Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Chandler (AZ) boy suspended for sketching gun
East Valley Tribune ^ | August 21, 2007 | David Biscobing

Posted 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.”


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; Politics/Elections; US: Arizona
KEYWORDS: art; banglist; discipline; education; ohfercryinoutloud; publicschools; stuckonstupid; zerotolerance
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 141-142 next last
To: radar101

When I was in seventh or eighth grade back in the late 1950s, I wrote a whole paper for a history class on the development of Civil War hand guns and rifles. As I remember, I got a “B” in the days when there wasn’t any grade inflation. Now I’d probably be expelled for a year for having written a whole paper filled with “Columbine-style threats.” Disgusting, and this doesn’t even mention the kid’s free speech rights.


21 posted on 08/22/2007 5:40:56 AM PDT by libstripper
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: radar101

If I had been a student at a school with these sorts of idiotic rules, I would have been expelled by the 5th grade.

A day didn’t go by that I didn’t “doodle” guns in classes when I was bored, which was most of the time.

Mark


22 posted on 08/22/2007 5:43:02 AM PDT by MarkL (Listen, Strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TNCMAXQ

A “drawing of a gun” scares them............he, he, he........


23 posted on 08/22/2007 5:43:37 AM PDT by tioga
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: radar101

In other news, 13 year old Achmed was given the school’s diversity award for his drawing of a dynamite-laden “jihad belt.”


24 posted on 08/22/2007 5:43:37 AM PDT by Larry Lucido (Hunter 2008)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: mutley
What a bunch of limp wristed, panties in a wad, air wasting, blithering idiots.
Who will be electing our next president.

Now that's scary. (Zero tolerance = zero intelligence)

25 posted on 08/22/2007 5:45:04 AM PDT by andy58-in-nh (There are two kinds of people: those who get it, and those who need to.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Charlespg
And that is why liberals and people like this have no business in education

Please let me fix this...

And that is why liberals and people like this have no business in education any position of authority.

Mark

26 posted on 08/22/2007 5:45:05 AM PDT by MarkL (Listen, Strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: meyer
Were this my kid, I'd have him drawing guns every day just to agitate the school nazis.

In fact, if the school officials have official mailing addresses, we ought to all draw up little gun pictures and mail them to the administrators responsible for this idiocy.

27 posted on 08/22/2007 5:46:10 AM PDT by meyer (It's the entitlements, stupid!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: MarkL

Mark,

Scholarly work old chap. Most excellent.


28 posted on 08/22/2007 5:47:28 AM PDT by Arcy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: radar101
Jessie Ventura w/ mini-gun is outraged by this.

Image and video hosting by TinyPic

29 posted on 08/22/2007 5:47:54 AM PDT by Sax
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: radar101

That gun has windows and a unicycle wheel.

But even if it had looked liked an actual gun, and he had written “today we killed many Uzbeks” on the bottom, how would this be an suspension offense? Its a picture!

Our children are now in the frontline against the left’s anti-gun agenda: - one badly-drawn bus-pistol-unicycle at a time.


30 posted on 08/22/2007 5:49:11 AM PDT by agere_contra
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: meyer

I like the way you think. I think it would be great if all the kids in the school, every single one, draws a gun on their assignment. Let the entire school be suspended for five days. Wouldn’t THAT be a hoot! No money for the school for an entire five days? Bet they’d change their tune real quickly.


31 posted on 08/22/2007 5:49:54 AM PDT by Auntie Mame (Fear not tomorrow. God is already there.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: tioga

If mere drawings of guns are seen as a threat, then how is this nation going to face REAL threats from bad guys with real weapons? Pretty scary to think we are becoming so wimpy.

If you turn the picture over, it almost looks more like a building. Maybe they kid should claim that as his defense.


32 posted on 08/22/2007 5:51:31 AM PDT by TNCMAXQ
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: tioga

I just drew a picture of a Mushroom Cloud, am I a Nuclear Power? If I give it to a friend do I violate the Non-Proliferation Treaty?


33 posted on 08/22/2007 5:52:29 AM PDT by massgopguy (I owe everything to George Bailey)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: TNCMAXQ

Too many of our REAL men are in Iraq to be here to fight this insanity. I guess it’s up to the rest of us.


34 posted on 08/22/2007 5:53:45 AM PDT by tioga
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: Lusis
I drew this stuff all day, and now I’m in the military.

I was thinking the same thing, but I was in school in the 60s. I don't remember drawing guns per se, but almost every day I drew jet planes bristling with guns. Some of them looked pretty cool too!

35 posted on 08/22/2007 5:54:57 AM PDT by 6ppc (It's torch and pitchfork time)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: basil
They (schools) were on their way to this form of extreme reaction in the '90's when my son was in junior high school.

He loved to 'doodle'...and was a budding artist as well as an exemplary student making excellent grades and respectful of his teachers...

..but one day he too 'drew' a gun on his art paper...

..the teacher saw it, confiscated it and I got a phone call.

Thankfully, it was a 'come in and let's talk about this picture'....and nothing more.

I volunteered at the school and once a year when they allowed 'sidewalk art' with chalk, my son would get much notice because he drew amazingly well & usually had a Christian theme for his art display...

...so maybe the outcome would have been different if we hadn't been 'known'...

Don't know...

36 posted on 08/22/2007 5:57:15 AM PDT by Guenevere (Duncan Hunter...President '08)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Arcy
He was only expressing himself. That's what liberals want isn't it

Sure. As long as you express what THEY believe. Otherwise.....you're a hater.

37 posted on 08/22/2007 5:57:28 AM PDT by Puppage (You may disagree with what I have to say, but I shall defend to your death my right to say it)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: radar101

That parent needs to GET A LAWYER - NOW!!!!!!!!

The public scrool educrats probably made an error when they denied the aprent a copy of the drawing.

Yeah, the child was damaged by teh stupidity of the educrat.

Copious amounts of cash will help the healing process.

One may hope the jury verdict will include the entirity of the offending educrats’ assets, a large garnishment of all future earnings - including their pension payments, of course.


38 posted on 08/22/2007 5:58:45 AM PDT by GladesGuru (In a society predicated upon freedom, it is essential to examine principle)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: radar101

A one dimensional weapon could injure a dimensional school officials. Therefore, it is a dangerous weapon.


39 posted on 08/22/2007 6:05:29 AM PDT by em2vn
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lusis

Same here. I wouldn’t have made it past 4th. Grade. When I was in 3rd, our teacher asked us what we wanted to be. I said I wanted to be an F-15 pilot (mid-70’s). She wasn’t phased at all. I grew up with and around a lot of veterans.

Then in 4th grade, my eyes went really nearsighted and stayed that way until getting lasik a couple of years ago. I’m too tall and big to have been one anyway.

School bored me and I drew up all kinds of small arms, armor, planes, ships, and whatnot. Today I would be public school enemy #1.


40 posted on 08/22/2007 6:08:48 AM PDT by wally_bert
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 141-142 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson