Zero-tolerance goes awry, again

[DRZinn]

http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050223/BREAKINGNEWS/50223002

Florida boy accused of assault with rubber band

13-year-old suspended 10 days after confrontation with teacher

WKMG Local 6


Suspended from school. Robert Gomez has been accused of threatening a teacher with a rubber band. WKMG Local 6 image.

A 13-year-old student in Orange County, Fla., was suspended for 10 days and could be banned from school over an alleged assault with a rubber band, according to a WKMG Local 6 News report.

Robert Gomez, a seventh-grader at Liberty Middle School, said he picked up a rubber band at school and slipped it on his wrist.

Gomez said when his science teacher demanded the rubber band, the student said he tossed it on her desk.

After the incident, Gomez received a 10-day suspension for threatening his teacher with what administrators say was a weapon, Local 6 News reported.

"They said if he would have aimed it a little more and he would have gotten it closer to her face he would have hit her in the eye," mother Jenette Rojas said.

Rojas said she was shocked to learn that her son was being punished for a Level 4 offense -- the highest Level at the school. Other violations that also receive level 4 punishment include arson, assault and battery, bomb threats and explosives, according to the Code of Student Conduct.

The district said a Level 4 offense includes the use of any object or instrument used to make a threat or inflict harm, including a rubber band.

Rojas plans to fight the ruling but her son still faces expulsion.

"It's ridiculous, it's a rubber band," Rojas said.

The school's principal could not comment because the case is still under investigation.

A district spokesman said there is still a series of meetings the district will have before Gomez is officially expelled.

 

[Preacherman]

Suspended for a rubber band? That's a stretch...

 

[dasmi]

God. Everytime I read this kind of thing I get sick to my stomach. It's a rubber band. A. RUBBER. BAND.

 

[jefnvk]

Well, if I get as much time for making a threat with a rubber band as I do for a bomb threat, I might as well get school off for a bunch of kids

 

[cracked butt]

Great, only 10 more years until my son is that age. By then, he'll be expelled, sent to councilling, and be put on state mandated mind altering drugs just for the offense of being a boy. :banghead:

 

[benewton]

Preacherman: that comment was painfull!
Not to mention way too obvious.


That said, I'm starting to be very happy that I was born when I was....

Hardhats, elbow and knee protectors, all to ride a bike on a dedicated bike path? I wonder how you learn to be a male under the current PC climate. In lots of ways, I suspect that you're not supposed to.

But, on the other hand, we now have metrosexuals...

"So it goes."

I guess.

 

[dasmi]

So it goes?
It won't go that way with my kids. 'Course, I don't have any yet, but when I have boys, they will learn how to be a man, and they sure as hell won't learn it at school.

 

[YammyMonkey]

My wife is pregnant right now, we're not going to find out the sex until it pops out, but I suspect that if it's a girl she'll be more "manly" (in a good way, of course) than a lot of the "boys" she'll be growing up with.

We're starting to breed a nation of weaklings, mentally, phsically and emotionally. Wonder why that is?

 

[lwsimon]

HOLD UP! A week ago, we had a similar abomination from Freedom High School, in FL.

http://thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=126154&highlight=golf

"Liberty", "Freedom" - anyone else see something odd here? Two stories of zero-tolerance, two similarly named schools in the same state. Are we being taken here, or is this just the most ironic thing ever to occur on US soil?

 

[peacefuljeffrey]

What I don't understand about all of this is,

Why hasn't anyone made a huge point of PUBLICLY CALLING THOSE WHO ENFORCE THESE IDIOTIC RULES "F*#%^* MORONS" in an effort to use ridicule to deter them from such asinine actions?

I mean, why do these people keep getting away with criminalizing KID BEHAVIOR?!

I have a strong suspicion it's because the righteous are FAILING TO MAKE EXAMPLES OF THESE PEOPLE -- FAILING TO COME RIGHT OUT IN PUBLIC IN RIGHTEOUS ANGER AND INDIGNATION AND SAY, "OH, THAT TEACHER MRS. SNODGRASS AND THAT PRINCIPAL MR. HEENEYBOTTOM, THEY'RE F*#*(% IDIOTS AND I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY ARE IN CHARGE OF TEACHING OUR CHILDREN WHEN THEY CAN'T COMPREHEND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A RUBBER BAND AND AN EXPLOSIVE DEVICE!"

Only when people are terrified of being publicly held up as the IDIOTS that they are for doing this, will they stop doing it.

-Jeffrey

 

[cracked butt]

To be fair, I did get suspended once in 8th grade for posessing and throwing Ninja throwing stars at trees during recess, but then again, so did every other boy in my class on that day

 

[Henry Bowman]

It wasn't just a bubber band. It was the key piece of an evil slingshot in the making. Outside of controlled office environments, no honest person needs such an item of violent firepower.



BTW - My secretary shoots rubber bands at me from her desk outside my office when I am late turning in my billing notes, etc.

 

[hksw]

But what about those sharp pens and pencils?

 

[griz]

I started to post an arguement that even a hand could be a weapon, but got half way through and stopped. There HAS to be more to it than the article mentions. The school didn't ban rubber bans, they punished this particular kid. Guilty or not, the school must believe he did something threatening.

Zero tolerance laws strike me as stupid, but this can't be an example of that. If the school is actually insane enough to think that a plain old rubber band is a weapon then public schools are doomed. I don't think they are that far yet.

 

[Intune]

I would have been sooo expelled in today’s climate. When I was a kid (yeah, I know. Uphill both ways. In the snow. Dodging Pony Express riders.) getting popped by the rubber band part was no biggee. It was the projectiles we fashioned from various useful components that would light one up if struck by such accelerated materials. We did put the paper clips on the banned list voluntarily. Too painful.

 

[Third_Rail]

if he would have aimed it a little more and he would have gotten it closer to her face he would have hit her in the eye,

...And if he had swung his hand, and it had been closed, and at just the right angle... no, further to the left, yep.... ok, he would've, no left, left! ...He would've hit the teacher right in the face!!

 

[Derius_T]

This type of crap needs to go away fast. (Before my 4 year old boy gets to school or else I'm dead)

Seriously tho, its a bit much. But as long as nobody complains, and nobody as a group makes a determined stand, this type of thing is just going to get worse. Mark my words. If this is allowed to continue, this is only the beginning folks.

Its rediculous. Even if he had taken careful aim, at her face, from 10 feet away and let fly, it wouldn't have done anything. ITS A FREAKIN RUBBER BAND!!! This from no doubt the same teachers and administrators that beat offending kids with big wooden paddles not too many years ago.

.......hypocrites.....

 

[Firethorn]

There is quite probably a little bit more to it.

1. Was the rubber band "tossed" as the boy says, or "shot", as in streched over a finger and released?
2. Was it aimed at the teacher or lobbed to the desk?
3. How the heck do you "aim" a rubber band a little more? I have a hard time hitting targets a mere four meters or so away. Our rubber bands have a noticable more or less random hook at about that point.
4. What kind of teacher is afraid of a rubber band? Have there been any cases of a shot band actually putting an eye out or something?
5. Is there more to the story than what was in the article?

On the other hand, I've heard of kids getting suspended for having a plastic picnic-style knife in their lunchbox. So it could be nothing more than the management totally loosing their sense of proportion.

 

[jefnvk]

Remember zero tolerance simply means zero thought required.

 

[Joe Demko]

Please, everybody, don't let the fact that you know virtually nothing about the case stop you from engaging in a red-faced-and-spitting rant. Go back and re-read. Who is quoted in the story? The boy and his mother. They wouldn't have any reason to minimize what he did or (gasp!) out right lie, would they? Unless you are operating from more information than is available in this article, you are ranting based on one side of an incompletely reported story.
You don't really know what he did or what he had.
You don't know what his conduct was like prior to this incident.
You don't know squat.
Go ahead and rant though. Be sure to use lots of capital letters, name-calling, and profanity because you know that really makes you so much more convincing.

 

[DRZinn]

Alright, Joe, tell me what else there could be to the story to justify suspending the boy? Unless he drew back and shot in right in her face, this is ridiculous.

 

[R.H. Lee]

Good thing they nipped this in the bud. Sure it was just a rubber band this time. Next time it would be a paper clip, then a sharpened pencil. Pretty soon he'd be bringing a slingshot to school and shooting lead balls at everyone. After awhile he'd probably show up armed and we'd have another Columbine. Rubber bands are gateway weapons. They probably saved this kid from the electric chair.

 

[17RemFan]

what weapon he didnt even have paperclips for ammo

 

[Boats]

No Timmy, you may not have a rubber band for Christmas, YOU'LL PUT YER EYE OUT!

 

[Joe Demko]

Alright, Joe, tell me what else there could be to the story to justify suspending the boy? Unless he drew back and shot in right in her face, this is ridiculous.

I wasn't there, either. But let's look at a couple possibilities:
1. He did draw back and try to shoot her in the face with a rubberband and he and mommy are now minimizing/lying. As a science teacher, I'm not willing to assume that the rubber band in question was just a thin one like they use to hold mail or newspapers together. This was a science classroom and I submit there is a possibility it was one of the larger, thicker ones we use in various lab activities. The fact that she demanded he put it on her desk, rather than in the trash, makes me think that possibility is a very distinct one.
2. Like my district, this district may have a disciplinary "step system" where each punishment results in punishment for the next infraction being more severe, right up to and including expulsion. This rubber band incident, therefore, is not necessarily his first offense and didn't necessarily get him a 10 day suspension all by itself. In fact, despite the thread title, there is nothing in the article that indicates that this is actually a case of zero tolerance...awry or otherwise. Do you know that this is the only thing the little darling ever did wrong or that this is the first time he has been punished or what the district disciplinary policies are? Don't let ignorance of any or all of those things get in the way of a first class rant about da man keeping this poor lad down.

Until both sides of the story are made public, if they ever are, anybody making a judgement based on this article is just bloviating.
But like I said, don't let ignorance of the facts get in the way of making yourself feel good.