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.”
Here’s my e-mail.......(kudos to Al Gator)
*********************************************************
Mrs. Karen Martin,
After reading the news,
Chandler (AZ) boy suspended for sketching gun
East Valley Tribune ^ | August 21, 2007 | David Biscobing
I too, finally understand the rationalization and thought process that must have gone on in Salem,Massachusetts in 1692.
Thank-you you for keeping us all safe from little boys and their evil pencils.
Jeff Diemer
If you turn the picture over, it almost looks more like a building. Maybe they kid should claim that as his defense.
&&&
Granted, I have little experience with guns, but my thought when I saw his sketch was that it looked like an airline boarding ramp.
Such idiots!
Here is an email addy for the Chandler School District of which Payne Junior High is a part.
This is the “Community Relations” email:
locke.terry@chandler.k12.az.us
We did get yelled at for falling out of our desks after ‘dying’.
***
As the mother of 4 now grown sons, I truly LOL at that one.
RE: “Clearly, they have held the picture in the wrong orientation.
If the picture is shown in the correct orientation (rotated 90 degrees to the left from what is shown in the article), then it will become clear to you as well.”
I tried that....it’s a slot machine!
Its a picture of a government-provided low-cost housing project. An environmentally-friendly carbon dioxide scrubber has been placed on top of the 5 story building, next to a rooftop garden of small trees. What is (incorrectly) seen as a trigger, is actually a multi-level atrium located above a wing to the housing project where a homosexual outreach center resides. The device next to the atrium is a satellite dish so that the residents can receive real news from real news sources, such as Keith Olberman, Bill Moyers and Howard Dean.
LOL!
Cordially,
Maybe the other kids could have drawn pictures of Kevlar vests, like the UK schoolchildren wear.
-PJ
When I was really young, for "show and tell" I brought in things like a dummy grenade and a muskett.
Later in high school (late 80's) I presented "What to do when the Heimlich Maneuve fails" - it invloved a steak knife, fake blood, booze, Bic pen and a friend with a sense of humor.
Since I went to Frankford High in Philly, my next presentation was "Her Water Broke, What Now!?"
For the record the kid is a cr@ppy artist no matter how you rotate that picture...
I would have dropped out of school at my first opportunity if I had teachers like these.
The fact that wussified idiots like this consider it a threat doesn't make it one. 'Threat' has a definition & this kid's picture ain't one.
I couldn't find snail mail addresses, but e-mail and phone numbers are here.
No silly, that's the government mandated trigger lock, which makes the gun a non-threat.
In all seriousness... If this were my kid I would counsel him to lie and say the administrators turned the picture the wrong way - that is was actually a skyscaper with a covered freight lift on the right side. I'd sue the living crap out of the administrators and the district. Not to win - just to cost them time, trouble and money.
Speilberg walkie talkie Nazis.
Dear Mrs. Martin,
I am appalled by your handling of this case, or that it even is a case. As a parent I can assure you that if this were my son he would never set foot in your so called school ever again. Your judgment is so seriously warped that you are unable to distinguish between the sharks and the guppies. For you to leap from a sketch to Columbine is a gross injustice and just plain ignorant. If you had any sense of decency you would be ashamed, but I doubt you do or are. Thankfully those in charge of my children don't worship Ophra or Rosie. I wouldn't trust you with a paper route. Get a clue, you failed.
Sincerely, JH
Or if he'd sketched a certain political target.
LOL that was my idea lets go for it
These loons at the schools need to chill out and get a clue.
LOL! And flunked spelling in the process! ;^)
Government schools are evil.
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