaining EXACTLY how this is a threat. Being sued is about the only thing they would understand. It wouldn’t change their minds, but they’d understand it.
IMO, these are communists passing themselves off as “teachers”, essentially getting into mind control country regarding something as abstract as an idea on paper, and they’re using a phrase like “zero tolerance” to justify their actions.
Between drawing pictures of guns and lawn darts, how in the world did we survive????
I knew it! Everyone else did go to a cooler public school than I did.
“What about the schools in Florida that have rifle teams? Those schools had no influence on your decision, yet this school in Arizona did?”
What schools in Florida still have those. The ones in my area have done similair things to kids over a 2 inch gi joe toy gun.
Then there’s the horrible quality of instruction in public schools.
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